BBCSSO, 15/05/2014

Beethoven : Piano Concerto No. 1 (Steven Osborne, piano)
Vaughan Williams : Symphony No. 1 "A Sea Symphony"
(Elizabeth Watts, soprano; Mark Stone, baritone)

Edinburgh Festival Chorus
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Andrew Manze

It is usual for symphony orchestras to want to conclude their concert seasons with some big, showcase works, in order, as it were, to go out with a bang.  On several occasions, in my experience, it's been more of a whimper, but not this time.  This was a cracker of a season finale, with two very contrasted works both given sterling performances.

It's frequently said that Beethoven's First Piano Concerto is really his second, and vice versa.  What is certain is that both concertos at least begin where Mozart left off.  The first movements owe a clear allegiance to the late Mozart concertos, the grander ones, and this was particularly clear here.  Later on one starts to hear a more distinctively original voice come through, especially in the A minor section of the final Rondo, which almost swings.  Steven Osborne's nimble fingers danced through the score, fleet and light, playful and joyous without trivialising the piece, and ably supported by the orchestra, a delight from start to finish.

There is a slew of major English compositions in and around the first decade of the 20th Century dedicated to the sea; Elgar's Sea Pictures, Delius's Sea Drift, Bridge's The Sea, and probably the most important, Vaughan Williams's 1st Symphony, better known as A Sea Symphony.  Like Sea Drift, it's a choral setting of Walt Whitman, and also taking poems from Leaves of Grass, but it's a much more ambitious piece, lasting over an hour, compared to Delius's twenty-five minutes or so.  Vaughan Williams began it in 1903, and finished it six years later, and it is his first large-scale  orchestral composition.  Aside from the scope of the piece, remarkable for any thirty-something composer, what's interesting is that you can hear all of Vaughan Williams's hallmarks in it.  There is the lyrical string writing, the influence of English folk-song, the hints of bells pealing, the modality of church psalms, it's all there, and it was beautifully illustrated by Manze and the orchestra in this final element of their Vaughan Williams Symphonies cycle.

The problem I've sometimes had with A Sea Symphony is that after that thunderous introduction, with its fanfares, and the rich harmonies of the opening "Behold the sea itself" that crash over you like a tidal wave, the piece can seem to run out of steam very quickly.  That was far from being the case tonight. The music flowed magnificently, the Edinburgh Festival Chorus really seeming to relish their contribution.  The two soloists were also excellent, Elizabeth Watts bright and strong, Mark Stone stalwart, though I could not help but think a little nostalgically of the late John Shirley Quirk, in this music he defended so strongly, and with such a distinctive timbre.  Nostalgia notwithstanding, this was a superb performance, stirring and uplifting, and a truly impressive conclusion both to the RVW Symphonies cycle, and the season.

[Next : 18th May]