SCO, 19/10/2012

Debussy : Five Preludes (arr. Zender)
Lyle Cresswell : Triple Concerto (Swiss Piano Trio) World première
Takemitsu : How Slow the Wind
Ravel : Ma Mère l'Oye

Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Baldur Brönnimann



There are times I despair of my fellow concert-goers.  They'll fill a concert hall so easily for a bit of Beethoven or Brahms, but put something a little off the beaten track under their noses and what's the result - trois pelés et un tondu, which is an expressive, if untranslatable French phrase (literally meaning "three skinned and one shorn") indicating extremely poor attendance.  Never mind.  I hope that those of us present managed to express our general appreciation sufficiently clearly.

The concert was advertised under the general headline, "Musical Magicians", with much of the emphasis on orchestral colour and texture.  The Debussy Preludes were very interesting; they're marked "arranged", and not "orchestrated", because Hans Zender, who made these arrangements in 1991, was not interested in trying to sound like Debussy, but in interpreting the piano pieces according to his own lights.  The end result was fascinating, original without betraying the originals, and often quite humorous.  There was an extensive array of percussion, including something I couldn't see but which sounded suspiciously like a giant kazoo!

The Cresswell piece was commissioned by and for these particular performers; Triple Concerto inevitably brings up echoes of the Beethoven piece (which one so rarely gets to hear in concert), but nothing could be further from Cresswell's work.  And in a concert in which subtlety and variety of orchestral sound and colour was the unifying feature, it fell considerably short of the mark.  Scurrying passages alternated with slow, held chords, with little variation in timbre, and most of all, the trio of soloists could hardly be perceived as such.  If you weren't watching, they simply blended into the background, part of the overall picture, rather than standing out the way soloists in a concerto are nominally supposed to do.   Not impressed.

I'm not all that familiar with Takemitsu's work, but what I've heard, I've usually liked, and "How Slow the Wind" was no exception.  It's a late piece, also written for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and places Takemitsu very much as a child of French Impressionism, with a sort of shy lyricism, and a delicate orchestral texture that made the piece an ideal precursor to the Ravel score that followed.  This was the complete score of "Mother Goose", his own orchestration of the five piano-duet pieces, with all the linking passages he added later to make a ballet out of it.  Brönnimann maintained a good pace throughout, keeping the texture clear, but not lingering.  Some of the flute playing was a little weak, but otherwise the sound was good; Ravel's orchestration is little short of miraculous, and always demands respect and attention, which it got tonight, to culminate in the glowing apotheosis of the Enchanted Garden.

[Next: 23rd October]