Review: RSNO, Music of Star Wars, Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow
Jonathan Geddes, Four stars
MUCH like the Star Wars franchise itself, the RSNO’s John Williams celebrations show no signs of slowing down. This year’s event being centred around one set of films (with a few exceptions) did mean the diversity of their previous Williams shows was lost a little, but it also reaffirmed the composer’s skill at weaving together different threads in his scores, from the always thrilling bombast of the opening theme and the dynamic The Flag Parade, to gentler character pieces.
Conductor Richard Kaufman is a regular visitor to Scotland now, and possesses a genuine delight at the RSNO’s ability, something that particularly stood out during those character moments – the skittish playfulness interjected into Yoda’s Theme, the hints of the dark side that emerged during Anakin’s Theme and the romantic sweep of Han and the Princess.
A spinetingling Close Encounters of the Third Kind suite provided a diversion from adventures in a galaxy far, far away, although a lengthy suite of variations on Happy Birthday, originally composed by Williams for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, skirted rather too much towards self indulgence.
Yet an arsenal of heavy hitters were vividly brought to life, including The Rebellion Is Reborn from last year’s The Last Jedi, a typically powerful offering of hope, and you didn’t need to know your Boba Fett from your Nien Nunb to be impressed by the encore’s Imperial March, delivered with black-hearted directness.
Despite that unmistakeable power (of the dark side), the night’s finest moment occurred earlier, with the Cantina Band. A jazzy, uptempo bop, it was a delightfully flippant contrast to the grandeur of the rest of the night. The denizens of that wretched hive of scum and villainy, Mos Eisley, would surely have approved of the swinging panache with which it was performed.
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