With the first few rows of the stalls removed to make way for tables and chairs, and the sight of concert goers taking their seats with drinks in their hands, this was going to be a much more relaxed Royal Scottish National Orchestra concert in the Usher Hall.
This was the second of three RSNO Summer Pops and this one was called Britain’s Top of the Pops. The inspired choice of Jeff Tyzik as the conductor and compere put us in very safe but enjoyable hands. An East Coast American he had come to Edinburgh for the first time with a fine reputation for just this sort of concert. The programme was somewhere in the middle between high brow and pop, and all the composers were British.
Although Tyzik was introducing very familiar pieces to us, he often had an interesting quip or two of background we might well not have known. When it came to Holst’s Jupiter from The Planets, for instance, he told us that the young Holst had played in the RSNO and pointed to where he would have been among the trombones of the orchestra.
The Orchestra were enjoying themselves, starting the concert with Tyzik’s arrangement of The Beatles Hits Medley and ending the evening with Tyzik’s arrangement of many of the very familiar James Bond movie tunes.
In between we heard Malcolm Arnold’s English Dances and later his Scottish Dances, Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on Greensleeves, Alford’s Colonel Bogey March, Eric Coates’ The Dambusters March, William Walton’s Crown Imperial March and several more. Indeed it was almost a copy of my teenage collection of 78s records. And I so I was loving every moment of it, and so too were the audience.
It was a great night because Jeff Tyzik neither patronised us, nor played silly games. He got it just right, and deserved the tremendous applause of the two thousand or so concertgoers.
Event: Thursday 24 June 2010 7.30 pm.