SCO Four Seasons with Pekka Kuusisto Usher Hall Edinburgh 7th March 2024 Review
SCO The Four Seasons with Pekka Kuusisto at the Usher Hall tonight took one of the most widely known works in the history of classical music and gave it a new and fresh twist whilst also clearly demonstrating that music can simply be just fun.
In this programme of music, Vivaldi’s famous homage to nature, the seasons, and human activity relating to both has become the framework which holds together other works of a similar subject matter. The end result is a wider soundscape of the natural world around us in which the calls and the songs of birds take centre stage.
Unlike many composers, Vivaldi was not abstract or vague with his compositions and left many detailed notes in his original scores to be very clear on what his thoughts were on the soundscape that he was creating. Despite this detail though, Vivaldi’s music is so wide in its range of colours, emotions and possibilities that a seemingly endless number of musicians and creatives in other artistic genres have found something new in his work and something fresh that they can bring to it. Like a classic novel whose story and characters can be endlessly reworked and still retain the original essence of the work, Vivaldi’s music allows the same scope for reinterpretation.
Tonight’s re-working of the Four Seasons is the vision of Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto, and Swedish multi-instrumentalist Ale Carr playing what has become his signature instrument, the cittern, one of the few metal strung instruments of the Renaissance period. Both Pekka Kuusisto and Ale Carr share a love of traditional Nordic music and this is interwoven into this expanded Four Seasons along with work from Italian composer Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936) and contemporary Swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi.
Like the four seasons of the natural world itself, tonight’s music is also cyclical and the skilful arrangements of this music are blending seamlessly together across musical time itself. For his homage to nature’s first great singers, birds, Ottorino Respighi’s Gli ucelli (The Birds) from 1928 is drawing upon the musical sounds of French, Dutch and Italian pieces from the 17th and 18th centuries for his inspiration, and the playfulness of this work as you hear birds’ song from the SCO moving back and forwards across the stage was just a pleasure to hear.
Contemporary music from Andrea Tarrodi and her 2008 Birds of Paradise really has no fixed point in time, it is simply a beautiful and timeless work which I could happily listen to at any season of the year. This work would also, I think, surprise anyone who thought for some reason that classical music was not for them. Again, this genre-defying music may be classified as classical but it is simply wonderful music that has no real classification, simply music that soothes and brings joy to the listener, and the SCO musicians were so obviously enjoying playing both this work and Ottorino Respighi’s.
The central work holding everything together, Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons from 1718-1720 is of course a work that everyone on stage tonight will have performed many times as it is now such a central part of the classical music repertoire and an almost obligatory right of passage for any self respecting violinist.
Pekka Kuusisto is a very special musical talent and as well as the warmth of his introduction to the music tonight and the, at times very sharp, humorous moments that he often shared with the audience this evening, his technical and interpretive skills as a violinist are impressive. What really makes Pekka Kuusisto special though is his love of such a diverse range of music and his ability to effortlessly shift from classical to Nordic folk musical styles. How many times are you going to get the opportunity to hear a Nordic folk tune played on an Antonio Stradivari Golden Period c 1705 violin?
The cittern may not have been an instrument in Vivaldi’s original score for The Four Season, but when you hear Ale Carr playing it, you sort of wish that it had always been there. Again, Ale Carr has that musical fluidity to move in and out of classical and folk music whenever he wants to do so.
This concert is one of the reasons why I like the SCO so much. The orchestra is always willing to experiment with music and so often, as tonight, brings something new and completely unexpected to the stage.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
In this programme of music, Vivaldi’s famous homage to nature, the seasons, and human activity relating to both has become the framework which holds together other works of a similar subject matter. The end result is a wider soundscape of the natural world around us in which the calls and the songs of birds take centre stage.
Unlike many composers, Vivaldi was not abstract or vague with his compositions and left many detailed notes in his original scores to be very clear on what his thoughts were on the soundscape that he was creating. Despite this detail though, Vivaldi’s music is so wide in its range of colours, emotions and possibilities that a seemingly endless number of musicians and creatives in other artistic genres have found something new in his work and something fresh that they can bring to it. Like a classic novel whose story and characters can be endlessly reworked and still retain the original essence of the work, Vivaldi’s music allows the same scope for reinterpretation.
Tonight’s re-working of the Four Seasons is the vision of Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto, and Swedish multi-instrumentalist Ale Carr playing what has become his signature instrument, the cittern, one of the few metal strung instruments of the Renaissance period. Both Pekka Kuusisto and Ale Carr share a love of traditional Nordic music and this is interwoven into this expanded Four Seasons along with work from Italian composer Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936) and contemporary Swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi.
Like the four seasons of the natural world itself, tonight’s music is also cyclical and the skilful arrangements of this music are blending seamlessly together across musical time itself. For his homage to nature’s first great singers, birds, Ottorino Respighi’s Gli ucelli (The Birds) from 1928 is drawing upon the musical sounds of French, Dutch and Italian pieces from the 17th and 18th centuries for his inspiration, and the playfulness of this work as you hear birds’ song from the SCO moving back and forwards across the stage was just a pleasure to hear.
Contemporary music from Andrea Tarrodi and her 2008 Birds of Paradise really has no fixed point in time, it is simply a beautiful and timeless work which I could happily listen to at any season of the year. This work would also, I think, surprise anyone who thought for some reason that classical music was not for them. Again, this genre-defying music may be classified as classical but it is simply wonderful music that has no real classification, simply music that soothes and brings joy to the listener, and the SCO musicians were so obviously enjoying playing both this work and Ottorino Respighi’s.
The central work holding everything together, Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons from 1718-1720 is of course a work that everyone on stage tonight will have performed many times as it is now such a central part of the classical music repertoire and an almost obligatory right of passage for any self respecting violinist.
Pekka Kuusisto is a very special musical talent and as well as the warmth of his introduction to the music tonight and the, at times very sharp, humorous moments that he often shared with the audience this evening, his technical and interpretive skills as a violinist are impressive. What really makes Pekka Kuusisto special though is his love of such a diverse range of music and his ability to effortlessly shift from classical to Nordic folk musical styles. How many times are you going to get the opportunity to hear a Nordic folk tune played on an Antonio Stradivari Golden Period c 1705 violin?
The cittern may not have been an instrument in Vivaldi’s original score for The Four Season, but when you hear Ale Carr playing it, you sort of wish that it had always been there. Again, Ale Carr has that musical fluidity to move in and out of classical and folk music whenever he wants to do so.
This concert is one of the reasons why I like the SCO so much. The orchestra is always willing to experiment with music and so often, as tonight, brings something new and completely unexpected to the stage.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
Please note that unless requested by performers/pr/venues that this website no longer uses the "star rating" system on reviews.