Music
RSNO
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
Keith Bruce
four stars
AS chief conductor designate of the Rotterdam Phil, young Israeli conductor Lahav Shani is obviously far from being an unknown quantity, but the 27-year-old's debut with the RSNO nonetheless continued Scotland's recent run of introductions to a new generation of talent.
It is also fair to guess that he would not be familiar with the Concerto for Oboe and Strings by Ralph Vaughan Williams, another of this season's showcases for the orchestra's principals, Adrian Wilson following flautist Kath Bryan to the front of the stage. The parallel did not end there, as her appropriation of The Lark Ascending for her instrument found an obvious echo in the first movement of this wartime piece, which has lovely lyrical long phrases as well as fiendishly fast passages. Especially notable was the dialogue between soloist and cellos immediately before the final folk-like melody.
Shani had begun the evening with a bracing Carnival Overture by Dvorak, leader Maya Iwabuchi in the spotlight and a fine balance between the strings and bold brass in a precision account of Bohemian colour. But anyone expecting fireworks in the conductor's reading of Beethoven's Third Symphony in the second half of the concert would have been disappointed. This was a very measured Eroica that followed naturally on from the concerto in its chamber approach, but which Shani knows intimately enough to have no need of the score.
Emphatic but never over-stated, he dictated a pace than seemed rathern more leisurely than is fashionable, his body-language dictating an initial sense of containment that later produced moments of breath-holding intensity, but was never as explosive as some might want and was all the more fascinating for it.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here