Music
SCO Strings
The Brunton, Musselburgh
Keith Bruce, four stars
THERE are obvious reasons why there are no concertos for theorbo – the long-necked big cousin of the lute that is an eye-catching feature of the early music ensembles – from the 17th century heyday of the instrument. Although a colourful addition to a continuo section, it is just too quiet to cut it as a solo instrument, in front of an orchestra, even one as infinitely flexible as the SCO.
The invention of compact and appropriate amplification – and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra technical team has sourced a particularly dinky PA system for these concerts – changes all that, and Matthew Wadsworth is giving the UK premieres of the piece written for him by Welsh composer Stephen Goss. Blind from birth, Wadsworth developed a method of using Braille to learn scores while a student at the Royal Academy, and this music takes his instrument into new areas, although ones that fans of prog-rock (and in particular Roundabout by the group Yes) might recognise.
The concerto was the most contemporary composition in a cleverly-constructed evening, directed by leader Benjamin Marquise Gilmore and starting right at the beginning with Purcell’s Chacony, with Wadsworth added to a 5/4/3/2/1 line-up of strings. That was augmented by another nine players for the larger works on the programme, including an early Mendelssohn String Symphony and Grieg’s Holberg Suite, the most often-heard piece in the programme – although it is perhaps debatable how happy the composer would be to know that.
The reduced ensemble was deployed for the start of the second half, performed standing, with Francesco Geminiani’s Concerto Grosso based on a Corelli sonata, but it was the full string band that played the first half’s other modern piece, Peter Warlock’s Capriol Suite. Playful as well as technically demanding, its development of early dance music into something highly individual was a microcosm of the entire concert.
Concert repeated in Portree on Friday and Fort William on Saturday.
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