EIF 2024 RSNO & Elim Chan Usher Hall 18th August Review
Royal Scottish National Orchestra & Elim Chan © Andrew Perry
Royal Scottish National Orchestra & Elim Chan at the Usher Hall tonight featured a diverse programme of music that explored different musical languages. Bringing all of this diversity together were two soloists, and the RSNO orchestra under the guidance of conductor Elim Chan.
The first music on this evening’s performance schedule was the Scottish premiere of Wynton Marsalis’ Trumpet Concerto with soloist Alison Balsom clearly demonstrating why many people consider her to be one of the best trumpet players of her generation. Any performance of this work by Wynton Marsalis is going to test both the technical and interpretative skills of any trumpeter to their limits as well as their physical endurance over its 35 minute exploration of musical themes. Here Wynton Marsalis pays homage to the great trumpeters of Jazz and wonderfully recreates over its movements those glorious sounds of the classic 1940s/1950s jazz era whilst also infusing the work with the rhythms of other musical forms, including South American dance.
I think it a fair comment to say that the next composer to have their work performed this evening, Arnold Schoenberg, can sometimes be considered “challenging” and this Piano Concerto, Op. 42 (1942) has certainly lost none of that impact over the years. To many people, this is a lot harsher in parts than they expect a piano concerto to be particularly, say, a piece from one of the great romantic composers.
Consisting of four interconnected movements, this, as we are told in tonight’s programme handout “uses the twelve-tone technique, a method pioneered by Schoenberg. It involves using all twelve pitches of the chromatic scale in order”. As unfamiliar as this work might sound in parts to many people, it does still require a pianist with exceptional technical skills to play it and the second soloist this evening, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, certainly fills that description with his performance here.
Odd, even jarring, as this work may seem initially, the fact that so many films in the decades since it was first written have used very similar music in their film scores to great effect illustrates just how far sighted Schoenberg was with his music. Any Hitchcock movie fan will feel perfectly at home with this piano concerto.
Written very closely time-wise (1950-54), the final work of this evening’s music Lutosławski Concerto for Orchestra returned us all to more familiar ground as much of its inspiration came from the melodic themes of Polish folk styles, and particularly those from the Kurpie region are often explored and celebrated. This is a work that was designed for performance by a large orchestra, and the RSNO were tonight the perfect one, along with conductor Elim Chan, to be fully exploring this work in its many musical intricacies.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
The first music on this evening’s performance schedule was the Scottish premiere of Wynton Marsalis’ Trumpet Concerto with soloist Alison Balsom clearly demonstrating why many people consider her to be one of the best trumpet players of her generation. Any performance of this work by Wynton Marsalis is going to test both the technical and interpretative skills of any trumpeter to their limits as well as their physical endurance over its 35 minute exploration of musical themes. Here Wynton Marsalis pays homage to the great trumpeters of Jazz and wonderfully recreates over its movements those glorious sounds of the classic 1940s/1950s jazz era whilst also infusing the work with the rhythms of other musical forms, including South American dance.
I think it a fair comment to say that the next composer to have their work performed this evening, Arnold Schoenberg, can sometimes be considered “challenging” and this Piano Concerto, Op. 42 (1942) has certainly lost none of that impact over the years. To many people, this is a lot harsher in parts than they expect a piano concerto to be particularly, say, a piece from one of the great romantic composers.
Consisting of four interconnected movements, this, as we are told in tonight’s programme handout “uses the twelve-tone technique, a method pioneered by Schoenberg. It involves using all twelve pitches of the chromatic scale in order”. As unfamiliar as this work might sound in parts to many people, it does still require a pianist with exceptional technical skills to play it and the second soloist this evening, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, certainly fills that description with his performance here.
Odd, even jarring, as this work may seem initially, the fact that so many films in the decades since it was first written have used very similar music in their film scores to great effect illustrates just how far sighted Schoenberg was with his music. Any Hitchcock movie fan will feel perfectly at home with this piano concerto.
Written very closely time-wise (1950-54), the final work of this evening’s music Lutosławski Concerto for Orchestra returned us all to more familiar ground as much of its inspiration came from the melodic themes of Polish folk styles, and particularly those from the Kurpie region are often explored and celebrated. This is a work that was designed for performance by a large orchestra, and the RSNO were tonight the perfect one, along with conductor Elim Chan, to be fully exploring this work in its many musical intricacies.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
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