Music

BBC SSO/Wigglesworth

Usher Hall, Edinburgh

Keith Bruce

five stars

IT may have been broadcast from the home of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Glasgow City Halls last week, but there can be little argument that Chief Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth’s condensed version of Wagner’s Gotterdammerung was best heard in Edinburgh’s bigger hall. Someone in the BBC must think so too, because the recording microphones were in place for this Sunday performance as well.

The fact that, as a composer, Wigglesworth brings things like this to the party was undoubtedly a factor in his appointment. My only reservation would be about his title for the 50-minute work, “Gotterdammerung – A Symphonic Journey”, not just because the “J” word is much over-used in music and the arts at the moment, but also because it is less than accurate. His skilful edit of the last part of the Ring cycle majors on the dramatic opening and closing scene and largely ignores the hours of travel in between. While the presence – and fate – of Siegfried is still there in the score, only Brunnhilde appears on stage, to sing of her own fiery end.

Soprano Katherine Broderick predictably stole the show in that role, but the manner in which she did so was no less remarkable. Nearly 40 minutes after the orchestra had begun playing, she stood and immediately soared over the vast forces behind her, only to reveal further power and majesty as her long aria unfolded and her voice – as strong in its lower register as in those powerful top notes – was accompanied by a fist-clenching gesture of defiance and triumph.

If her contribution took care of itself, as a conductor Wigglesworth clearly revelled in the vast version of the SSO in front of him, with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra providing its second timpanist and familiar RSNO faces filling out the back desks of the strings, which were on top form throughout, the cellos well-deserving of their section bow at the end. With four harps, those Wagner tubas deployed in the huge horn section, and the unique brass orchestration, all the important ingredients of this music were heard to best advantage. Of course, it was not the immersive experience of the full score, but it retained ample of its thrills.

Before the interval, the half-hour of Vers le Silence (Towards the Silence) by the orchestra’s Composer-in-Association Hans Abrahamsen, asked for barely smaller forces. There will assuredly emerge a whole genre of works shaped by the Covid-19 lockdown, but likely few on this scale.

Each of the piece’s four movements fulfilled the title, as did its overall shape, but those moments of intense quiet were preceded by a lot of very busy music as well as long held chords. Although none of it clamoured for attention, or became very loud, here was music highly evocative of recent troubled times that rewarded focused attention.