OneTouch Theatre, Eden Court, Inverness, 17 April 2012

PERHAPS it is the expressive quality of sound that ultimately defines music, rather than words like Classical, Modern or Romantic which fail to capture the timelessness of human experience we feel when listening to it.

IN THEIR final concert tour of the 11/12 Season the Scottish Ensemble moved ingeniously backwards in time. Starting in 1969 with Ligeti’s Ramifications, through works by Webern, Debussy, Bruckner, Mendelssohn and concluding with J.S.Bach’s much loved Violin Concerto in E Major, Inversions was a fitting finale to an outstanding year of Scottish Ensemble performances.

Jonathan Morton (photo Tommy Ga-Ken Wan)

Like paintings in an exhibition, juxtaposition of work from different eras creates unexpected associations and discoveries, heightening appreciation of colour, texture and composition of individual works. Each successive piece in the Inversions programme succeeded in illuminating previously unheard qualities in the next.

The opening work, Ramifications by Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti, presented an aural span of pure texture and varyied density with half of the string ensemble tuned at a different pitch to the other. The result was unexpected richness, an atmospheric soundscape humming in variable tone, opening into a wider vibration of sound and imaginative exploration. Variation of rhythm and orchestration create an incredibly subtle interior world with its own spatial quality; groupings of strings which take flight and then go into free fall, beautifully articulate interludes which pivot on the bow, the low scraped resonance of cello and double bass and tones so light and exquisitely high in spirit as to be barely audible.

It is easy to see why Ligeti’s music has been favoured in the cinema; in the films of Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut, and more recently in films such as Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island and Sophie Fiennes documentary on Anselm Kiefer, Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow.

Hearing Ligeti first brought out unforeseen resonance in Webern’s Five Movements for String Orchestra, op. 5 (1909). The distillation of Webern’s musical language heightening the expressivity of each movement, especially when contrasted with the aural soundscape and spatial dimension of Ramifications. From Webern’s first movement, ‘Heftig bewegt’, there is surprisingly a feeling of almost symphonic expansion; beginning characteristically with sparseness and agitation but continuously evolving in wonderfully nuanced ways.

The second movement, ‘Sehr langsam’, in its opening dialogue between viola, violin and cellos is acutely sensitive, while the third movement, ‘Sehr bewegt’, lasting only 41 seconds, is intensely dynamic in its economy. Webern’s Five Movements revealed itself in this performance as a richly layered gestural work, at times strikingly lyrical and melodic, powerfully articulated, a series of musical expressions that cannot be easily boxed in by whatever we think Atonal music means.

Removed from the constraints of classification, their perceived position in the canon and standard programming which all too frequently presents like with like, composer and work become liberated from preconceptions and invigorated by new associations in the mind of the listener. Similarly the following piece, a new arrangement of Debussy’s String Quartet in G Minor, op. 10 (1893) by the Ensemble’s Artistic Director, Jonathan Morton, defied expectation in its depth and density, as a work of immersion rather than illusion.

Beginning with a mellow, unified dance-like movement shimmering with light, the proceeding instrumentation expands our frame of reference: the pairing of violins and viola duet in the third movement, solos by cello and violin in the fourth for example, create a soulful, expressively varied and satisfying work beyond aural Impressionism. Arguably alongside the Webern, our experience of Debussy is sharpened, our hearing honed to listening.

Bruckner’s Adagio from String Quintet in F Major followed, a deeply sonorous and heartfelt work of repose and ascension, the lushness of Debussy making way for the ebb and flow of Brucker’s only mature chamber piece. There is something intensely vulnerable at the heart of this work which was realised beautifully in this performance, notably in Catherine Marwood’s viola playing.

Experience giving way to youth, Mendelssohn’s Sinfonia no 10 in B Minor (1823), written when he was just 14, contains echoes of his predecessors Haydn and Mozart in the opening ‘Adagio’ coupled with the precocious ‘Allegro’ that follows, bursting with energy and positively galloping towards its conclusion. Form meets feeling in Mendelssohn’s burgeoning orchestral palette and this youthful enthusiasm struck a universal chord with the audience.

Not even a broken string could suppress Jonathan Morton’s solo performance of Bach’s Violin Concerto in E Major! The joyous exuberance and energy of this work in its first and final movements felt like pure celebration, while the sublime second movement ‘Adagio’ attained a stillness and soulful depth clearly understood by the soloist.

The beauty of live musical performance lies in communication between the artist/composer, musician and audience that defies centuries, age and learning.
When we strip the labels away we’re left with how a piece of music makes us feel, immediately and instinctually. Inversions is a refreshing invitation to trust those instincts.

© Georgina Coburn, 2012

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