Empire Theatre, Eden Court, 19 September 2008

David Danzmayr (photo credit - Tom Finnie)

I MUST confess that I missed the exuberance and energy of RSNO Music Director and Principal Conductor Stéphane Denève during this performance. Assistant Conductor David Danzmayr’s more subdued style of leadership did not inspire the same enthusiasm for the programme, rapport with the audience or cohesion amongst the orchestra as a whole.

The evening began with Carl Maria Von Weber’s Overture to Der Freischütz, a comfortable and lacklustre introduction to an evening of well-loved Romantic works. I am often disappointed by the reliance on familiarity that seems to dominate national orchestra programming, and not just in Scotland. It’s as if the word Classics implies an acceptance of musical style or taste to the point where the original challenge to the maker and audience have been lost.

The power of Romantic composers such as Beethoven or Brahms is their capacity to inspire successive generations of composers and audiences alike. The balance of form and feeling, musical tradition and cutting edge creative development is richly evident in their work and needs to be shared with a much wider audience.

Kristian Bezuidenhout’s sensitive and virtuosic rendition of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 3 was one of the highlights of the evening. In the first movement Allegro con brio the solo piano emerges out of the dominant symphonic sound of the orchestra, Beethoven exploiting contemporary developments in the design of the 18th century fortepiano and Bezuidenhout extending this expressive range still further with his interpretation of the score.

As an individual creative force pitted against the world, Beethoven’s music is the ultimate in Romantic expression. The dialogue between solo voice and orchestra is part of the inherent appeal of the concerto form. The communicative power of the piano comes to the fore; capable of extraordinary range and depth, from passages of lightness and delicacy to those of deep, melodious resonance and brooding power. Bezuidenhout drew great appreciation and applause for his ability to convey nuances of sound, feeling and intensity throughout each movement.

The best though was saved till last, with Brahms Symphony No 4, a superb example of form and feeling in perfect unison. This is an extraordinary piece of work as much for its compositional structure as for its emotional impact on the listener. From the first few bars of the first movement the elevated and lush string arrangement of its main theme utterly transports you and doesn’t let you go until the last note.

The final movement, marked Allegro energico e passionate – Più allegro, is a triumph, an innovative and constantly evolving arrangement of 32 variations based on an eight chord sequence that is both epic and intimate in scale. Remarkably these variations do not simply become an audible example of technique, what we hear and feel makes us immediately conscious not of the architecture but the musical and emotional resonance of this astonishingly beautiful and timeless symphony.

Rich musical textures such as the sharp percussive first variation and low melancholic trombone chorale combine with the rhythmic drive of each section to create a sense of movement and journey to conclusion. Solo flautist Katherine Bryan shone in the mid section of this final movement with her lone, soulful variation on the main theme. This is a work that allows the unique qualities of voice in each instrument be heard together with the full power of the whole ensemble.

Though I enjoyed the Beethoven and Brahms works immensely, I hope that future programmes might also include contemporary works inspired by such composers and greater representation from different generations in the audience.

© Georgina Coburn, 2008

Links

• RSNO
• Kristian Bezuidenhout
• Eden Court