RSNO Tchaikovsky Five Usher Hall Edinburgh 17th March 2023 Review
RSNO Tchaikovsky Five at The Usher Hall Edinburgh tonight takes three works separated by some three centuries, but still all in part having a thematic connection that proves that, as far as music is concerned, little is ever new as the stories, colour and emotions that composers often struggle to interpret through their music are, at their heart, a never changing facet of the human condition.
Opening this concert programme was the most recent work by contemporary composer Anna Clyne, “This Midnight Hour” (2015). Anna Clyne is a composer who covers many areas of creativity with her work (including film and visual arts) and takes inspiration from many diverse sources. This work has its inspirational roots in two poetic works, La Musica by Juan Ramon Jimenez and Harmonie du soir (Evening Harmony) by Charles Baudelaire and, although the music is not a soundtrack to these works, the emotions and colours of them are often starting points for more areas of exploration in mood, tonality and colours.
For any lovers of Mozart, and in particular his piano concertos, the next music in tonight’s programme, Mozart Piano Concerto No12 K414 (1783) was a treat, particularly as Scotland’s very own Steven Osborne was the soloist on this work. With a very strong connection to Edinburgh (a former pupil of St Mary’s Music School), it is always a pleasure to get the chance to hear Stephen Osborne play whenever his busy international schedule of work allows him to be back on home ground. As always with Stephen, immense technical abilities combined with an obvious love of this work made along with the RSNO for a very special performance of Mozart Piano Concerto No12.
This piano concerto is interesting for me on many levels. Musically we of course have Mozart’s ability to move effortlessly from almost playful dance music to fill any ballroom to many different shades of emotion. Musicologists can, it seems, always find something new to interpret in his original score, but it is the everyday human side of Mozart that interests me as much as anything else here. Here we have a young composer moving to Vienna and looking to firmly establish himself as a musician there, trying somehow to make sure that he can earn a living for himself. To do this he creates three works (piano concertos 11, 12 and 13) to display his abilities as a composer and advertises copies of the music in his own hand for sale. For me, this is just the same as a singer/band/composer releasing a limited edition CD, vinyl record, or Youtube video today. Mozart was out there looking for work and promoting his music to achieve this.
The final performance of this evening’s music featured the title of this programme of work – Tchaikovsky Five. Here with Tchaikovsky’s Fifth symphony we have a work that is both wonderful in its scope of power and passion, but at the same time, almost at inner conflict with itself in parts. Here we have another very human face on a great composer as Tchaikovsky was at this point in time to some degree doubting his own abilities to not only create work equal to what he had written before, but to do this without repeating what he had already created. Somehow, Tchaikovsky wanted to find his way to create new musical paths for himself and his music. Given that at the time, Tchaikovsky seemed unable to please some of the elite in musical circles around him – he was either not Russian enough in his compositions, or too Russian in some of his approaches to his music for ballet - it must have seemed at times that he could please no one.
With his fifth symphony, Tchaikovsky proved not only to himself, but to others around him, that he still had that creativity and that ability to break the rules of conventional Russian compositions and create yet another work full of darkness and light, power and fragility, and somehow in this music you get an insight into his own ever changing emotional and mental states. If anyone ever has any doubt about this work, that opening sound of the French horn cutting through everything at the start of the second movement leaves no doubt that he had not only returned, but was on great compositional form.
Tonight was a bit of a sad moment though as we were to learn that this is the last series of concerts that Principal Guest Conductor Elim Chan will be performing with the RSNO, and her unique approach to working with the orchestra will be missed by everyone. There is no one rule to conducting an orchestra, no one way to perform on stage, but Elim is a very special talent. Some conductors like to overview the orchestra and conduct them almost like a general commanding their troops, but Elim is always right there with the orchestra with a very immersive and energetic performance that is so precise and expressive in its directions to the orchestra that this makes her as much a part of the music as any instrument played. Tonight was a more than fitting way for Elim Chan to say goodbye (for the moment) to the RSNO.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
Opening this concert programme was the most recent work by contemporary composer Anna Clyne, “This Midnight Hour” (2015). Anna Clyne is a composer who covers many areas of creativity with her work (including film and visual arts) and takes inspiration from many diverse sources. This work has its inspirational roots in two poetic works, La Musica by Juan Ramon Jimenez and Harmonie du soir (Evening Harmony) by Charles Baudelaire and, although the music is not a soundtrack to these works, the emotions and colours of them are often starting points for more areas of exploration in mood, tonality and colours.
For any lovers of Mozart, and in particular his piano concertos, the next music in tonight’s programme, Mozart Piano Concerto No12 K414 (1783) was a treat, particularly as Scotland’s very own Steven Osborne was the soloist on this work. With a very strong connection to Edinburgh (a former pupil of St Mary’s Music School), it is always a pleasure to get the chance to hear Stephen Osborne play whenever his busy international schedule of work allows him to be back on home ground. As always with Stephen, immense technical abilities combined with an obvious love of this work made along with the RSNO for a very special performance of Mozart Piano Concerto No12.
This piano concerto is interesting for me on many levels. Musically we of course have Mozart’s ability to move effortlessly from almost playful dance music to fill any ballroom to many different shades of emotion. Musicologists can, it seems, always find something new to interpret in his original score, but it is the everyday human side of Mozart that interests me as much as anything else here. Here we have a young composer moving to Vienna and looking to firmly establish himself as a musician there, trying somehow to make sure that he can earn a living for himself. To do this he creates three works (piano concertos 11, 12 and 13) to display his abilities as a composer and advertises copies of the music in his own hand for sale. For me, this is just the same as a singer/band/composer releasing a limited edition CD, vinyl record, or Youtube video today. Mozart was out there looking for work and promoting his music to achieve this.
The final performance of this evening’s music featured the title of this programme of work – Tchaikovsky Five. Here with Tchaikovsky’s Fifth symphony we have a work that is both wonderful in its scope of power and passion, but at the same time, almost at inner conflict with itself in parts. Here we have another very human face on a great composer as Tchaikovsky was at this point in time to some degree doubting his own abilities to not only create work equal to what he had written before, but to do this without repeating what he had already created. Somehow, Tchaikovsky wanted to find his way to create new musical paths for himself and his music. Given that at the time, Tchaikovsky seemed unable to please some of the elite in musical circles around him – he was either not Russian enough in his compositions, or too Russian in some of his approaches to his music for ballet - it must have seemed at times that he could please no one.
With his fifth symphony, Tchaikovsky proved not only to himself, but to others around him, that he still had that creativity and that ability to break the rules of conventional Russian compositions and create yet another work full of darkness and light, power and fragility, and somehow in this music you get an insight into his own ever changing emotional and mental states. If anyone ever has any doubt about this work, that opening sound of the French horn cutting through everything at the start of the second movement leaves no doubt that he had not only returned, but was on great compositional form.
Tonight was a bit of a sad moment though as we were to learn that this is the last series of concerts that Principal Guest Conductor Elim Chan will be performing with the RSNO, and her unique approach to working with the orchestra will be missed by everyone. There is no one rule to conducting an orchestra, no one way to perform on stage, but Elim is a very special talent. Some conductors like to overview the orchestra and conduct them almost like a general commanding their troops, but Elim is always right there with the orchestra with a very immersive and energetic performance that is so precise and expressive in its directions to the orchestra that this makes her as much a part of the music as any instrument played. Tonight was a more than fitting way for Elim Chan to say goodbye (for the moment) to the RSNO.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
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