East Neuk Festival: Closing Concert
Bowhouse, St Monans 5/7/26
Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Maxim Emelyanychev (conductor), Anna Dennis (soprano); Chloe Abbott, Marco Blaauw, John Miller, Juliette Murphy, Bede Williams (trumpets)
The sold-out closing concert of this year’s East Neuk Festival took place in the surprisingly warm acoustic of St Monans’ barnlike Bowhouse, on the blustery late afternoon of 5th July. The Scottish Chamber Orchestra was directed by its Principal Conductor Maxim Emelyanychev. The advertised programme included two classical symphonic goodies, Mozart’s ‘Paris Symphony’ (No.31 in D) and Haydn’s ‘Surprise Symphony’ (No.94 in G). Between the two symphonies, soprano Anna Dennis, 4 years after her East Neuk debut, returned to sing a recitative and aria from two very different composers and operas, yet the characters share a common woe. Both Anne Truelove from Stravinsky’s ‘The Rake’s Progress’ and Donna Elvira from Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni’ have had the misfortune to fall in love with disreputable rogues. The Don Giovanni concert overture introduced the operatic excerpt.
Trumpeter, composer, arranger, educator and constant champion of the cause of music for all, John Wallace CBE, passed away in January and, as a belated tribute to his memory, the concert opened with 5 trumpeters who knew him standing around the edges of the Bowhouse and performing Stockhausen’s 1981 ‘Donnerstags-Abschied’, written to be performed from the balcony of La Scala, Milan, as the audience was departing from performances of his opera ‘Donnerstag aus Licht’. The 1980s were my 20s and, between about 1982 and 1984, Stockhausen’s music held a mild fascination for me and a couple of fellow-students at UCD. I grew out of it and possess no Stockhausen recordings. I never heard any of the opera or the ‘Abschied’ before. I would shrink from describing it as a “fanfare”. Slow-moving discordant lines, rarely more than two or three players at a time, play long ‘phrases’ separated by pauses. After about 10 minutes, the piece concludes with a four-note solo, It did nothing for this reviewer. I’ll leave it at that, other than to add that, when my time comes, if any of my friends are contemplating a musical tribute and are considering Stockhausen, even though I won’t be around, please don’t. I myself will remember John Wallace from a concert I attended of ancient brass music on rare historical instruments by The Wallace Collection, and his work encouraging young musicians as President of St Mary’s Music School, and head adjudicator at the National Final of Scottish Young Musicians Solo Performer of the Year two years ago.
Mozart’s ‘Paris Symphony’ is a 20-minute 3-movement 1778 work, with lots of bold tutti writing for a big Paris orchestra with clarinets, that smiles from start to finish, a mood that belies the struggle that the 22-year old composer had in his unsuccessful job-hunting sojourn in Paris, accompanied by his mother. Less than two weeks after the premiere, his mother was ill with a fever. She died two weeks later. The slow movement that we hear now is not the original, and was first heard at the second performance, 6 weeks after his mother’s death. Is it elegiac? Not a bit of it. Idyllic and carefree. Mozart’s world was falling apart and he wore a mask. There is not a trace in the music of his personal tragedy. The first movement, confident and carefree, received a crisp and cheerful reading from Maxim and the orchestra, the second theme sprightly and light-hearted. Some cloud shadows in the pleasing development were nothing more than typical Mozartian harmonic modulation. A stylish fanfare concluded the movement. The genial Andante in 6/8 oozed charm and elegance, its melody like a cheerful operatic soprano aria. The playful scampering finale’s good humour incorporated scurrying runs, fanfares and vaudeville dance moves, cheek by jowl with fragments of fugato writing, even sustained a bit in the development. A nice fanfare concluded a crisp and precise reading of the first Mozart symphony to feature clarinets. Super.
Since first hearing Anna Dennis at the East Neuk Festival 4 years ago, I have had the pleasure of hearing her guest with the Dunedin Consort in Mozart’s C-minor Mass that September (with stunning agility in the mezzo tessitura) and soprano in Handel’s ‘Messiah’ December 2023. The introduction, recitative and aria ‘No word from Tom’ from Stravinsky’s ‘The Rake’s Progress’ with a libretto by W. H. Auden shows Anne Truelove, devoted to the reckless Tom Rakewell, determined to save him from himself, as yet unaware that he is trapped in a literal Devil’s Bargain. A clever mock Tudor fanfare from Stravinsky, followed by forlorn oboe and bassoon, briefly set the scene for the recitative, Anna’s clear diction revealing a pensive but resolute mood. Strings and consoling bassoon accompanied a section in 3, leading to a gorgeous soaring melody. After a pensive quasi-recitative, the final section of the aria was confident and resolute, like a quick march in 4, with some stunning coloratura singing from Anna. Excellent.
After the interval, having heard the theatre version of Overture to ‘Don Giovanni’ in an arrangement for Harmonie from The English Concert Winds two days previously, it was nice to hear the concert version for full orchestra with the big finish instead of the wind-down to Act I. It did not lack theatricality, the dark slow introduction evoking the flames of Hell licking ever higher, before the picaresque romp that is the rest of the piece was full of energy and mischief. Maxim and the SCO in holiday mood, boding well for the Haydn.
Donna Elvira is a very different woman to Anne Truelove. She knows that the Don is a wrong ‘un and that he deserves the comeuppance that will surely befall him, sooner or later. But she is feisty and passionate. She knows her mind but cannot rule her heart. Despite how the Don has wronged her, she is in love with the rogue and fearful of his fate. Her desire for vengeance on her betrayer does battle with her pity for his inevitable downfall. The recitative and aria, ‘In quali eccessi … Mi tradi’ bear striking parallels with the Stravinsky and indeed the 20th century composer was consciously emulating Mozart. After a brief introduction, the recitative is at first hesitant and troubled, then calmer with a touch of tenderness. The aria is brisk and delightful. There was lovely dialogue with the winds and the cellos and then more of Anna’s mellifluous coloratura, recalling 4 years ago when, in the same venue, she sang two of Constanze’s arias from ‘Die Entführung aus dem Serail’. Fabulous and very well received.
I have fond memories of playing in the second violins of UCD Orchestra for Haydn 94 while in college back in the early 80s and again in the Festival Orchestra of Abu Dhabi in the mid-90s. It is, quite simply, as much of a joy to play as it is to listen to. This was very evident in the playfulness of the interpretation, with some quirky features that are fine in the context of the holiday atmosphere of a Festival Closing Concert, with its ‘What larks!’ one-off ambience and a shared spirit of fun, but would not find favour in the recording studio where the focus is to make something that the record-buying public can live with and love indefinitely. For example, swooping portamento in the first violins in Bars 84 and 91 of the first movement were a hoot in Bowhouse, but would wear very thin on a CD after a few playings, no matter how nice the wine being sipped or comfortable the armchair. The same might be said of a few exaggerated rallentandi, tenuti and rubati. In the moment, characterful, cheeky and fun. But ultimately, Haydn is already huge fun without these devices. The slow movement, once the ‘surprise’ bang is out of the way (slightly anticipated, with a mischievous glance back at the audience), is one of Haydn’s most beautiful set of variations on a theme and it was played as such. After a stern variation in the minor key, the return to the major features a candidate for “Haydn’s Sweetest Counter-Melody”, where flute (André Cebrián) and oboe (Sasha Calin) wove sinuously around each other – it was exquisite. The minuet was a proper Allegro molto and deliciously boisterous. There were a few quirky “holiday extras”, such as the bassoons’ and cellos’ cheeky answer in Bar 39/40 of the repeat of the second section of the minuet being greatly slowed down. The Trio idiomatically was very slightly slower with a teasing exaggerated rallentando in Bar 80/81 in the repeat of the second section. These were charming mannerisms that were not out of place in the festive context but I feel compelled to mention that Haydn didn’t write them. The finale launched at a tempo that felt light and playful at first, but I began to form the impression that it was a bit driven and that excitement was being chased at the expense of charm. The SCO players were, as ever, completely able for it and there was no loss of detail. It was therefore still very enjoyable. The crescendo of horns and timpani in Bar 233 was stylishly delivered (though the timpani sounded like a roll rather than the semiquavers that are marked). The tempo, already blistering, then speeded up for the coda, which I felt was an unnecessary gimmick. Bottom line: I went home with a smile in my face and a spring in my step, and a host of memories of another successful East Neuk Festival.
Link: https://eastneukfestival.com/events/closing-concert-2/
photo credit: Jet