Classical review: Scottish Chamber Orchestra - Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh

By SUSAN NICKALLS
Published on 22/10/2012 02:34

IN THESE straitened times, it’s heartening to see the SCO continuing to commission new works, such as Lyell Cresswell’s Triple Concerto, given its world premiere by the orchestra and the Swiss Piano Trio.

Scottish Chamber Orchestra

Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh

* * *

The Edinburgh-based New Zealand composer is adept at taking a small amount of material, in this instance a handful of jaggard chords announced by the piano trio, and using it as thematic bedrock.

Cresswell has a long history of working with the SCO and its players, which was evident in the fluid Corrente, where bassist Nikita Naumov enjoyed some funky riffs. It was in dynamic passages like this, when the orchestra and trio took up a robust dialogue with each other that the music really gelled.

While the trio’s dream-like distillations of the theme provided a contrast in the slower sections of this eight-movement work, ultimately these lengthy digressions created an uncomfortable disconnect with the orchestra.

Debussy’s Five Preludes and Ravel’s Mother Goose both started out as works for piano. Although Hans Zender’s imaginative arrangements of the preludes were sumptuous, their transformation from Gauloises intimacy to Gershwinesque glitz failed to match their enigmatic beauty.

Mother Goose, which Ravel developed into a ballet, was an altogether different proposition. Conductor Baldur Bronnimann and the orchestra brought this magical fairy-tale world to life with a spell-binding performance.