Rating: 4/5
Conductor Robin Ticciati’s approach to the performance of the music of Antonin Dvorak, the major focus of the new SCO season, may take a little getting used to, but promises to be persuasive. That is the lesson to take from a performance of the Eighth Symphony that adopted a brisk, even clipped, approach to note values that made the melodies of the piece arresting in a different way. If that meant that the work’s slow movement was less lush than is often the case, it only seemed to enhance the drama of the finale – and the narrative of the piece as a whole.
With Mitsuko Uchida playing Mozart’s last piano concerto also in the programme, and one of the earliest examples of the orchestral imagination of Hector Berlioz to begin, this was a rich feast indeed, rewarded with the size of audience that should be greeting the SCO in this hall every week.
The Overture to Les Francs-Juges, an opera that was never staged and is now lost, culminated in some fine brass playing, and was a marker that there is no repertoire beyond the reach of the SCO. It stood in contrast to the B-flat concerto No27 which Uchida performed with the stylish relaxed poise and precision of which she is uniquely capable. With the SCO strings sounding superb, Ticciati took a softer line on tempo, rhythm and dynamics than is often the case. The focus was always on the pianist, but the ensemble comes instinctively to this partnership.
That family feel extended to the emotional farewell accorded principle bassoon Peter Whelan, whose final appearance with the orchestra this was as he departs to concentrate on other facets of his diverse musical career. His contribution to the SCO’s sound will be a tough one to replace.
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