SCO Beethoven Symphony 7 Queen's Hall Edinburgh 29th February 2024 Review
SCO Beethoven Symphony No 7 with Lorenza Borrani at the Queen’s Hall Edinburgh tonight was a reminder that in music there is no such thing as a fixed point in time, as composers often look back to the music of earlier years for inspiration whilst also at times forging completely new and unexpected musical paths and sounds which are so different from their contemporaries that it is sometimes left to those who come after them to rediscover their work and take it to the next progressive level.
Tonight with the opening music from Bruno Maderna (1920 to 1973) we have, with work from his Suite ‘Odhecaton’, a very modernist composer who amongst other things was an early experimenter in electronic music, looking backwards for inspiration from music of the Renaissance period that was published in the ‘Odhecaton’ in 1501. The end result of this music of two suites of miniature movements re-arranged for a contemporary (1950) orchestra still captures that feeling, that atmosphere, that I imagine people of 450 years earlier responded to and at times a formal, but at the same time free expression of dance and fun.
That retrospective look at music continued with the second work of this evening, BEETHOVEN (arr MAHLER) Quartet in F minor ‘Serioso’. Here Mahler is paying his musical tribute to his great musical hero, Beethoven, and taking music that was originally written for the then relatively new format of a string quartet and expanding that sound to a larger orchestral soundscape. The response that Mahler got at the time to this work was not a good one and this work fell into musical obscurity until the mid-1980s.
Why this work got such a poor public reception first time around is a bit of a mystery to me as it is an exceptional musical exploration of instrumental technique, complex arrangements, and often the unexpected as we explore new colours and textures here. Whether Mahler has captured Beethoven’s own state of mind and personality in expanding this work is another question altogether though. Is the original arrangement closer to the personality and feelings? Probably yes.
Sometimes it is interesting to get a musician’s overview of the work that is about to be performed, so it was good at the start of tonight’s music to have a quick overview of what we were about to hear and just how difficult to play from a technical point of view ‘Serioso’ is, particularly for a violinist. Despite this level of technical difficulty, Florence-born violinist Lorenza Borrani still gave an impressive performance on violin whilst also directing (from violin) the SCO.
The final work from this programme, Beethoven’s Seventh, is probably the work which most people in the audience are most familiar with tonight, and again Lorenza Borrani has, as with the other works performed tonight, brought her own insight to this music. This work is also in some ways the opposite of the two previous works as this is Beethoven the composer not looking backwards, but looking forwards in his music and creating something that was for its time often bold and new, so much so that many people are today still delighting in exploring his creativity here.
This work from 1811-1812 is from a period when Beethoven had many personal issues in his own life, including coming to terms with his worsening loss of hearing. To some people at the time this work had military overtones (something that Beethoven was not too happy with) and in parts they may be right. Above all though this work is an odd contradiction at times to Beethoven’s personal state of mind and health as it is in so many places a celebration of rhythm and dance and just full of the joy of being alive.
Three very different works, three very different approaches to creating music, but all brought to life by SCO with Lorenza Borrani.
As a little footnote to this review I cannot help but wonder that as we now live in a world where all too many musicians, music publishers and copyright holders will go to court for the slightest perceived use of any part of their music by another person (often now just a few notes, or even trying to copyright a musical scale), will today’s musicians ever have that freedom to look back in time and rediscover and reinterpret what has gone before them?
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
Tonight with the opening music from Bruno Maderna (1920 to 1973) we have, with work from his Suite ‘Odhecaton’, a very modernist composer who amongst other things was an early experimenter in electronic music, looking backwards for inspiration from music of the Renaissance period that was published in the ‘Odhecaton’ in 1501. The end result of this music of two suites of miniature movements re-arranged for a contemporary (1950) orchestra still captures that feeling, that atmosphere, that I imagine people of 450 years earlier responded to and at times a formal, but at the same time free expression of dance and fun.
That retrospective look at music continued with the second work of this evening, BEETHOVEN (arr MAHLER) Quartet in F minor ‘Serioso’. Here Mahler is paying his musical tribute to his great musical hero, Beethoven, and taking music that was originally written for the then relatively new format of a string quartet and expanding that sound to a larger orchestral soundscape. The response that Mahler got at the time to this work was not a good one and this work fell into musical obscurity until the mid-1980s.
Why this work got such a poor public reception first time around is a bit of a mystery to me as it is an exceptional musical exploration of instrumental technique, complex arrangements, and often the unexpected as we explore new colours and textures here. Whether Mahler has captured Beethoven’s own state of mind and personality in expanding this work is another question altogether though. Is the original arrangement closer to the personality and feelings? Probably yes.
Sometimes it is interesting to get a musician’s overview of the work that is about to be performed, so it was good at the start of tonight’s music to have a quick overview of what we were about to hear and just how difficult to play from a technical point of view ‘Serioso’ is, particularly for a violinist. Despite this level of technical difficulty, Florence-born violinist Lorenza Borrani still gave an impressive performance on violin whilst also directing (from violin) the SCO.
The final work from this programme, Beethoven’s Seventh, is probably the work which most people in the audience are most familiar with tonight, and again Lorenza Borrani has, as with the other works performed tonight, brought her own insight to this music. This work is also in some ways the opposite of the two previous works as this is Beethoven the composer not looking backwards, but looking forwards in his music and creating something that was for its time often bold and new, so much so that many people are today still delighting in exploring his creativity here.
This work from 1811-1812 is from a period when Beethoven had many personal issues in his own life, including coming to terms with his worsening loss of hearing. To some people at the time this work had military overtones (something that Beethoven was not too happy with) and in parts they may be right. Above all though this work is an odd contradiction at times to Beethoven’s personal state of mind and health as it is in so many places a celebration of rhythm and dance and just full of the joy of being alive.
Three very different works, three very different approaches to creating music, but all brought to life by SCO with Lorenza Borrani.
As a little footnote to this review I cannot help but wonder that as we now live in a world where all too many musicians, music publishers and copyright holders will go to court for the slightest perceived use of any part of their music by another person (often now just a few notes, or even trying to copyright a musical scale), will today’s musicians ever have that freedom to look back in time and rediscover and reinterpret what has gone before them?
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
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