EIF: Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra
Usher Hall - 06/08/22
This concert was arranged as part of the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra’s tour of Europe and America and will raise funds for the Scottish Refugee Council’s work in settling Ukrainian refugees in Scotland. The orchestra includes Ukrainian musicians from European orchestras, recent refugees and musicians still based in Ukraine given special exemption from military service to take part. The theme of exile and patriotic homesickness permeated the programme.
After an introductory speech about Ukraine’s plight, the concert opened with the Symphony No.7 by Valentin Sylvestrov, Ukraine’s most celebrated living composer, himself exiled in Berlin since a month after the Russian invasion in February. Like Sibelius’ Seventh, it is a compact one-movement work. The most avant-garde elements, in particular very imaginative scoring for brass with tuned percussion including tubular bells, recall young Messiaen. But much of the music is more redolent of Mahler, Rachmaninov and Korngold. Under the guidance of founder conductor, the Canadian Keri-Lynn Wilson, the orchestra delivered a poignant and moving performance of what is undoubtedly “their” music.
The forces were then pared down for a performance of Chopin’s romantic lyrical Second Piano Concerto with Ukrainian pianist Anna Fedorova. Premiered in Warsaw by Chopin himself, shortly before he fled to Paris to escape a crackdown by Russian troops, it came to represent for him the pain of exile and a sense of yearning for freedom, a theme which was to permeate all his subsequent work. A confident solo entry heralded a performance of great charm with lovely rhapsodic phrasing, dramatic rubato and great romanticism, fully supported by sensitive orchestral playing. It was perhaps a pity that, no doubt due to many of the audience members being unfamiliar with concert hall conventions, there was applause between all the movements, which prevented the performing tradition, with this piece, of launching straight into the finale, from being observed. The mazurka rondo was played with great virtuosity and the technically demanding runs in the coda were flawless.
After the interval, the Ukrainian soprano, Liudmyla Monastyrska, performed the aria, ‘O patria mia’, from Verdi’s Aida, an Ethiopian princess captive in Egypt continuing the theme of cruel exile. Her breath control and range were evident in this demanding aria, with equal power and control in the top end and the low chest voice. A passionate and moving performance.
The final programmed work was another great staple of the repertoire, Dvořák’s Symphony No.9 ‘From the New World’, written while the composer had been appointed the first director of the National Conservatory in New York. The music shows a composer impressed by the burgeoning cultural life of a great metropolis in an emerging industrial superpower, yet yearning for his Bohemian homeland. The tension, turmoil, pathos and tenderness in this great music found the fullest expression in a performance which prompted a standing ovation.
The afternoon concert concluded with an encore: a spellbinding arrangement of the Ukrainian national anthem for solo violin and strings, the solo part played by the leader, Marko Komonko. Magical.
Cover photo: Ryan Buchanan