Prokofiev : Cinderella (extracts)
Mozart : Piano Concerto No. 23, K. 488 (Saleem Abboud Ashkar)
Strauss : Also sprach Zarathustra
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Kazushi Ono
If I haven't already made it abundantly clear, Prokofiev's Cinderella is a favourite piece of music of mine, and I usually like hearing what a regular symphony orchestra can do with this inventive and colourful score. Sure enough, in this 30-odd minute compilation of extracts from Acts 1 and 2, there were some interesting things happening that one doesn't usually hear from an orchestra in the pit. On the downside, however, it was uncomfortably slow much of the time, and there were far too many fudged entries.
Had I been paying attention to my scheduling back in June, I wouldn't have chosen a second Mozart piano concerto just a week after hearing Maria João Pires. It wasn't the same concerto, and it was a perfectly respectable performance, both from Ono and the orchestra, and from the young Palestinian pianist Saleem Abboud Ashkar, who has a nice, clearly defined touch, but Pires is an all-but impossible act to follow. I mentioned it in a tweet last week - you can tell from the Alberti bass. Both K. 453 and K. 488 begin with a few bars of the principal theme played over an Alberti bass. His was an accompaniment, hers had its own shape and colour. Mr. Ashkar has a way to go yet.
It's been a long time since I've heard Also sprach Zarathustra live in concert (and that was, oddly enough, in Florence), and I'd almost forgotten what a difference the live performance makes. The one thing you can't get from a recording (well, not without super-duper sensurround sound, or something along those lines) is the sheer vibration of the piece. The rumble of the opening bars, with the organ and all those bass instruments really has to be experienced physically. The "Sunrise" introduction may have become something of a musical cliché, but not in its proper context, and in the hall.
There was some very good playing from the winds in particular tonight, but I felt that, as in the Prokofiev, there was a basic weakness in attack, entries not being made crisply enough, maybe the orchestra having a little trouble reading Ono's directions clearly. It's a sprawling, difficult piece, hard to navigate, and there were times when the focus seemed to be diffused, before returning. The "Joys and Passions" section, and the strokes of midnight, were very strong, for example, but the leader's violin did not soar clearly enough above the ensemble in the preceding "Dance-Song". A somewhat muted reading, therefore, which could have been bettered.
[Next: 8th December]
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