This was an evening of dance music interestingly demonstrated in three very different styles. Maurice Ravel loved dance all his life. After composing Valses nobles et sentimentales for piano in 1911, the following year its orchestrated version was launched. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra demonstrated its freedom to happily dance the night away in its eight separate waltzes.
We heard the Scottish premiere of University of Edinburgh educated Anna Clyne's Dance for cello and orchestra. Deep and sophisticated and written so that the solo cello is as much part of the main run as out alone. This point was emphasised by guest cellist Senja Rummukainen in her pre-concert talk with the evening's guest conductor Emilia Hoving. Both had performed the work already but not together. Their view was that Anna Clyne's Dance was best suited for an individual wanted to dance alone, perhaps in the kitchen. It was an interesting pre-concert talk for we knew neither. Yet with full confidence and by asking each other questions we gained insights into the musical lives of them both - and the music we were about to hear. Both, we heard, were aged 30 and both from Helsinki. The audience teased a deserved encore from cellist Senja Rummukainen.
After the interval came Sergei Rachmaninov's version of dance music, music he initially called Fantastic Dances but later changed to Symphonic Dances. Rather hard to picture oneself dancing to the music, the second of the three movements, the waltz, was just about likely. The energy in the final would have been far too exhausting. But the whole work under the baton of Emilia Hoving was fascinating. It was hard not to watch her turning the pages after she had told us earlier how conductors struggle to learn the technique.
Event: Friday 21st March 2025 at 7.30pm