From Darkness to Light
Usher Hall 2/9/25
Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Maxim Emelyanychev conductor, Colin Currie percussion
The Scottish Chamber Orchestra, fresh from their European tour, which has, among other highlights, strengthened Edinburgh’s cultural ties with Brno, return to the Usher Hall for their first concert of the season. On paper, works by Richard Strauss and James MacMillan followed by Beethoven’s Fifth is standard fare for a Scottish orchestra, but both Strauss’s late ‘Metamorphosen;’ (1945) and MacMillan’s early percussion concerto, ‘Veni, Veni Emmanuel’ (1992) are challenging, if ultimately rewarding, works for an audience.
The twenty-three string players who take the stage for the Strauss, three basses, five cellos, five violas and ten violins, all have individual scores, and are seated in a horse-shoe shape with the basses at the back, violas and cellos to the conductor’s right, violins to his left. Strauss wrote it near the end of his life, as a reaction, perhaps a cry of despair about the war, especially its destruction of the musical life of his beloved Munich. The music, often described as flowing, is made up of short musical ideas, some of them from Beethoven. These are heard by various instruments around the ensemble and recur later in the work. Cellos begin, then the first motif is introduced on viola, and it takes several minutes until the whole group is playing. The sound of multiple parts sometimes jars discordantly , but at others produces a rich harmony.
I was very lucky to attend part of a rehearsal for ‘Metamorphosen’ yesterday in the Queen’s Hall, and was intrigued to learn something about the precision that Strauss demands, and which underpins the undoubted emotion in this work. The numbered players sometimes play in conjunction with those in their instrumental section, but often have a link, the same phrase, or an echoing phrase with someone on the opposite side of the horseshoe. For example, Stephanie Gonley seated front left plays soaring optimistic passages, on violin, while Max Mandel, seated opposite, plays a more agitated part on viola. The poet John Donne said that he could “allay” his pains by “drawing” them through “rhymes’ vexations”. Might Strauss also have used an inner structure of his own devising to translate his deep emotions into music? The work’s middle faster section has a more uplifting quality, but the last few minutes see a return to some of the earlier more fraught music before the work ends with a quotation from the funeral Mass from Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. A quiet ending which may signal acceptance.
There’s acceptance too at the end of MacMillan’s ‘Veni, Veni Emmanuel’, though again we have to wait for it. The concerto was premiered by the SCO at the 1992 Proms with Evelyn Glennie as soloist. It is the most played concerto written in the 1990s, and tonight Colin Currie takes on the physically and musically demanding solo part, as he’s done on many occasions including in two recordings. The vast drum kit (unfortunately blocking the audience view of the violinists for the whole of the first half) is joined by a marimba, a gong and a tam-tam, and other smaller keyboard style instruments, with an imposing set of tubular bells at the back of the orchestra. In addition Stefan Beckett plays timpani. The orchestra includes trombones and natural horns - welcome to Kenneth Henderson, recently appointed Principal Horn.
In his notes which you can find in the online programme, MacMillan says that the work may be taken as “purely abstract”, but, as the title suggests, it also holds deeper religious significance. He began the work on the first Sunday of Advent 1991 and finished it on Easter Sunday 1992, and Easter is the theme of his “unexpected conclusion”. At my first live hearing, I find it difficult at times to cope with the sheer volume of sound, starting on the gongs but soon moving to the drum kit, consisting both of drums which are struck (mightily) with sticks and the two big yellow conga drums which are hit by hand. The dialogue which the composer wants for soloist and orchestra is certainly apparent with the trombones (Duncan Wilson and co on top form here and in the Beethoven), and in the plain-song melody played later in the woodwinds, but sometimes the orchestra is drowned out.
MacMillan says his inspiration came from the passage in Luke’s Gospel beginning “There will be signs in the sun and the moon and the stars.” Among the signs are “nations in agony”, “the clamour of the ocean”, “men dying of fear” Seen in this light the concerto becomes a muscular and grotesque musical representation of these images. There is relief halfway through in longer ‘Gaudete’ sequence, in which a marimba solo is played over very quiet strings “like a distant congregation praying.” The final movement, possibly representing Luke’s assertion that the “hour of liberation is at hand” begins with loud drums, timpani and shrieking piccolos, before the orchestra put down their instruments and play small metallic pencil shaped devices which tinkle when struck. Colin Currie walks slowly up to the tubular bells, which he strikes increasingly loudly and faster. As the reverberations from his last note die away, the tinkling metal also gradually fades, Emelyanychev holding the applause until there’s silence. Beautiful. There’s tremendous applause for Colin Currie, and the orchestra.
The concert’s second half is devoted to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, which works from darkness to light through its four movements. You can still see the orchestra in this work from their Proms concert on BBC iplayer. As always, the SCO’s vigorous playing and attention to detail guides us through this familiar work, providing nuance to quieter sections, where the woodwinds shine. The louder instrument groups at the back, basses, natural horns, natural trumpets and trombones each have three players, the winds’ rasping sounds an essential element in Emelyanychev’s interpretation. The basses have a challengingly fast entry in the Scherzo – not pretty, but providing an energy which propels the entries of the rest of the orchestra. And finally the wonderful moment when out of the Scherzo’s grumbling confusion comes the certainty of the C Major rising scale and the exuberant final movement. Seeing a performance is a reminder that Beethoven reserved certain additional instruments for the joyous finale, the trombones and the piccolos (Marta Gómez and Adam Richardson). With one of the best ever extended endings, the concert comes to a close.
Tonight’s performance was kindly supported by Donald and Louise MacDonald in memory of their son, Euan MacDonald MBE, inspirational Motor Neurone Disease Campaigner and co-founder of Euan’s Guide www.euansguide.com which continues to provide practical guidance on access to entertainment and other venues, a much appreciated resource for those with a disability or with mobility problems.
The concert is being recorded In Glasgow on 3rd October for future broadcast on Radio 3.
Photo credit: Christopher Bowen
