RSNO, 07/05/2016

Bartók : The Miraculous Mandarin - Suite
Stravinsky : Violin Concerto (Leticia Moreno, violin)
Stravinsky : The Rite of Spring

Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Thomas Søndergård

I've mentioned before that I consider The Miraculous Mandarin to be, in many ways, the natural child of The Rite of Spring, but it's not often you actually get to hear child and parent in the same concert, and it turned out to be eye-opening - although it didn't change my mind about the affiliation.  The orchestra threw itself into Mandarin's shrieking cacophony of the opening with gusto, and Jernej Albreht's clarinet was huskily seductive in the 'decoy games'.  For optimum impressions, however, I think I would have had to be seated in the stalls, because the strings were getting drowned out fairly systematically by woods and brass, thereby losing a little of some of the more eerie aspects of the piece.  Nevertheless, Søndergård gave it an exciting reading, despite a little instability at the start of the last section.

The cool sophistication of Stravinsky's Violin Concerto came as a sharp, refreshing palate cleanser between the violent, vivid outer courses, but although I appreciated the quality of Leticia Moreno's tone, it was also too muted, and for much of the first two movements, I found her hard to hear over the orchestra.  It was only in the third movement, Aria II, and in the final Capriccio that she really came into her own, stately and eloquent in the former, and playfully ironic in the latter.

Listening to The Rite of Spring after The Miraculous Mandarin, what was really apparent from the outset was the difference between a 20th Century masterpiece, and a work of genius that altered the course of music for all time.  The balance difficulties that had bothered me in Mandarin simply did not exist in the Stravinsky, even though it calls for nearly twice the combined wind and brass forces of the Bartók.  The textures of the orchestra came through in all their astonishing diversity, from the famous, plangent bassoon solo of the opening to the final chord.  The sense of ritual throughout was very strong at all times, whether the music floated, dream-like, or stamped brutally.  Either way, any way, Søndergård was completely successful in evoking something primeval and inevitable, and bringing all the orchestra's colours and textures to bear at precisely the right moment, in the right way.  This was an excellent performance, visceral and gripping, exactly as it should be.

[Next : 12th May]