THIS was a concert where nothing was quite what it seemed, with composers stepping into the shoes of other composers with varying degrees of success. Scriabin wrote predominantly keyboard music, so Oliver Knussen, also conducting the Scottish Chamber
Orchestra, arranged five of his favourite piano pieces by the composer for orchestra. Individually these miniatures were charming, but collectively they lacked cohesion and ultimately veered more towards Knussen than Scriabin.
David Matthews had gone to some effort to use the same instrumentation as Janacek for his orchestral arrangement of the Czech composer's piano pieces, On the Overgrown Path, Book 1. Although he orchestrates well and creates some interesting images – particularly in the sparsely scored In Tears – Matthews's music is more quintessentially English than Bohemian Czech.
The most successful piece of the evening was Stravinsky's The Fairy's Kiss, written for a ballet and based on Tchaikovsky's piano music and songs.
Uncannily, he seems to get right under Tchaikovsky's skin, effortlessly reproducing these expansive tunes and magical backdrop of rippling harps and chirpy flutes. But despite a consummate performance by the SCO, the work felt lengthy and episodic without the visual accompaniment of the dance for which it was written.
The full article contains 204 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
