RSNO, 09/02/2013

Bernstein : Overture to Candide
Gershwin : Piano Concerto (Jon Kimura Parker)
Adams : Harmonielehre

Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Peter Oundjian

This is the first of two all-American programmes the RSNO's new Music Director has planned for this season, and it got off to a flying start with a suitably ebullient reading of Leonard Bernstein's Candide overture.  This was Bernstein on Broadway - although the show itself turned out to be rather too complex to sit comfortably there, in its original format at least.  The overture, however, is exactly what you'd expect; loud, boisterous, previewing many of the good tunes, a high-spirited teaser for the show to come, and delivered with plenty of enthusiasm by the orchestra.

That level of high spirits carried through into the Gershwin Concerto, with a very fine reading from Jon Kimura Parker as the soloist.  The outer movements were full of snap and sparkle; in the first movement he had a way of starting his phrases just fractionally off the beat, a type of rubato with strong leanings towards jazz, which was particularly appealing.  The last movement was flashy without vulgarity, while the second was a long, delicious ramble around Central Park, twilight fading seductively into night (in the days when it was still safe to do so!), with able assistance from the orchestra's guest trumpet, Hedley Benson.  It's been a long time since I've heard Parker play, not since he won the Leeds competition some twenty-five years ago, I think, and I'd forgotten how good he could be.  He was generous enough to offer an encore, and nothing anyone could have expected either.  "You won't know this," he assured us cheerfully, "not unless you share my bad taste in TV," and proceeded to launch into a virtuoso transcription of The Simpsons' theme.  It's nice to see a sense of humour in the concert hall.

The second half of the concert was a somewhat more serious affair.  John Adams's Harmonielehre is the piece through which I discovered his music; I suspect that's true of a good many people, at least of my generation.  His style has changed somewhat since then, moved away from the more rigorous aspects of the minimalism he still espoused at the time, but that doesn't diminish the power of this big, orchestral fresco.  This is music which permeates the skin and sinks into the bones, its pulse will regulate yours as you listen, and Adams has always had a richer orchestral palette than many of his colleagues grouped under the same banner, so that you also get colour and texture, along with sonority. Apart from a touch of raggedness in some entries towards the end of the dolorous second movement, Oundjian and the orchestra gave a concentrated, deeply committed performance of considerable power, wholly engaged with this compelling and varied score, from the thunderous opening to the exultant close, thoroughly deserving of the rousing applause elicited from the audience.

[Next : 13th February]