This was a concert that began with an overture, went on to two choral works and ended with a concerto. In his pre-concert talk the charming and erudite Bill Chandler, the Associate Leader of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, told us that the night's composers were linked through Brahms. Brahms was a protégé of Schumann and Brahms later befriended a young Dvořák.
The one opera composed by Schumann was a flop, but its overture survived. Often an overture is the last part of an opera to be written; in Genoveva it was what Schumann wrote first. The slow start is telling us of the illicit lust that Golo, Genoveva’s steward, had for her and the trouble-making that was going on. It brightens when her husband, Siegfried, and Genoveva are reconciled and the overture ends in triumph.
Brahms wrote his choral work Nänie in memory of a painter friend and it is a setting of one of Schiller’s poems. Sung in four parts, by the 140-strong Royal Scottish National Orchestra Chorus, in German, it was serenely inspiring and at the same time comforting.
The Chorus went on to sing the same composer’s Song of Destiny, taken from the German romantic poet Friedrich Hölderlin. It was telling us that mere mortals never quite reach true Heaven, with a deliberately troublesome, quiet drum beat in the background and memorable oboes. At the end the Chorus Director, Timothy Dean, joined the conductor for well-deserved praise.
What had made Dvořák’s Cello Concerto so well-known was how he had discovered the right wind instruments to surround the solo cello which, with the wrong choice, would have been inaudible.
The soloist for us was Pieter Wispelwey from Amsterdam and under the baton of Roberto Abbado every note of the cello was a joy to hear. Indeed, the applause afterwards had him play a short encore. The conductor, a nephew of Claudio Abbado, is based in Minnesota where he is an Artistic Partner with the St Paul Chamber Orchestra.
This was a sophisticated and unusual programme in its design for yet another nearly full Usher Hall audience whose appreciation was deservedly fulsome.
Event: 7.30pm, Friday 25 February, 2011