Benedetti Plays Brahms
Usher Hall 15/5/25
Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Maxim Emelyanychev conductor, Nicola Benedetti violin
The Usher Hall is packed full for the last concert in the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s 2024-25 season. Nicola Benedetti is playing Brahms Violin Concerto, and the SCO regular attenders are supplemented not only by the ranks of her young fans but by a fair number of older fans too. The couple next to me haven’t been in the Usher Hall since the last time they saw her in concert, and go away delighted not only– as we all are – with her performance, but with the orchestra and their enthusiastic conductor.
Brahms wrote his violin concerto partly in homage to Beethoven’s, writing it in the same key, D Major. The violinist, Joseph Joachim, Brahms’ friend, even insisted on opening the concert in which he premiered Brahms concerto, with Beethoven’s one. Early reaction to the concerto was mixed, and the demands of the piece, not least the length of its first movement, mean that it’s not played that often today, with only the short cheerful third movement instantly recognisable.
Today’s fifty-strong orchestra contains a few unfamiliar faces. Serbian violinist, Bogdan Bozovic, much in demand as a soloist and chamber musician, is the guest leader, and the guest principal oboe is distinguished Spaniard, José Masmano Villar, who plays an important part in both works. The orchestra includes four horns and two trumpets, with natural instruments used for the Brahms as well as for the Mendelssohn. Four bassists, (guest principal, BBC SSO’s principal double bass Nicholas Bayley) are ranged one level up along the back of the orchestra.
There’s a Beethoven feel to the solemn opening and the setting out of the main theme, and it’s only after passages of woodwind exploration that the soloist enters with a dramatic expansion of that first theme. Then she glides into the melody on higher notes, a lyricism which dominates much of the movement. Someone who’s been listening to Nicola Benedetti longer than I have comments afterwards on her increasing maturity – she keeps getting better and better. I think that’s seen in the care she devotes to every aspect of her performance – the moment of apparent simplicity matters as much as the virtuosic flourish. There are many such quieter moments in this movement, as well as the stormier returns to the first theme, and it ends with a terrific long cadenza, delivering breathtaking effects.
The adagio begins with an oboe solo, apparently once an unpopular part of the concerto – how tastes change! Accompanied by other woodwind and horns, José Masmano Villar plays the lovely ‘aria’ perfectly before the soloist and the other strings build on the theme, with some exquisite elaborations, sometimes accompanied by pizzicato strings and sometimes by woodwind. The allegro giocoso may be inspired by violinist Joachim’s Hungarian roots, and with trumpets. horns and timpani all playing their part, its stomping joviality rarely lets up. There’s a touch of gipsy style in the crunching chords, and with Maxim Emelyanychev and Nicola Benedetti working together, the energy in the last stretch of the concerto is guaranteed: thoroughly deserved cheering ensues and continues for some time.
After the interval, we move back more than thirty years to Mendelssohn’s Symphony No 3 in A Minor, known as the Scottish. A number of works by youthful composers have been in this year’s programme and Mendelssohn was only 20 when he embarked on his Scottish Tour in 1829. However although he developed some of the ideas for this symphony – and for his Hebrides Overture - on or shortly after the trip, it took him a number of years to finish it, with its first performance in Leipzig in 1842 and its UK premiere the same year in London with Queen Victoria, the works’ dedicatee, in the audience. The composer said that he derived his inspiration for the first movement from his visit to the old chapel at Holyrood Palace where ”everything is broken and mouldering and the bright sky shines in.” Although it would be possible to play – or hear - this work as a tour through the gloomier parts of Scotland’s history, I think Maxim Emelyanychev develops the four movements, sometimes reflectively, sometimes triumphantly but often joyfully, showing us the light and shade of the young composer’s memories, but just as importantly leading us through a very satisfactory account of his wonderful music.
This orchestra, with natural brass instruments, the horns here rasping as often as they croon, the solos and the blending of the woodwind, as well as the extra lower strings, can quieten to delicacy as well as storm forth. The light touch in the most Scottish sounding section, the second movement vivace non troppo delivers an effect as playful as ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. Pizzicato strings suggests a harp-accompanied folk melody in the sad adagio before doleful horns and louder interventions begin. The last movement perhaps suggests battle, as David Kettle says in the programme notes, though not especially disastrous ones, while in the final few minutes the pace slows for a chorale section. Introduced by lower strings and with strident brass in the final “chorus” this may be a victory hymn (but with a much better tune than ‘Flower of Scotland’). There’s much applause for the orchestra and the conductor, who brings the individual sections to their feet for separate ovations.
Tonight’s concert has come at the end of a sad week for the SCO, with the announcement of the death of David Watkin, who was their principal cello for ten years. Philip Higham, current principal cello, spoke movingly about David at the start of the concert and dedicated this performance to him. You can read cellist Su-a Lee’s personal tribute on the SCO’s website In Memory of David Watkin | Scottish Chamber Orchestra
