SCO Maxim Plays Mozart and Haydn Queen's Hall Edinburgh 18th January 2024 Review
SCO Maxim plays Mozart and Haydn at the Queen’s Hall tonight was a very special concert for the orchestra and musicians, as 2024 is the 50th anniversary of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. The very first performance of this then new orchestra took place on 27th January 1974 in Glasgow’s City Halls and although the whole of the 2024 season will be a birthday celebration for the SCO, the January concerts this year are a little special to everyone on and off stage.
Opening this celebration of music was Elena Langer - Suite: Figaro Gets a Divorce (2020). This work is a sequel to Mozart's 1786 opera Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) and was first performed in 2016. I have to admit that I have never seen this opera performed live or on video/streaming so my first time upon hearing this music is taking it out of its original context and, to be honest, I don’t think that matters too much as this is truly a remarkable work and one of the few modern pieces of music that has made me just want to listen to it again and again.
Here Elena Langer has taken many musical strands from different time periods and woven them into a wonderful new tapestry of sounds, colours and emotion, and from the moment that this work opens with its almost magical little nocturne and the sounds of night-time insects and birds, it is obvious that a very special talent is at work here. Elena Langer’s inspired use of everything that the percussion section of the SCO has to offer is often so subtle that by the time you recognise it, it is gone and something new takes its place.
This work might have been written for Figaro and following on in Mozart’s footsteps but it is also steeped in music and emotions that would be equally at home as the soundtrack to so many of my favourite films from the 1940s and 1950s. From romance to high drama, thrillers, to comedy, melodrama to classical musicals, it is all here and more. Woven into this mixture too are the sounds of jazz and a touch of Gershwin. Figaro may be getting a divorce but he is doing it to a wonderful musical soundtrack.
It is fitting that this work is followed by the master himself and Mozart Concerto in E-flat for two Pianos (1779). Performed by Maxim Emelyanychev and Dmitry Ablogin on harpsichords this was just fun to watch and listen to and, just as importantly, everyone performing this piece looked like they were having fun too.
Here Mozart is very democratic with the way that he has split the music up between the two pianists and you get that sense of a musical conversation taking place, often a musical call and response technique that has become the backbone of any rock band out there playing in contemporary times.
This music is the young Mozart at 23 years old making a playful statement to everyone and somehow you get that feeling that he knows just how fluent and almost effortless this music is to him to compose, but equally he knows that there is no one around him that can even come close to what he is doing no matter how they might try. Many musical elements are of their time here but also there are moments here where Mozart is playing with musical elements that others long after him will develop further.
To make this work even more special is the belief by some people that Mozart wrote this music to be first performed by himself and his sister Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia. There is a sense of sadness too that the strict social conventions of their day put a stop to everyone enjoying these two very special talents performing together live.
The final work in this evening’s programme, Haydn Symphony No 94 ‘Surprise’ (1791) is an apt title for a special birthday concert and as always Haydn is playing a few musical jokes on us all.
With tonight’s concert programme, the current members of the SCO are more than continuing the SCO’s original premise of making a diverse range of music played by some of the best musicians in their respective disciplines available to as many people as possible.
Conducting this very special concert programme this evening was Maxim Emelyanychev and as usual his passion for the music and his precision in getting exactly the sounds that he wants from the SCO was a pleasure to watch and listen to.
There were a few surprises added to this programme, but as this concert still has one performance to go tomorrow at Glasgow’s City Halls I am not telling anyone in case I spoil the surprises. This concert is also being broadcast by BBC Radio 3 "in concert" series live.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
Opening this celebration of music was Elena Langer - Suite: Figaro Gets a Divorce (2020). This work is a sequel to Mozart's 1786 opera Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) and was first performed in 2016. I have to admit that I have never seen this opera performed live or on video/streaming so my first time upon hearing this music is taking it out of its original context and, to be honest, I don’t think that matters too much as this is truly a remarkable work and one of the few modern pieces of music that has made me just want to listen to it again and again.
Here Elena Langer has taken many musical strands from different time periods and woven them into a wonderful new tapestry of sounds, colours and emotion, and from the moment that this work opens with its almost magical little nocturne and the sounds of night-time insects and birds, it is obvious that a very special talent is at work here. Elena Langer’s inspired use of everything that the percussion section of the SCO has to offer is often so subtle that by the time you recognise it, it is gone and something new takes its place.
This work might have been written for Figaro and following on in Mozart’s footsteps but it is also steeped in music and emotions that would be equally at home as the soundtrack to so many of my favourite films from the 1940s and 1950s. From romance to high drama, thrillers, to comedy, melodrama to classical musicals, it is all here and more. Woven into this mixture too are the sounds of jazz and a touch of Gershwin. Figaro may be getting a divorce but he is doing it to a wonderful musical soundtrack.
It is fitting that this work is followed by the master himself and Mozart Concerto in E-flat for two Pianos (1779). Performed by Maxim Emelyanychev and Dmitry Ablogin on harpsichords this was just fun to watch and listen to and, just as importantly, everyone performing this piece looked like they were having fun too.
Here Mozart is very democratic with the way that he has split the music up between the two pianists and you get that sense of a musical conversation taking place, often a musical call and response technique that has become the backbone of any rock band out there playing in contemporary times.
This music is the young Mozart at 23 years old making a playful statement to everyone and somehow you get that feeling that he knows just how fluent and almost effortless this music is to him to compose, but equally he knows that there is no one around him that can even come close to what he is doing no matter how they might try. Many musical elements are of their time here but also there are moments here where Mozart is playing with musical elements that others long after him will develop further.
To make this work even more special is the belief by some people that Mozart wrote this music to be first performed by himself and his sister Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia. There is a sense of sadness too that the strict social conventions of their day put a stop to everyone enjoying these two very special talents performing together live.
The final work in this evening’s programme, Haydn Symphony No 94 ‘Surprise’ (1791) is an apt title for a special birthday concert and as always Haydn is playing a few musical jokes on us all.
With tonight’s concert programme, the current members of the SCO are more than continuing the SCO’s original premise of making a diverse range of music played by some of the best musicians in their respective disciplines available to as many people as possible.
Conducting this very special concert programme this evening was Maxim Emelyanychev and as usual his passion for the music and his precision in getting exactly the sounds that he wants from the SCO was a pleasure to watch and listen to.
There were a few surprises added to this programme, but as this concert still has one performance to go tomorrow at Glasgow’s City Halls I am not telling anyone in case I spoil the surprises. This concert is also being broadcast by BBC Radio 3 "in concert" series live.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
Please note that unless requested by performers/pr/venues that this website no longer uses the "star rating" system on reviews.