Classical review: Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Queen’s Hall

By Carol Main
Published on Monday 19 December 2011 00:00

IN HIS first appearance directing the SCO since his appointment as one of the orchestra’s two new associate artists, violinist Alexander Janiczek brought an authority to their performance on Saturday that seemed to stem directly from his impeccable Austrian credentials.

With a programme billed as being Mozart at Christmas, Austria’s greatest musical export was in the right hands.

Joined by SCO principal viola Jane Atkins for the Sinfonia Concertante, Janiczek brought together the violin and viola lines with those of the orchestra, so that the two soloists were both part of the orchestral texture – the sinfonia – as well as out there on their own as the concertante.

Lyrical, playful, expressive and graceful, Janiczek and Atkins were a classy double act backed by the SCO in full voice, especially in the lower, darker colours of Mozart’s string writing.

String sound was beautifully unified and tight-knit in the same composer’s D major Serenade, known as the Posthorn. There’s plentiful variety and spirited energy in its seven movements, but not much heard from the posthorn itself, although at around 5ft long the instrument’s brief appearance was enough to impress.

Opening the concert, Rossini’s Overture to his opera The Silken Ladder was endearingly inconsequential, albeit a fine enough piece to showcase the SCO’s silken-like lightness of touch paving the way for what was to come.

For SCO founding timpanist Caroline Garden, the concert was also a goodbye after more than 35 years of splendid and stalwart service.

Rating: ****

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