BBCSSO, 01/05/2014

Janácek (arr. Talich) : Suite from The Cunning Little Vixen
Dvorák : Cello Concerto (Joshua Roman, cello)
Bartók : Concerto for Orchestra

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Ilan Volkov

There must be something in the air right now in Glasgow, this was my second conductor substitution this week.  At least, with Volkov, we're on familiar territory; he was the orchestra's chief conductor for six years, before becoming Principal Guest Conductor.  Here's hoping there's no such upset tomorrow night!

I remember, when I was first discovering Janácek's operas, in my mid-teens, thinking that the vocal line could be pretty ungrateful, and that I'd be just as happy listening to the orchestra alone.  I learned better, of course, but I can still feel that way a little bit at times, and it's not difficult to understand why the conductor Václav Talich, a fervent advocate of Janácek's music at a time when the composer was little known, might have felt that making orchestral suites of some of the operatic music might not be a bad idea.  Vixen isn't the only one, although it's probably the most successful, because there is a great deal of purely orchestral music in the score in any event, which doesn't require much arranging.  However, Talich did tweak the orchestration a little, rounding off some of the sharper corners, and I felt that the sound was rather heavier than it should be.  Certainly, Janácek's orchestra for Vixen is not small, but it rarely sounds as large as it is, and this was sort of soggy in places.  Although the brass in particular sounded excellent (as they did all evening) there was a slight blur almost all the way through the suite, especially from the strings.  Also, Volkov never seemed to quite grasp the rhythms properly, the energy a little misdirected, not quite connecting, most noticeably in the wonderful, mad, cackling gallop that concludes the first act, and the Suite.

The young American cellist Joshua Roman has a very nice sound, not so dark that it sounds gooey, and not so light that it sounds (if you'll pardon the expression) stringy, and his Dvorák was attractive, though there's still plenty of room for development.  At this stage, it's perhaps a little superficial yet, but his approach is sympathetic and assured, without didacticism.  If it couldn't stand the comparison with the extraordinary Mørk/Søndergärd/RSNO performance from last May, I'd nevertheless come back to this artist to hear this again, and expect his reading to have grown, technically and emotionally. There were one or two points of uncertain intonation, but like his interpretation, I'm pretty sure such matters will get ironed out, and sooner rather than later.

The brass section, which, as already mentioned, had been playing very well all night, really came into its own in the Bartók Concerto for Orchestra, with its multiple fanfares, chorales and occasional (deliberate) raspberries.  Like The Cunning Little Vixen, Bartók's Concerto was written by a man nearing the end of his life, and like Vixen, it's an astonishingly triumphant, uplifting work, especially for a man who knew he was dying.  It's also something of a summation of a life's work; you hear the Eastern European folk music, to the collection of which Bartók devoted so much of his time, you hear the eerie, evocative 'night music', a distinctive hallmark of his mature years, while the glaucous ripples of winds and harp in the third movement take you right back to the 6th door of Duke Bluebeard's Castle and the early stage works.  Again, there was some imprecision in the strings, which was regrettable, blurring the focus slightly, but the dance rhythms were sharper on the whole, and Volkov managed to maintain the articulation in the whirl of the last movement to bring it to its rumbustious conclusion.

[Next : 2nd May]