RSNO: Tchaikovsky and Mahler

Usher Hall, 5/12/2025

Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Giedrė Šlekytė (Conductor), Nemanja Radulović (Violin)

‘Concert of the Year!’

December is often the month when we look back on a year of music, art, books, sport, family events and the world of politics.

It’s not usually the month in which we find ourselves attending the best concert of the year, but tonight at the Usher Hall, we were privileged to be in the audience for a truly remarkable evening of music-making, as the RSNO performed Tchaikovsky’s fabulous Violin Concerto and Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony.

Both pieces have the advantage of being two of the greatest musical compositions of all time, but they can be short-changed and routine in the wrong hands and can be played as famous old warhorses performed out of respect and duty. Tonight, however, in readings of searing intensity and true enlightenment, a full house was entertained and transfixed for the entire concert.

The X Factor was provided by the young Lithuanian conductor, Giedrė Šlekytė, making her RSNO debut, and what a debut it was! Slight of build with flowing blond hair, she dominated the proceedings from the start, controlling the mercurial nature of Tchaikovsky’s famous Violin Concerto and producing a reading of Mahler’s astonishing First Symphony that was breathtaking in its sweep and majesty, and quite simply the best I have ever heard. In so doing, she coaxed the finest possible playing from the RSNO, the strings warm and dynamic and the brass, woodwind and percussion out of this world. The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra has been announced as honoured guests at next year’s Edinburgh International Festival, but they will have to pull out all the stops simply to rival the RSNO tonight.

The concert began with the Tchaikovsky concerto, first performed on 4th December 1881 in Vienna, although actually composed in 1878. The composer, living in Switzerland after the collapse of his calamitous marriage to Antonina Miliukova, was visited by a friend, the violinist, Yosif Kotek, who advised him on the intricacies of violin technique. Unable to ask Kotek to play the concerto in public (for fear of scandal about their relationship), he asked the noted virtuoso, Leopold Auer, to play the first performance, but was refused on the grounds that it was poorly written for the instrument. Consequently, it was not until late 1881 that Adolph Brodsky played the premiere in Vienna, conducted by Hans Richter.

Richter was a fascinating character, a hugely dominant force in late 19th century music. He conducted the first complete Ring Cycle by Wagner at Bayreuth in 1876 (incidentally reviewed, largely unfavourably, by a young Tchaikovsky), and the premieres of Brahms’ 2nd and 3rd Symphonies, Bruckner’s 4th and 8th Symphonies, the Enigma Variations and the Dream of Gerontius by Elgar. It seems utterly incredible now that one person could have brought so many masterpieces to life! The premiere of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto could hardly be described as a triumph, pleasing some but offending the leading Viennese critic, Eduard Hanslick, who described it as “long and pretentious” and the last movement as “odorously Russian!” Mind you, Hanslick so upset Richard Wagner that he was caricatured mercilessly in his opera, ‘Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” as the odious Sixtus Beckmesser, so we needn’t take his opinion very seriously!

We, however, were lucky enough to experience a performance of the Violin Concerto that could be described as miraculous, a rendition that will linger long in the memory. The young Franco/Serbian violinist, Nemanja Radulović, was simply fantastic, completely in command of his instrument and wonderfully expressive. With long flowing black locks, winning the long hair award vis a vis his Lithuanian conductor, flamboyantly dressed in black with a red cummerbund, and sporting platform soles on his black shoes, he didn’t need to play well to win over the audience. That he played like a god was an added bonus! I have never heard the concerto so wonderfully performed, with enormously daring rubato, pianissimi, double-stopping and savagely wild virtuosity, all in complete accord and harmony with Ms Šlekytė and the RSNO. He looked like he was having a great time playing for us, and we lapped it up! I had forgotten just what a terrific concerto it is, magnificently melodic and quintessentially Russian, although not in any way odorous. It seems odd that it received such a negative reaction at the time.

Mr Radulović joined forces with the superb leader of the orchestra, Igor Yuzefovich, for a delicious encore by Shostakovich. The reaction to his playing in the hall definitely merits a prompt recall in the near future. Over to you RSNO!

After the interval, we heard a performance of Gustav Mahler’s extraordinary First Symphony, quite outstandingly conducted by Ms Šlekytė. In Edinburgh, we are used to magnificent Mahler concerts. I recall the legendary concerts by Leonard Bernstein and Bernard Haitink in the 1970s, and more recently, Sir Donald Runnicles and our own Thomas Søndergård have heroically carried the baton.

However, I don’t think I have ever heard a performance of the 1st Symphony as mind-blowing, earth-shattering and truly inspired as that which we were privileged to listen to tonight.

It still amazes me how absurdly new and audacious this symphony was. In 1889, the year of its first performance, in Budapest, it still had the extra movement, Blumine, between the first and third movements, and during the next five years Mahler edited, revised and partially reconstructed the whole work until he was satisfied with it. Nonetheless, the level of innovation, with eerie string sounds, distant trumpets, frequent bird calls and cataclysmic climaxes must have astonished those early audiences. The scoring is also unique, with 7 horns, extra woodwind, 2 sets of timpani (the second reserved for the final movement) and 5 trumpets, 4 trombones and a tuba. This permits an aural experience like no other, and, in the fantastic acoustic of the Usher Hall, the effect was overwhelming.

All this was conducted utterly superbly by Ms Šlekytė, who, from the opening, dawning sounds of the note A shared across all the strings, followed by the distant, off-stage trumpets, was in complete command of the orchestra, with a clear beat and delightful balletic movements on the podium. The frequent trumpet calls recalled Mahler’s childhood in the Bohemian town now known as Jihlava, then by its German name, Iglau, a garrison town at the western end of the Austrian Empire, where military bands practised daily. I once visited Jihlava, and found it a fascinating town, with one of the largest town squares (it is actually rectangular) in Bohemia. Mahler’s father was an innkeeper, and the sounds of dance bands playing folk music was another immense source of inspiration.

The second movement of the symphony is almost entirely given over to folk tunes and country dance music, and the truly amazing third movement revolves around a fugal rendition of a minor version of the round, Frère Jacques (Bruder Martin in German), morphed into a funeral march. The main tune of the whole symphony, which returns over and over again, is taken from Mahler’s song, ‘Ging heut’ Morgen übers Feld’ from his ‘Songs of a Wayfarer’ and represents the beginning of Mahler’s obsession with using folk songs in his symphonies.

All of this innovatory writing was absorbed by Ms Šlekytė into a reading of the symphony which was well-nigh perfect in my book, with well-judged tempi and imaginative rubato. There were so many moments when I thought – “I’ve never heard that before”, and this is a symphony I thought I knew really well! I trust the RSNO management is already actively engaged in bringing her back soon!

She coaxed simply superb playing from the whole orchestra, with voluptuous string tone (a big nod to the viola section here), exquisite woodwind and burnished brass, not failing to mention thunderous percussion and timpani. A truly outstanding concert.