OneTouch Theatre, Eden Court, Inverness, 24 March 2009

Jonathan Morton

THE COINCIDENCE of two excellent concerts in three days from the Britten Sinfonia and the Scottish Ensemble did give rise to one intriguing question – when is an orchestra not an orchestra?

The Britten Sinfonia, despite mustering a maximum of eleven players on stage at any one time, and usually performing with considerably fewer, were part of Eden Court’s Orchestral Subscription series, while the 12-strong Scottish Ensemble (13 in the case of Biber’s Battalia) were not.

If that suggests that Eden Court’s definition might not pass muster under the Trades Descriptions Act, it did ensure a large audience for the English visitors. The Scottish Ensemble also filled the smaller OneTouch Theatre for their final programme in their winter season, one that artistic director Jonathan Morton admitted was aimed at giving their loyal patrons a relaxing evening after throwing some less orthodox challenges their way over the winter.

I’m not sure that anyone would actually have found the strange dissonances and Ives-ian tangles of Biber’s Battalia exactly relaxing, but it was intriguing to hear this odd piece again. The BBC SSO played it here in 2004 with a large orchestra that made a bigger impact than the more refined forces of the Ensemble, augmented by Jamie Akers on the exotic theorbo (a kind of giant Baroque lute), but they coped well with Biber’s unconventional pictorial depictions of preparation and battle.

Jonathan Morton was the soloist as well as director in Mendelssohn’s youthful Violin Concerto in D minor, far less celebrated than the more famous E minor work, but well worth an airing. The piece, which Mendelssohn wrote at the age of 13, remained unknown until exhumed by Yehudi Menuhin in 1952. Morton and his players tackled the music with genuine conviction and considerable flair, and made a strong case for its merits.

They opened the second half by playing their encore, a short Fugue by Mendelssohn arranged for the Ensemble. A late work, it revealed a very different facet of his writing to the Concerto, darker in mood and harmonically advanced.

The scheduled work for the second half, Tchaikovsky’s popular Serenade for Strings, is a piece that the Ensemble return to regularly, although they played it with fresh enthusiasm and commitment. It was a captivating account by any standards, and provided a rousing finish to the season from this excellent group.

For next winter’s touring programme the Ensemble will revert to four concerts rather than the five they have squeezed into the previous two years, the last of which will finally let the Inverness audience hear their Eight Seasons programme, featuring Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Astor Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires.

They were scheduled to play that programme in the Cathedral in 2003, but a family illness meant that Jonathan Morton had to miss the concert at the eleventh hour, and a substitute programme was played. Let’s all hope for a happier outcome next April.

© Kenny Mathieson, 2009

Links

• Scottish Ensemble
• Eden Court Theatre