RSNO, 28/1/2012

Debussy : Nocturnes
Prokofiev : Violin Concerto No. 1 (Hilary Hahn)
Roussel : Bacchus et Ariane

Ladies of the RSNO Chorus
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Stéphane Denève

I think I'm going to enjoy 2012, musically speaking.  It's the 150th anniversary of Debussy's birth, there's going to be plenty of his music to hear, and I do love it.  Of his three Nocturnes for orchestra, "Nuages" was good, but not quite otherworldly enough for my liking, while "Fêtes", though lively, suffered at its climax from a touch of imbalance, the brass of the procession overpowering the swirling strings completely.  "Sirènes", however, was perfect, a luminous evocation of a bright and breezy day somewhere on the French Atlantic coast, from sunrise to sunset.

Prokofiev's 1st Violin Concerto should have been premiered by the Polish virtuoso Pavel Kochanski, a close friend and collaborator of Szymanowski, and there is something of Szymanowski's dreamy, fantastical vocabulary about it, although the robust central scherzo is very much in the vein of the boisterous, vaguely folk-inspired works such as the Scythian Suite written around the same period.  The violin part itself, however, remains mostly detached and aerial, like some kind of benign but alien observer.  Hilary Hahn's crystal-clear tone imparted a sort of childlike wonder, wide-eyed and constantly interested in her (orchestral) surroundings, apparently effortless.  It's not a piece that I find particularly engaging, emotionally speaking, but its serenity is appealing, and was given full measure here.

I was at the concert 6 years ago when Denève and the RSNO played Roussel's "Bacchus et Ariane" for the first time, near the start of his tenure as the orchestra's principal conductor.  Roussel wasn't as unknown to me as he might have been to other members of the audience; I've spent years rootling around off the beaten path of late 19th and 20th Century French repertory, it's pretty much my favourite area.  Nevertheless, actual performances of such repertory were and still are rare, and it was a pleasure to hear a performance of this ballet score.

Tonight, it was even better.  In the intervening years, their performance has become bigger, brighter and bolder, with the kind of invisible control that makes all that sort of shaggy, post-Rite of Spring, mock-barbarism work faultlessly, like having a fantastic time at a party without any hangover the next morning.  Here, despite sonorous brass playing, the strings were never drowned out, they played with a rich, lush tone, while the winds provided some of the more delicate colours, and all excellently paced.  I went out tonight feeling somewhat under the weather, but there's nothing like a good bacchanale to perk you right up again!

[Next event: 2 February]