RSNO Rachmaninov Two Usher Hall Edinburgh 17th May 2024 Review
RSNO and Rachmaninov Two at the Usher Hall this evening took up the whole of the second half of this musical programme. As symphonies go, at some 60 minutes performance time this is a long one, and over the years since its initial performance in 1908, many shortened versions of this work have been performed and recorded (some as short as 35 minutes).
It was a tribute then to the RSNO and conductor Patrick Hahn that we were all treated to the full four movements of this remarkable work and its full 60 minutes or so of music by Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943), who is considered by many people to be the last of the great Russian Romantic composers, and could you expect any less from someone who was a student of arguably the greatest of them all, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
Rachmaninov Symphony Two is simply THE great romantic film score written before anyone had even given a name to the genre and its use of the orchestra to create a soundscape of contrasting light and shade, strength and fragility, and what is simply an emotional roller-coaster is amazing. Here the use of six double bass create at one moment sounds so sombre that you can almost feel their despair, yet in other moments, they complement a haunting use of wind and strings that raises everyone’s spirits.
The third movement of this symphony is, though, perhaps unmatched as what a great romantic orchestral work should sound like and with a performance time of nearly 15 minutes, this wonderful work is simply decades ahead of its time with its influence being heard in so many film scores and songs yet to come. The Great American songbook owes a huge debt to Sergei Rachmaninov.
Like so many great composers, Rachmaninov seemed to tread a delicate balance in his own life between emotional lightness and darkness and you can hear all of that here too. The fact was that, despite being acclaimed as one of the finest pianists of his day and that his music was popular with so many people, he did not it seems consider himself to be a great symphonic writer. This work proves that even the great composers can be wrong sometimes.
Opening this evening’s musical performance was a work from someone who I have to admit is new to me, German composer Gottfried von Einem (1918-1996) and his Capriccio Op 2 (1943). Written under the restrictions laid down by the Nazi Party on what type of German music (in fact any music) was acceptable to be heard, free of perceived deviancy or radical thought, this Capriccio is in some ways everything that you would expect, fairly free in form and lively in character.
Here in this work there are many musical elements being woven together against a backdrop of very expected Germanic overtones, but listen a little closer and there are elements here that seem to have slipped past the authorities. Gottfried von Einem himself was not a supporter of the Nazi party and personally sheltered many of his Jewish friends from the regime, and there are moments where you wish that this almost patchwork quilt like collection of music would let some of the individual musical strands be allowed to follow their own musical paths to what often promises to be a very different musical resolution.
Following on from Einem was one of Franz Liszt’s most remarkable works, his Piano Concerto No 1 in E Flat Major, and to perform this tonight, the outstanding musical talent of one of the most in demand concert pianists of today, Vadym Kholodenko. The sheer scale of Kholodenko’s knowledge of music written for piano and the vast depth of his performance repertoire has become known to audiences across the world over his years of live and recorded performances.
This performance was many things, a display of impressive left and right hand technical skills on piano but perhaps more than that the ability to breathe life into a work. The applause from this audience tonight was justly deserved.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
It was a tribute then to the RSNO and conductor Patrick Hahn that we were all treated to the full four movements of this remarkable work and its full 60 minutes or so of music by Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943), who is considered by many people to be the last of the great Russian Romantic composers, and could you expect any less from someone who was a student of arguably the greatest of them all, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
Rachmaninov Symphony Two is simply THE great romantic film score written before anyone had even given a name to the genre and its use of the orchestra to create a soundscape of contrasting light and shade, strength and fragility, and what is simply an emotional roller-coaster is amazing. Here the use of six double bass create at one moment sounds so sombre that you can almost feel their despair, yet in other moments, they complement a haunting use of wind and strings that raises everyone’s spirits.
The third movement of this symphony is, though, perhaps unmatched as what a great romantic orchestral work should sound like and with a performance time of nearly 15 minutes, this wonderful work is simply decades ahead of its time with its influence being heard in so many film scores and songs yet to come. The Great American songbook owes a huge debt to Sergei Rachmaninov.
Like so many great composers, Rachmaninov seemed to tread a delicate balance in his own life between emotional lightness and darkness and you can hear all of that here too. The fact was that, despite being acclaimed as one of the finest pianists of his day and that his music was popular with so many people, he did not it seems consider himself to be a great symphonic writer. This work proves that even the great composers can be wrong sometimes.
Opening this evening’s musical performance was a work from someone who I have to admit is new to me, German composer Gottfried von Einem (1918-1996) and his Capriccio Op 2 (1943). Written under the restrictions laid down by the Nazi Party on what type of German music (in fact any music) was acceptable to be heard, free of perceived deviancy or radical thought, this Capriccio is in some ways everything that you would expect, fairly free in form and lively in character.
Here in this work there are many musical elements being woven together against a backdrop of very expected Germanic overtones, but listen a little closer and there are elements here that seem to have slipped past the authorities. Gottfried von Einem himself was not a supporter of the Nazi party and personally sheltered many of his Jewish friends from the regime, and there are moments where you wish that this almost patchwork quilt like collection of music would let some of the individual musical strands be allowed to follow their own musical paths to what often promises to be a very different musical resolution.
Following on from Einem was one of Franz Liszt’s most remarkable works, his Piano Concerto No 1 in E Flat Major, and to perform this tonight, the outstanding musical talent of one of the most in demand concert pianists of today, Vadym Kholodenko. The sheer scale of Kholodenko’s knowledge of music written for piano and the vast depth of his performance repertoire has become known to audiences across the world over his years of live and recorded performances.
This performance was many things, a display of impressive left and right hand technical skills on piano but perhaps more than that the ability to breathe life into a work. The applause from this audience tonight was justly deserved.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
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