Scottish Chamber Orchestra

29 Jun 2009 in Highland, Music

Spa Pavilion, Strathpeffer, 26 June 2009

Robin Ticciati - Photo Paul Hampton

SCOTTISH Chamber Orchestra visits to the Spa Pavilion go back for more years than it is advisable to admit, long before the building was rescued from advanced dilapidation, and when the orchestra’s loyal following enjoyed some memorable evenings. So it is only fitting that this venue should present a milestone in the orchestra’s history, for the second year in a row. Please indulge me while I quote an extract from my review of the SCO’s concert last July:

“Last Thursday it was the turn of Strathpeffer to play host to our national chamber orchestra on their way to Portree and then Fort William. The orchestra’s General Manger, Roy McEwan, has developed the knack of bringing rising talent to feature at these concerts, and for this visit the superstar of the future was conducting wunderkind Robin Ticciati. A protégé of Sir Simon Rattle, indeed almost a clone with very similar mannerisms and a bush of curly hair, Ticciati is the youngest conductor ever at La Scala, Milan and will make his debut at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in the new season. In addition he is the Music Director of Glyndebourne on Tour, a post Rattle himself held in the mid seventies. The SCO responded well to his enthusiasm and range of fresh ideas for the four programmed works.” (Moray Firth Radio – The Big Picture – 13 July 2008)

Move forward a year and we assembled again at Strathpeffer to relish Robin Ticciati’s second appearance with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, but this time making his debut as Principal Conductor, a popular and acclaimed appointment, and a stepping stone in what is sure to be a star-studded career.

Last Friday there was an interesting parallel with the 2008 concert, in that both opened with a piece by Fauré and ended with a symphony by Haydn. But while last year there were two works by Richard Strauss, this year Robin Ticciati chose to feature a couple more French composers, Poulenc and Berlioz. And you won’t hear me complaining about that, as there is such a treasury of delights in French music from the last one hundred and fifty years that are just longing to be explored.

Gabriel Fauré’s incidental music for the Maeterlinck play Pélleas et Mélisande dates from 1898. The story is awash with sadness, symbolism and emotion that the music reproduces perfectly, with solo idioms intertwined so beautifully with the plaintiff melody from the strings, in particular the oboe of Robin Williams during ‘La Fileuse’, the duet of Pippa Tunnell’s harp with Alison Mitchell’s flute for the ‘Sicilienne’ and the horn section for the final movement picturing the death of Mélisande so effectively by returning to the opening hunting scene.

At first sight it seems a bit odd to see a Flute Sonata programmed for soloist and orchestra, but Lennox Berkeley’s arrangement of the Poulenc sonata makes perfect sense; indeed it becomes a flute concerto in all bit name, and the ideal vehicle for principal flautist Alison Mitchell to demonstrate the intriguing relationship between her solo flute and her orchestral colleagues. It was enthralling to wonder where she was going to turn to next, at times wistful, at times expansive, and finally almost cheeky as Poulenc looked back to the Paris of the 1920s, an era so full of joie de vivre.

The feeling of enigma followed after the interval with the Hector Berlioz overture The Flight into Egypt from L’Enfance du Christ. Surely this cannot be Berlioz, so restrained and gentle and without the multiple percussion. But Berlioz it is, at his most expressive, beautifully interpreted by Robin Ticciati and impeccably played by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, already confident of the direction he is taking them.

Haydn is food and drink to the SCO, especially his late symphonies, the so-called London Symphonies commissioned by the impresario Salomon. Number 101 has the soubriquet ‘The Clock’ because of the ticking bassoons and pizzicato strings in the second movement. It is a symphony full of melodies and with so much of Haydn’s playfulness, especially during the menuet with its rustic band feel, as if inviting the orchestra to fall into disarray.

The A9 from Edinburgh must have been pretty busy on Friday judging by the numbers in the Directors Box, there to welcome their new signing, and they will be well pleased with the four impressive goals he scored, and even more so by the extra time goal of Debussy’s orchestration of Satie’s Gymnopédie No 3 – which Debussy called No 1, and just to confuse matters, the Gymnopédie which Satie called No 1, Debussy called No 3 – but what does it matter what number it had? At the end of the day it was the perfect piece to wind up the concert and send everyone home contented.