SCO Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony Queen's Hall Edinburgh 20th March 2025 Review
SCO Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony at the Queen’s Hall tonight was one of three performed works where the music is a response to the natural world around us. The full programme of music tonight was as below, and although over 200 years separates some of this music, I doubt that the natural world and the landscapes around all of us will ever cease to inspire music and art.
KERNIS Musica Celestis (1990)
EÖTVÖS Aurora for double bass solo and string orchestra with accordion (UK Premiere)* (2019)
BEETHOVEN Symphony No 6 ‘Pastoral’ (1802-1808)
It probably makes sense to start this review with the title work of tonight’s concert, but the last one performed – BEETHOVEN Symphony No 6 ‘Pastoral’, as it is not only a perfect encapsulation of a landscape and its sounds, but also for me the Beethoven Symphony that gets us closest to the man beneath the music.
We know from letters and other sources that Beethoven loved nature, loved going for walks in the countryside and simply letting himself get immersed in the sounds, imagery and wonder of everything around him, and this work captures all of that.
Over five movements, I (arriving in the countryside), II (scene by the brook), III (country folk gathering), IV (a thunder storm) and V (cheerful shepherd’s song), Beethoven paints with music an idyllic soundscape that is perhaps now lost in time, but forever preserved in his music.
There are also moments in this work where this expansive tone-poem is interrupted with darker moments and, as we now know, Beethoven was struggling with the increasing loss of his hearing and entering times of personal despair and depression. You can only try and imagine the loss that Beethoven was feeling as his deafness got worse, making it more and more difficult for him to hear clearly not only music but the sounds of nature that he loved so much.
The fact that he produced such an overall wonderfully uplifting homage to the natural world around him at this time makes this work for me even more special.
The opening work tonight, KERNIS Musica Celestis was simply eleven minutes of sublime music. Instead of a physical landscape connection to nature, this music is steeped deeply in the almost mythical relationship between our physical world and sound as it connects to some other place and time. This is the world of wondrous sound when a woodwind instrument or a played string instrument fills the air with what we call music.
This concept of a very special sound now being somehow alive is combined with medieval church music and the angels themselves singing their special songs in never-ending voices to God. The end result is a truly timeless work of music.
EÖTVÖS Aurora for double bass solo and string orchestra with accordion had its delayed by Covid premiere with the SCO tonight. In this work Peter Eötvös takes his inspiration from witnessing the sheer majestic spectacle and power of the Aurora Borealis first hand whilst flying over Anchorage in Alaska in 1971. Giving this work the not surprising title of “Aurora”, but with an unusual composition for double bass and accordion, this music takes the listener on a very surprising and at times unsettling journey in sound.
The choice by Peter Eötvös to write this music for three double bass plus an accordion was a bold move. Having the three double bass arranged like a triangle with each one a semi-tone apart from the other plus the accordion in the centre immediately produces sounds that we are not familiar with, and the equally bold orchestration of the SCO makes this a work that for me will take another visit to in order to truly grasp many of its musical mysteries.
Spearheading this triangle of double bass was Nikita Naumov, a musician that I have always enjoyed in any performance that he has given, and this work allowed him to explore the many different technical techniques and sound possibilities that this all too often under-rated instrument is capable of. At times, “Aurora” was taking us into very avant-garde sounds, at other times touching the sounds of jazz and rockabilly, and although he seemed a little surprised by the reception given to him by the audience for his performance tonight, Nikita Naumov deserved every moment of their applause.
A special mention needs to go to Richard Egarr, conductor, who stepped in to replace the unavailable Mark Wigglesworth, and his insight into all three works performed tonight proved once again what a surprising diversity of music the SCO performs in any given season.
Review by Tom King © 2025
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
KERNIS Musica Celestis (1990)
EÖTVÖS Aurora for double bass solo and string orchestra with accordion (UK Premiere)* (2019)
BEETHOVEN Symphony No 6 ‘Pastoral’ (1802-1808)
It probably makes sense to start this review with the title work of tonight’s concert, but the last one performed – BEETHOVEN Symphony No 6 ‘Pastoral’, as it is not only a perfect encapsulation of a landscape and its sounds, but also for me the Beethoven Symphony that gets us closest to the man beneath the music.
We know from letters and other sources that Beethoven loved nature, loved going for walks in the countryside and simply letting himself get immersed in the sounds, imagery and wonder of everything around him, and this work captures all of that.
Over five movements, I (arriving in the countryside), II (scene by the brook), III (country folk gathering), IV (a thunder storm) and V (cheerful shepherd’s song), Beethoven paints with music an idyllic soundscape that is perhaps now lost in time, but forever preserved in his music.
There are also moments in this work where this expansive tone-poem is interrupted with darker moments and, as we now know, Beethoven was struggling with the increasing loss of his hearing and entering times of personal despair and depression. You can only try and imagine the loss that Beethoven was feeling as his deafness got worse, making it more and more difficult for him to hear clearly not only music but the sounds of nature that he loved so much.
The fact that he produced such an overall wonderfully uplifting homage to the natural world around him at this time makes this work for me even more special.
The opening work tonight, KERNIS Musica Celestis was simply eleven minutes of sublime music. Instead of a physical landscape connection to nature, this music is steeped deeply in the almost mythical relationship between our physical world and sound as it connects to some other place and time. This is the world of wondrous sound when a woodwind instrument or a played string instrument fills the air with what we call music.
This concept of a very special sound now being somehow alive is combined with medieval church music and the angels themselves singing their special songs in never-ending voices to God. The end result is a truly timeless work of music.
EÖTVÖS Aurora for double bass solo and string orchestra with accordion had its delayed by Covid premiere with the SCO tonight. In this work Peter Eötvös takes his inspiration from witnessing the sheer majestic spectacle and power of the Aurora Borealis first hand whilst flying over Anchorage in Alaska in 1971. Giving this work the not surprising title of “Aurora”, but with an unusual composition for double bass and accordion, this music takes the listener on a very surprising and at times unsettling journey in sound.
The choice by Peter Eötvös to write this music for three double bass plus an accordion was a bold move. Having the three double bass arranged like a triangle with each one a semi-tone apart from the other plus the accordion in the centre immediately produces sounds that we are not familiar with, and the equally bold orchestration of the SCO makes this a work that for me will take another visit to in order to truly grasp many of its musical mysteries.
Spearheading this triangle of double bass was Nikita Naumov, a musician that I have always enjoyed in any performance that he has given, and this work allowed him to explore the many different technical techniques and sound possibilities that this all too often under-rated instrument is capable of. At times, “Aurora” was taking us into very avant-garde sounds, at other times touching the sounds of jazz and rockabilly, and although he seemed a little surprised by the reception given to him by the audience for his performance tonight, Nikita Naumov deserved every moment of their applause.
A special mention needs to go to Richard Egarr, conductor, who stepped in to replace the unavailable Mark Wigglesworth, and his insight into all three works performed tonight proved once again what a surprising diversity of music the SCO performs in any given season.
Review by Tom King © 2025
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
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