For the first time, the RSNO's Naked Classics series investigated music written in the past ten years - one of ten out of the ten selected for this season by Stéphane Denève. Previous Naked Classics have unpicked familiar music in the first half of the evening, and played the piece all the way through after the interval.
Paul Rissmann’s expositions get better every time he is at the Usher Hall. Working with the conductor, as one would expect, snippets are played by all or a section of the orchestra. But impressively he knows all about how a computer linked to a large screen can show the score, or an individual instrument’s part. It really is the music that is being played that is there on the screen in front of us. His artwork is a delight to the eye - sophisticatedly simple.
In previous Naked Classics there had to be supposition as to what the composer had intended. But this time the subject was Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Insomnia, written in 2002, and Salonen is alive and kicking. And so Paul Rissmann had been along to interview the composer. On the screen we watched his questioning of a thoughtful Salonen. Not that the night’s conductor, chirpy Stéphane Denève, did not have a word or two to add.
But there was something wrong. The audiences on a Friday night in the Usher Hall have nearly filled every seat in recent months. But not so for this concert. Looking around, there were only a few familiar Friday night faces.
Seats for Naked Classics are £10 in a bid to bring in people who would not normally be there for the more expensive concerts. They came to learn about some well known classical music by Brahms, Beethoven, Holst, Shostakovich or Dvorak.
If only the regular Friday-nighters knew what they were missing, every seat would have been filled.
Event
Friday 18 March 2011 7.30 pm