Szymanowski : Concert Overture
Chopin : Piano Concerto No. 1 (Angela Hewitt)
Tchaikovsky : Symphony No. 6 "Pathétique"
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Alexander Vedernikov
One could easily be forgiven for mistaking Szymanowski's early Concert Overture for a minor Richard Strauss tone-poem. Fresh out of Warsaw Conservatory, Szymanowski was not yet showing what were to become his more distinctive traits, and which will be explored in later concerts in this "Muzyka Polska" series from the BBC SSO. He did, on the other hand, have the exuberance and the broad, confident melodic gestures typical of Strauss, the rich, colourful orchestral technique, and Vedernikov gave full reign to this expansive, youthful vocabulary, as if to allow the orchestra to let off steam before being relegated to the background for the Chopin concerto.
Or so it seemed, except this was a reading of the concerto with the orchestra singularly to the fore, and a little too prominent for an ideal balance between it and the soloist. Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt is a fine artist, her playing clearly articulated at all times, but given that both the Chopin concertos were written as showcases for the young pianist-composer, Hewitt wasn't nearly as forward as she could have been. A lighter orchestral texture might have helped - maybe I've become a little too familiar lately with period-instrument and chamber versions, but I think a desk or two less in the violins would have been beneficial. Also, the bel canto influence, so much a part of Chopin's piano writing, was underplayed here, so there was a certain lack of emotional weight.
It was in the first movement of the Tchaikovsky that Vedernikov reminded us he had spent the best part of the last decade at the helm of the Bolshoi Theatre orchestra. I've never heard it sound so distinctly as if it had grown straight out of The Queen of Spades. There was real tenderness in the phrasing here, as well as plenty of fire in the central Allegro. The waltz was a little stolid, but the scherzo-march was vibrant enough (and yes, there's always someone to applaud at the end of it), and if the last movement lacked the intensity of the first, on the whole, there was still a special quality to it. In particular, Vedernikov had succeeded in imparting to the orchestra a full-blooded sound, and even giving the brass some of that peculiar stridency, the famously acidulated timbre so characteristic of the Russian orchestras.
[Next: 12th September]
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