The Royal Scottish National Orchestra was celebrating winter with three works composed in countries colder than ours. And yet there was a great warmth under the baton of the Orchestra’s Assistant Conductor, Christian Kluxen. Christian is from Denmark where he has a fine reputation and is in his third year of three, with the RSNO. His predecessor, David Danzmayr, is now in charge of the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra in the United States - let’s hope Christian, on the strength of this concert, goes on to greater podiums.
Lars-Erik Larsson died in 1986 as one of Sweden’s foremost composers of the twentieth century. In 1937 he wrote incidental music for Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale for Swedish Radio. We heard four of those musical interludes that makes up what I thought was a calming and quite charming suite.
Lisa Rourke was playing on the front desk of the violas, but before the concert began was the host at a fascinating pre-concert talk. It is not often that the night’s soloist comes along to the top floor of the Usher Hall. When it was a much respected regular, it was all the more appreciated.
Lisa Rourke had sensible questions for John Lill. John Lill answered them fully but succinctly. He was politely reluctant to be drawn into who or what he liked, or disliked. We were left wondering what he really thought of Christian Kluxen in rehearsal, or of the fine Usher Hall piano. But he was firm on one point. A conductor has the freedom to do what he wants for the overture and symphony. With a twinkle in his eye he told us that the soloist was in charge for the concerto; please the conductor in rehearsal but do it your own way for the performance, he mused.
John Lill was quite clear that Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto was not an easy play for the solo pianist and, at times, awkward. The opening movement is called Allegro molto moderato and John Lill had taken note of the molto. A minute or two into it and the look that Christian Kluxen gave John Lill might well have been saying why are you slower than I want you to be. John Lill had not publicly performed the work for seven or eight years and so had spent time re-studying the score. But the audience really loved the performance -whoever was right on the tempo.
The concert ended with a fine performance of one of Tchaikovsky’s earliest works - his Symphony No 1. Its exuberant conclusion is in contrast to much of the Symphony - but was an ideal ending for a thoroughly enjoyable evening of music. Indeed the audience would have given Christian Kluxen yet another round of applause had he come back on stage.
Event: Friday 14 December 2012 at 7.30pm