EIF: RSNO / Gergiev / Osborne

Edinburgh Academy Junior School
There was a marked drop in temperature on Wednesday evening in the giant tent that has been such a successful venue thus far for EIF orchestral concerts. It didn’t help, perhaps, that the RSNO Strings’ all-Russian programme, under conductor Valery Gergiev, ran well over it’s appointed time – thus the partial audience exodus during the final piece – nor that the roof sheeting was billowing wildly from the harsh gusts of wind.
Yet this was a sizzler to start with. When have we last heard this string section play with such zeal and sonorous depth as evidenced in the meaty opening bars of Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings? It was the perfect vehicle for Gergiev, whose trademark conducting style – a cigarette-sized stick in one hand, the other fluttering incessantly like a butterfly – seemed in this case to communicate a fluidity and eloquence that was manifest in the orchestral response.
That said, there was a noticeable dependance by the orchestra on keeping eye contact with each other, almost manically at times. Is this how Gergiev plays it? Throwing the onus on the players to interact? Whatever, this was a performance that ebbed and flowed with the most natural musicality, that inevitable thematic recap near the end a ripe and satisfying launchpad to the adrenalin-charged sign-off.
That the originally published soloist, pianist Daniil Trifanov, was replaced by Steven Osborne for Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No 1 was no reason to be disappointed. On the contrary, Osborne’s track record in this repertoire proved itself again with a performance in which his dominance was breathtaking.
It’s a strange work, with a confusing backstory, the outcome of which is the presence of a solo trumpet acting sometimes as muted commentary to the solo piano, at other times as the icing on the cake. RSNO principal trumpet Christopher Hart played his part sensitively and brilliantly, cool as a cucumber but sharp as a tack.
As for Osborne, he nailed the music’s eccentric temperament, moments of gloom and melancholy that switch without notice between fitful moods of flippancy and rage, joy and the macabre. It all sounded very hairy as the concerto reached is final moments, as if things weren’t quite together, but Osborne’s unflinching reliability and energy was ultimately the steadying force.
Had the concert ended there, we’d have gone home buzzing and electrified. But there was still Stravinsky’s Apollon musagète to go. In the right context its gauche neoclassicism and simple sensuality would have had a welcome presence. But here it struggled, in my mind, to assert itself as a meaningful conclusion, even with the eloquent violin solos of leader Maya Iwabuchi and the generally delightful intricacies of Stravinsky’s ballet score.
Maybe it was the increasing cold, maybe also nature’s outdoor soundtrack interfering with the music’s veiled delicacy. Whatever, it just seemed a little like an anticlimax.
Ken Walton