SCO, 12/12/2014

Ravel : Le Tombeau de Couperin
Saint-Saëns : Cello Concerto No. 1 (Antonio Meneses, cello)
Falla : The Three-Cornered Hat - Suite No. 1
Falla : El amor brujo (María Toledo, cantaora)

Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Josep Pons

The draw here, for me, was that I knew Josep Pons's work with Falla's music from his late 90s Harmonia Mundi recordings, and looked forward to hearing what he could do with this music live.  He did not disappoint, but first came some French repertory, the Ravel from the same period as the Falla pieces.  The similarities end there; Ravel was studiedly paying homage to his French musical forebears, in creating a pastiche French Suite and evoking the old dances which usually went into such instrumental suites, in full-blown neo-Classical mode, while Falla would only explore that vein some ten years later.

Like many other examples of Ravel's work, the Tombeau was originally written for the piano, and subsequently orchestrated with the omission of two movements, and as always with Ravel, the orchestrations are miracles of precision and inventiveness, in this case deft and delicate, retaining that 'old-style' flavour yet appearing quite fresh.  Or at least, so they are meant to be.  While the outer movements danced along nicely, smoothly fluid in the Prelude, and rumbustious, but with a tender, dreamy central section, in the Rigaudon, the two central movements clicked along in a brisk and altogether mechanical fashion, neat, tidy and rather charmless.  The Forlane in particular, with every repeat included, seemed interminable.  There were also some slight idiosyncrasies in the orchestral sound that caught my ear, a sharpness to the winds at times, and a slight over-emphasis in the brass, just once in a while.

The Saint-Saëns is a middle-period work, and its sound is somewhat more conventional than the more fantastical 5th Piano Concerto heard last week.  However, it remains one of the best known cello concertos in the repertory, with its bold, declamatory opening theme that plunges you into the subject matter without preamble.  Like the piano concerto, however, the balance between soloist and orchestra is superbly calculated so that the soloist is never submerged by the orchestral texture.  If this performance didn't quite work for me, it's because I was a little uncomfortable with Antonio Meneses's sound.  There are some cellists - and he is one - who seem to like to live dangerously.  The sound they produce is almost a vertical blade, an edge of a sound whose pitch can seem a little uncertain.  In one sense, there's a spontaneity to it that can be exciting, but at other times I find it more worrying, and therefore wearisome, and I'm afraid that's how it struck me tonight.

So we came to the Falla, and from the very opening bars of the Three-Cornered Hat suite, those idiosyncrasies that had stuck out in the Ravel fell right into place, a special zest to the winds, a bright, rich gleam to the horns, a little teasing rasp to the trumpets, all ideally suited to this colourful and exuberant score.  This was a lovely performance, the movements flexible, never rushed but never too laid-back either, the humour perfectly dosed, and it's almost a pity we couldn't get the other half of the score as well.

However, instead of the other half, we got a complete performance of El amor brujo, Falla's earlier ballet score, a much darker, earthier piece, more distinctly based in the world of the gypsy communities, and flamenco (where Sombrero is more folk-traditional).  That difference, between the two communities, was underlined as Pons had chosen (as he did in his recording) a flamenco singer for the vocals, rather than a mezzo-soprano as is more commonly heard.  This is, of course, closer to Falla's original version, written for the cantaora Pastora Imperio, but that smoke-and-booze husk of the flamenco voice takes a moment to get accustomed to in a concert hall.

Tonight's soloist was the young and glamorous María Toledo, and I wondered if she's done this particular exercise before, because her first number sounded a little constricted, which didn't, at first hearing, bode well for the rest.  However, by the time she got to the Canción del fuego fato, her sound was much more relaxed, opening up more in the upper register, and the rest of her contribution to the performance was excellent, so the tightness of the first number could just have been a touch of nerves.  The orchestra revelled in this wonderful score's variety, by turns mysterious, tempestuous, or meltingly lyrical, and there was a subtle reserve to the playing that highlighted the music's intensity all the more.  An entirely different, but very welcome, form of festive celebration.

[Next : 13th December]