Empire Theatre, Eden Court, Inverness, 21 October 2010

ALTHOUGH the audience was welcomed from the stage to the “first” concert in the new RSNO Inverness Season, perhaps the word “only” would have been more appropriate, while the catchy advertising strap-line “Bach to Elgar” was not used at all.

But it was neither Bach nor Elgar that opened the concert on Thursday in the Empire Theatre under the esteemed conductor Paul Daniel.  Rather it was the somewhat dark and muted sounds of two pieces from the incidental music that Jean Sibelius composed for the Järnefelt play Kuolema (“Death”).

The first, and lesser known, of the two, “Scene with Cranes” employed the muted strings of the RSNO to weave an eerie and atmospheric tapestry of sound signifying the hero and his love lying together until a pair of clarinets give a repeated two note motif as the cranes fly over and one carries a baby to them.

Almost without a break Daniel took the strings, with a couple of horns and timpani, into the most famous of the six pieces of Kuolema, “Valse Triste” as a dying woman dreams that she is dancing with her dead husband.  Together, the two pieces made a dark but impressive opening to the concert.

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein

Let us be charitable and accept that the second serving in less than a month to the Inverness audience of Bach’s D minor Concerto BWV1052 was an unfortunate coincidence.  In all probability the Master composed it originally for two harpsichords, played by two of his sons, and in the intervening two hundred and seventy-two years it has been treated with respect by many instrumental permutations.

Guest soloist, the American pianist Simone Dinnerstein, laid out her stall straight away and let the RSNO know how she wanted this Bach masterpiece played.  We learned in September that the sound of the harpsichord and a small ensemble of gut-strung instruments was a struggle in a space the size of the Empire Theatre.

That problem did not exist for a full-sized nine foot Steinway concert grand accompanied by the strings of the RSNO, albeit pared down to the basic twenty-four instruments of a chamber orchestra.  Whether the concerto should be played on an instrument that did not exist in Bach’s day is another question.  Suffice to say that if both Mendelssohn and Schumann performed the concerto regularly, then probably we should accept it today.

Ms Dinnerstein achieved an excellent balance with the strings in the opening allegro and showed a thoughtful feel for the almost fugal geometric shape of the music.  It is a pity that the cadenzas she chose to play were accompanied so the audience did not get the chance to hear her full soloist skills.

Her playing in the central adagio was dreamy and intensely sensitive, even melancholic, while in the final allegro she shook off that feeling and stood out more over the strings.  So why am I unconvinced by the performance?  Let me return to that in a moment.

After the interval the remaining members of the RSNO who had been lurking backstage during the first half took to the platform to add their strength to one of the most powerful of all symphonies, the Symphony No 1 in A flat major by Edward Elgar.

This is a work with an insistent imperious motif that draws the whole symphony together as it is the core of all four movements.  After a quiet introduction by the strings, Paul Daniel unleashed the gentlemen of the brass section to full effect.  The scherzo that followed led straight into the sublime adagio, one of the greatest slow movements ever written, and the whole thing was brought to a triumphant conclusion by another allegro based around that noble theme.

So what about Bach and the pianoforte?  Bear in mind that instrument did not appear until many years after Bach’s death; indeed the fortepiano only appeared near the end of his life in 1750.  Despite that, the catalogues are full of recordings of Bach’s works on solo piano, the Goldberg Variations, the Well-Tempered Klavier and others, many of them excellent.

Indeed Ms Dinnerstein shot to prominence a few years back when a private recording she had made of the Goldberg Variations was taken up and published by Telarc, going straight to the top of the classical music charts in America.  But that is a solo performance and if it works, it is fine.

To me, a modern piano and an accompaniment of an orchestra of steel strings looses the spirit of Bach’s music, although I accept that is a personal opinion.  The subtlety and gentleness of Bach is overpowered by the sheer muscle of one of the strongest musical beasts on the planet.

That raises yet another question.  In these perilous financial times, who decided that Eden Court’s fine full-size Steinway concert grand, generously donated to the theatre by MacRae and Dick, and the beneficiary of some TLC by Steinway’s craftsmen recently, was not to be used for this performance?

Ms Dinnerstein may have spent the last twenty years or so learning her craft performing in nursing homes, schools and even a prison or two, but her playing is not sufficient to make her stand out from the plethora of young musicians who would be perfectly happy with the house piano.

Instead what appeared to be a brand new piano was hired in, with a round trip of some six hundred miles, at somebody’s expense, unnecessarily.  Unless Steinway’s website is not up to date, then Simone Dinnerstein is not a contracted Steinway Artist which means that they would not contribute.  I have my suspicions as to what happened.  Probably best not to air them.

© James Munro, 2010

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