Within the first four minutes we had heard Glasgow born Oliver Knussen's sparkling and intricate Flourish with Fireworks. And then Stéphane Denève turned and welcomed us to this the start of his fifth season as Music Director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. The audience enjoyed Denève encouraging us to be in our seats for all the coming concerts and made us feel he and the orchestra really were there to entertain us all.
Knussen, he told us, was special to the orchestra as close relatives had associations with it. His The Way to Castle Yonder, finished in 1990, with its three continuous sections, comes from orchestral interludes in the operatic requiem for his dog, Jennie, where Castle Yonder is the animals' theatrical heaven. We heard a horse-drawn milk wagon driven by a cat-milk-man, a meditation while Jennie dreams of lions and then the chimes as Castle Yonder get closer.
Playing with passion and sophisticated panache was Lars Vogt who joined the orchestra for Mozart's Piano Concerto No 24 written in three movements in 1786. Born in Germany in 1970 Lars Vogt won second prize at the 1990 Leeds International Piano Competition and nowadays has a special connection with the Berlin Philharmonic and an international reputation.
After the interval was the ever popular symphonic suite Scheherazade by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and written in 1888.
Normally I see the cellos and double bass over to the right, but not for this concert. Was it my ignorance or something novel? I'll find out, I am sure.
This concert bodes well for an exciting season of Friday evenings at the Usher Hall throughout the winter. A programmme of music some of which is relatively modern and may not have been heard before, some solid masterpeices and some of the really popular classical works. There is no reason other than to be proud of our Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
Event: Friday 2 October 2009 7.30pm