Music: SCO/van Soeterstede City Halls, Glasgow Keith Bruce four stars
AFTER appearances in the same venue conducting the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, this was the Scottish Chamber Orchestra debut of French conductor Chloe van Soeterstede.
Trained at Manchester’s Royal Northern College of Music, she is now in great demand across Europe, and the added attraction for this concert was soloist Karen Cargill, singing Berlioz’s Les nuits d’ete.
The mezzo-soprano is currently working with young singers from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, the fruits of their residency at Drumlanrig Castle being heard on Saturday April 29 at Trinity Church in Cumnock as part of the year-round programme of Sir James MacMillan’s Cumnock Tryst – and the students made their presence known on Friday with vocal enthusiasm for their mentor.
It was the fourth song, L’absence, that set the template for the composer’s orchestration of his setting of the verses of Theophile Gautier, and its specific character still stands out, but the whole set is a marvellous showcase for Cargill’s voice from its rich lower register to the soaring heights. She has a particular skill in French lyrics too, and the conversational hesitations in the closing song, L’ile inconnue, brought the first half of the concert to a particularly satisfying conclusion.
The Berlioz was preceded by the First Symphony (of eight) by German composer Emilie Mayer, highly regarded in her 19th century lifetime, but neglected now.
Van Soeterstede was understandably dismissive of the contemporary description of her as “the female Beethoven”, but there was no disguising her debt to him in the opening of the work, while the slow second movement is more in the style of Haydn or Mozart.
It is in the Scherzo that the work really comes into its own, with abrupt changes of tempo and tone both playful and very modern sounding, while the Finale brings both modes together in winning combination.
After the interval it was Beethoven himself, and an account of the Symphony No 8 that will live long in the memory. Many conductors leave it until the Allegro vivace fourth movement to turn up the “rhythm” dial on their interpretation, but that was van Soeterstede’s emphasis from the very start.
The precise accented playing here was the SCO strings at their very best, and that was as true of the more melodious second movement as well, while first cello Philip Higham richly deserved his solo bow for his role in the darker-hued third.
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