Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony

Usher Hall 6/2/26

 Royal Scottish National Orchestra

Thomas Søndergård (conductor)

Noah Bendix-Balgley (violin), Bruno Delepelaire (cello)

After a long hiatus of two months, the RSNO returned to the Usher Hall, with their Music Director, Thomas Søndergård, at the helm for a concert of Brahms and Tchaikovsky. A very good audience, with a high proportion of young people, turned up on a damp and freezing evening to hear a performance of panache and brio by the marvellous RSNO, an orchestra at the peak of their powers, playing two masterpieces from the late 19th Century, the Brahms Double Concerto for violin and cello, and Tchaikovsky’s brilliant 5th Symphony. It’s much too long a break, but sadly it’s the inevitable result of underfunding from the Scottish Government. To make ends meet, the orchestra has to tour, to work in the studio and to play crossover concerts, worthy projects all, but to be absent from its core audience for over 2 months is a sad reflection on the prominence given to the classical arts in the UK.

Anyway, they’re back, and with a bang! Johannes Brahms wrote his Double Concerto as a peace offering to the violin maestro, Joseph Joachim, one of the great virtuosos of his or any other day. Joachim, who was born into a Jewish family in Hungary in 1831, was a child prodigy and made his sensational debut, aged 12, in 1844 in London, playing the Beethoven Violin Concerto, conducted by Felix Mendelssohn. His fame spread, and soon he was appearing all over Europe as soloist, and also as Concertmaster in Weimar, where Liszt appointed him. Breaking with the new German School advocated by Liszt and Wagner, he became closely associated with Brahms and Schumann, and after Schumann’s tragic death, he appeared with Brahms and Clara Schumann in concerts. His wife, the singer Amalie Schneeweiss, was part of a stunning group of musicians who revolved around Brahms and Clara, and the high point came when Brahms wrote his violin concerto for Joachim, who played the premiere in 1877. In 1884, Joachim separated from his wife, convinced she was having an affair with Brahms’ publisher, Fritz Simrock, and Brahms took Amalie’s side. After this, Joachim had nothing to do with Brahms, and their friendship collapsed.

Realising that the whole thing was a complete misunderstanding, Brahms wrote to Joachim in 1887 to tell him that he had written a double concerto for violin and cello, and wanted him to play the violin part, along with his friend and colleague, Robert Hausmann. Fortunately, sense prevailed and the two soloists performed the premiere in October 1887, with Brahms conducting. This proved to be Brahms’s last composition for orchestra, as the concerto received a very cool response from critics and friends alike, and the composer was deeply hurt by its reception. Fortunately, the piece has been seen more favourably as time has passed and it is now regarded as one of Brahms’s major compositions.

The performance in the Usher Hall on Friday was a splendid one with soloists, Noah Bendix-Balgley and Bruno Delepelaire, in complete agreement with each other on the stage. Both these excellent musicians play together as concertmaster and principal cellist with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, one of the world’s greatest orchestras, and their rapport was clear to see in their performance here. Mr Bendix-Balgley, from North Carolina, combines his day job with an impressive mix of chamber music and solo work, and produced exquisite sounds from his violin while Mr Delepelaire, from Paris, fills his diary with solo and chamber music, notably with his quartet, Quatuor Cavatine. In 2021, he was here in Scotland as the soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations with the RSNO, and his return was most welcome, his beautiful playing on a cello made by the Venetian master, Matteo Goffriller, filling the Usher Hall with glorious tone.

The extraordinary first movement was perfectly shaped by Thomas Søndegård, and the soloists were clearly having a great time playing together, and they were beautifully balanced in the Andante second movement, especially when pouring out one of Brahms’s lovely melodies an octave apart. The sparkling Finale, sprinkled with Hungarian elan, tumbled to its superb conclusion, and  rapturous applause. The duo were persuaded to give us an encore, an arrangement by themselves of Brahms Hungarian Dance no 19. Splendid.

After the interval, Mr Søndergård and the RSNO thrilled us with a fantastic rendition of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony. First heard in St Petersburg in 1888, the year after the Brahms Double Concerto, the symphony was a great success for the composer, and acted as a perfect contrast for us in the Usher Hall. After the warm glow of the Brahms, the Tchaikovsky symphony hit us like a hammer blow of Russian fire and emotion. From the first notes, as we heard the famous ‘Fate’ theme played quite quietly, the RSNO was clearly on top form, and the four movements took us on a journey from doubt and angst to glorious resounding triumph at the end. The programme notes suggested an ambiguous irony lurking behind the glory of the end, but that is surely questionable, reading too much into Tchaikovsky’s tragic death five years later. He may have had his gloomy moments, but, like Mahler, he was a master of triumphant happy music, and the finale is just marvellous.

To get to the finale, the composer takes us through light and shade, fate and struggle, always clothed in gorgeous melodies, and the RSNO played with great virtuosity. The famous horn solo from the second movement was stunningly played by principal horn, Amadea Dazeley-Gaist, who is rapidly establishing herself as one of the RSNO’s great instrumentalists, and there were superb solos from Timothy Orpen on clarinet (who also gave a nice introduction before the concert started), Adrian Wilson (oboe), Katherine Bryan (flute) and David Hubbard (bassoon). The strings were fabulous, whipped into a frenzy by the conductor in some of Tchaikovsky’s most exciting music, the brass sonorous and clear, and Matt Hardy on timpani was clearly having a lot of fun!

So welcome back RSNO, and we have a superb second half of the season to look forward to!