Empire Theatre, Eden Court, Inverness, 24 February 2012

MODERN convention demands that at least one piece in a concert, usually a fairly modern composition, should make the audience think.

Fair enough, for without such a policy classical music would stagnate over time. But if you want to fill the concert hall, then promoting three well-loved works from the second half of the 19th century is guaranteed to succeed, and if they are performed with the level of perfection that Eden Court witnessed here then you get a concert that had the audience buzzing with delight.

Violinist Alexandra Soumm

Personally, two of the pieces called on me to go through some form of Damascene conversion. As a callow youth I used to enthuse about the music of Tchaikovsky. Then about forty years ago I saw Ken Russell’s biopic The Music Lovers, and my enthusiasm evaporated like the mist, and worst of all was the memory of the Panavision enhanced actress Glenda Jackson, totally unclad, rolling about on the floor of a compartment on a railway train with her grunts and groans coming out of every loudspeaker in the cinema, accompanied by Tchaikovsky’s fantasy overture Romeo and Juliet. Is it any wonder that the only recording in my CD collection was still in its cellophane, until today?

Thank you BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and conductor Stefan Solyom for exorcising the spectre, for lancing the boil, for reminding me what a great piece of music this overture really is. Every expression was released, the conflict between the Montagues and the Capulets, rushing sword fights, the ponderous Friar Lawrence and most of all the tenderness of the two star-crossed lovers and the tragedy of their deaths.

My memories of the G minor Violin Concerto by Max Bruch are somewhat less traumatic, for the Adagio was played at my marriage while we signed the register. Even so, never did I expect to hear the whole concerto played the way it was by the young Alexandra Soumm. It just seemed to explode out of her in an unceasing wave of joyous abandon.

Born in Russia, raised in France, musically trained in Austria, the petite and charismatic violinist is a major star of the future. She plays a beautiful late 18th century Guadagnini violin that seems almost huge beside her, and the sound she conjures out of it is huge also, huge in expression, huge in projection and huge in interpretation. Every note, every line, every nuance was crafted beautifully as she let the music fly out into the audience.

In a pre-concert talk, Alexandra admitted that the Bruch was one of her favourite concertos in her repertoire, and that rapport between artist and concerto shone through from start to finish. And it did no harm to the performance that the BBC SSO and Stefan Solyom were in cracking form as well, responding and supporting in perfect harmony.
After a performance like that, there was no way that Alexandra was going to get away without playing an encore, and the one she chose made huge demands on her, stretching her fingers on the violin to an extent that nature says should be impossible.

The second of the Op 27 Sonatas by the Belgian composer Eugène Ysaÿe is dedicated to the violinist Jacques Thibaud, and is meant to reflect his playing style. The final movement is marked very appropriately Allegretto furioso, but it was mastered absolutely by Alexandra Soumm.

Stefan Solyom (photo Brita Nordholm)

There were no premonitions hanging over me like a cloud for the symphony after the interval, for Antonin Dvorak is a composer who generates nothing but pleasure. Perhaps the G major Symphony No 8 is overshadowed by the more famous E minor “From The New World”, but the Eighth is the one that packs in all Dvorak’s native Bohemian themes rather than the American inspiration of the Ninth.

Maestro Solyom may be Swedish, but he knows this symphony intimately, so much so that he conducted without a score, and the BBC SSO rose to the occasion, producing a wonderful sound. There were delightful moments, such as the brief solo by guest leader David Alberman during the allegretto and the opening of the final allegro with the trumpet fanfare from Mark O’Keefe, to which the lower strings replied sounding like chocolate and cream wrapped in velvet.

The success, or otherwise, of a concert can be gauged by the chatter of the audience as they leave at the end. On that basis, this concert scored very highly indeed, and the good news is that the same orchestra is back in Inverness on 30 March with a programme of four works every bit as enjoyable as the three presented on Friday, and featuring the wonderful Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations. See you there!

© James Munro, 2012

Links

• BBC SSO