Music
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Usher Hall, Edinburgh
Keith Bruce
four stars
AS some citizens of the capital have been crossly pointing out, the history of celebrations of the turn of the year there goes back a great deal further than the time for which Hogmanay has been so successfully exploited for commercial advantage through tourism.
However, it is not so very long since the Usher Hall was dark on New Year’s Day because the cost of opening it then was prohibitive.
Today, January the first is altogether less dour, with much of Edinburgh open for business and the SCO’s New Year Gala in aid of Marie Curie nurses an established, if relatively recent, institution – and a programme the chamber orchestra takes out on the road, this year to Dumfries (Thursday), Ayr (Friday) and Perth (Saturday).
The distant model is that of the Vienna Phil at the Musikverein, whose annual concert of waltzes, marches and polkas was broadcast to the world a few hours earlier, but the SCO, happily, has more freedom of repertoire before the Strauss-soundtracked sprint to the tape of Tristch-Tratsch Polka, Blue Danube Waltz and the obligatory clap-along encore of the Radetsky March.
A very full house, with a goodly number sitting in the top tier, likely included a few less experienced classical music fans, so the lack of a singer this year was perhaps regrettable, but the SCO is a band of soloists and this programme was designed to allow a number of them to show their skill.
Most obviously that was leader Stephanie Gonley, stepping front of stage for the virtuoso Ravel gypsy violin showpiece Tzigane, but principal cello Philip Higham had been first in the spotlight with the opening of Weber’s Invitation to the Dance, as orchestrated by Hector Berlioz, and clarinettist William Stafford (on Kodaly’s Dances of Galanta), and first horn Alec Frank-Gemmill were also among those featured.
This was a large edition of the SCO, with percussionists, five horns, and eight brass, under the direction of Duncan Ward, a young conductor of hugely diverse experience who first stepped in to work with orchestra two years ago, and who drew particularly lyrical playing from the strings here.
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