Ravel, Rachmaninov and Vaughan Williams
Usher Hall 24/4/26
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
John Wilson, conductor, Sir Stephen Hough, piano
After quite a long hiatus, it was a great pleasure to welcome the RSNO back to the Usher Hall for this interesting-looking concert, conducted by the mercurial John Wilson. A large audience had turned out on the warmest day for a while, and we were rewarded by a concert of the highest class, demonstrating how our national orchestra has developed into one of the finest ensembles in the world, fully justifying the recent presentation to the RSNO of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Ensemble Award for 2026!
Mr Wilson gave a thrilling account of Holst’s ‘The Planets’ on his last visit in 2024, and he was on fine form here tonight. His style of conducting owes more to the flamboyant Bernstein tradition than the reserved Boult one, and there is nothing wrong with that. There’s a wonderful video of Richard Strauss conducting the overture to ‘Der Rosenkavalier’ when he was in his 80s, and the contrast between his almost glacial beat, sitting at the podium, and the glorious wildness of the music, as it celebrates the vigorous love-making of Octavian and the Marschallin, is extraordinary. I’m also reminded of the story told of, I think, Otto Klemperer in his old age, when, conducting a piece that began with a quiet tremolo, he famously called out – “Gentlemen, I have started!”
That is unlikely to happen in a John Wilson concert, and indeed the start of Ravel’s ‘La Valse’, which begins with double bass grumblings, was vigorously conducted, although pianissimo. This work started life in 1906 as a nod to the wonderful flourishing of the Waltz in Fin de Siècle Vienna, and grew throughout the ghastly years of the First World War into a different beast altogether when premiered in 1920. Nominally a ballet score, but rejected by its commissioner, Diaghelev, Ravel called it a Choreographic Poem for Orchestra, and it is as a concert piece that it has become famous.
Mr Wilson had rearranged the orchestra from its normal configuration with violas on his right to the more traditional one with an arc of first then second violins, followed by violas, and then cellos at the front right, with double basses behind them. It felt almost odd to see an orchestra laid out the way we as performers were used to. I always loved the cellos being directly behind me as I sang, since they most frequently played my notes!
‘La Valse’ is an extraordinary piece, far removed from any Viennese frothiness, but a splendid one nonetheless, and the RSNO played it to the hilt. The three in a bar rhythm stays throughout, but is interwoven with something more menacing.
The next piece on the programme was Rachmaninov’s 1st Piano Concerto, superbly played by Sir Stephen Hough, referred to in the programme, quoting ‘The Economist,’ as one of 20 living polymaths - virtuoso piano player, composer, and writer. Rachmaninov originally wrote this piano concerto as a student exercise in 1890 at the age of 17, but dissatisfied with it, he left it on a very slow back burner for decades, until in 1917, just before the Bolshevik Revolution burst out in Russia, he returned to it and rewrote it in two months. Fleeing the Revolution, and ending up in America, the composer premiered the rewritten concerto in New York in January 1919. After the success of the 2nd and 3rd Concertos, which predated the premiere of the 1st, this piece has struggled to be considered an equal, and, on this hearing, I can understand why. Nothing to do with the performance, which was quite outstanding, it just doesn’t grip or thrill an audience in the same way as the others. The piano has a more percussive role, and it is rather the orchestra that is allowed the great Romantic moments. It is a fine work nonetheless, and it is astonishing to think that its inspiration came from a 17 year old boy! Sir Stephen’s playing was admirable and stunning, with great tumbling showers of notes bursting from the piano, and the ovation at the end showed how the Edinburgh audience had loved his playing. He played a quiet and gentle encore, illustrating his interpretive skills after the virtuosic display in the Rachmaninov.
After the interval, we heard Ralph Vaughan Williams’ majestic 2nd Symphony, the ‘London’, first played in 1914, but definitively revised and performed in 1934, and this was the version given by John Wilson and the RSNO.
I’ve always loved Vaughan Williams, ever since we sang ‘Serenade to Music’ at school, and my career has featured his music prominently. From a recording of the Serenade in the version for 16 voices recorded by prominent alumni of the Guildhall School of Music, through multiple recitals of the Songs of Travel, culminating in a recording on Birnam CD as part of a solo CD,‘Songs of Stevenson’ and performances and a recording on Chandos of his opera, ‘Sir John in Love’, I can say that I am a fan.
I hadn’t heard the London Symphony for some time, and it was with enormous pleasure that I listened to it live in the Usher Hall. As the composer himself said, it is not necessarily a symphony about London, but rather a symphony by a Londoner evoking the city. My wife and I lived there for many years before returning to Scotland in our forties, and have many happy memories. Clearly Vaughan Williams is referring to a London a hundred years ago, but it still possesses the magical qualities that the composer reveals here.
From the foggy morning light on the Thames suggested by the opening bars, through the tranquil moods of a London square in November, and then the bustling activity of the West End of an evening, we are given impressionistic sketches of London life. The last movement is more of an expression of the city as a whole and reverts at the end to the quiet of the steadily flowing river. All of this was superbly evoked by the RSNO guided by the extrovert conducting of John Wilson. His swirling style was by no means off-putting, and I enjoyed his sheer enthusiasm for the piece. He conjured magnificent playing from the orchestra, and for me, the slow and ethereal second movement was absolutely exquisite. This is surely one of the finest slow movements in the whole repertoire, and the RSNO sounded phenomenal, with special mentions to Tom Dunn for his beautiful solo viola, suggesting the song of a lavender seller in the heart of town, and to Amadea Dazeley-Gaist, whose fabulous horn playing impresses at every performance. Her recent appointment as principal Horn was a master-stroke, and we are very lucky to have her here.
Other principals shone throughout, as did the whole ensemble, perhaps even more clearly demonstrating why the RSNO received the Ensemble Award. A fine concert!
