The top 20 ...Scottish Classical Music Events of All Time

Published on Friday 30 March 2007 01:05

CHOOSING the top 20 classical and opera performances of all time in Scotland - as we have done all this week - was never going to be easy, nor conclusive. The legacy lies in the individual memory, or someone else's memory in writing.

Here, though, was an opportunity to consider the furthest-reaching moments in Scottish musical history. The task was not to simply judge a piece of music, but to assess the quality of a performance together with the significance and context of its presentation.

I am indebted to our panel of experts. Conrad Wilson was staff music critic of The Scotsman for 27 years, and has attended every Edinburgh Festival since it began. John Currie has directed all of Scotland's major choruses, working with all the great conductors in the process. Hugh Macdonald is a former head of music at BBC Scotland as well as the former director of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

KENNETH WALTON

4The night amateurs stole the show

THE TROJANS, KING'S THEATRE, GLASGOW, 1935

THE cult of Berlioz has long been stronger here than in his native France, and there's a good case for the claim that British enthusiasm was first kindled in Glasgow in 1935 when the enterprising Erik Chisholm conducted the British premiere of Berlioz's huge opera, The Trojans.

Young Chisholm was undaunted by even the biggest musical challenge, for as well as bringing world-famous musicians such as Bartk and Hindemith to Scotland for the Active Society, his work with the amateur Glasgow Grand Opera saw an astonishing series of British premieres, including Mozart's Idomeneo.

For The Trojans at the King's Theatre, Chisholm had professional soloists but an amateur orchestra, which must have been sorely stretched by the demands of Berlioz's five-hour marathon. Yet the performance was judged enough of a success to prompt a reassessment of the idea that the work was an unperformable failure.

"Glasgow Amateurs Arouse Envy of Musical World" ran one headline, and among the many leading musicians who journeyed north from London for the occasion were Hamilton Harty and Ernest Newman. Chisholm had invited Sir Thomas Beecham too, but he rudely declined, questioning how this "whipper-snapper" could attempt such a massive undertaking. Beecham himself would conduct it eventually, but Chisholm paved the way.

HUGH MACDONALD

3Demanding, but breathtaking

STOCKHAUSEN'S GRUPPEN, ST ANDREW'S HALL, GLASGOW, AUTUMN 1961

"RUBBISH!", shouted the man to my left as the music finished. The year was 1961; the venue was Glasgow's late-lamented St Andrew's Hall, set out for the British premiere of Gruppen, an extraordinary work for three orchestras and three conductors by the young Karlheinz Stockhausen, enfant terrible of the avant garde.

The audience was confined to the gallery. On the main floor were the Scottish National Orchestra (conducted by Alexander Gibson), and the BBC Scottish Orchestra (conducted by Normal del Mar), and on another platform, yet another symphony orchestra (conducted by John Carewe).

The occasion marked the launch of Musica Viva, a bold contemporary music series based on a similar one in Liverpool, and a clear example of how Glasgow, in this particular area of music making, was streets ahead of the London orchestras.

Gruppen was impressive in textural terms, its complex atonal sounds batted from one orchestra to the other. At one point, huge brass "chords" swept like an earthquake from band to band.

After the short-lived Musica Viva came its successor Musica Nova, a co-operation between the SNO and Glasgow University, and a generation of new Scottish music which London could only dream about.

JOHN CURRIE

2Premiere offered an Eighth wonder

MAHLER'S EIGHTH SYMPHONY, USHER HALL, EDINBURGH, 22 AUGUST 1965

MAHLER'S Eighth is the symphony of symphonies, and Alexander Gibson, entrusted with its Scottish premiere, was determined to do it justice.

It was the first time the Scottish National Orchestra, not yet honoured with its royal title, had been invited to give the Edinburgh International Festival's opening concert, but the music was not to be presented as an outsize "Symphony of a Thousand", as the work was freakishly nicknamed.

To present it as a masterpiece, decreed Lord Harewood in his final year as director of the festival, was all that mattered.

But since Scotland at the time had no chorus up to the task, on Gibson's advice a new Festival Chorus was recruited and trained by Arthur Oldham - with such success that it has been a Scottish asset ever since.

Gibson, a poetic Mahlerian, did the symphony proud, with an octet of soloists including Heather Harper, Janet Baker and Vilem Pribyl, the Czech tenor who had enriched the Prague Opera's visit to the festival the previous year.

The RSNO has opened the EIF many times since, but never with quite such nationalistic pride or fervour as on that sonorous summer evening.

CONRAD WILSON

1

Beginning a new cycle

WAGNER'S RING CYCLE, KING'S THEATRE GLASGOW, 13-18 DECEMBER 1971

DID anyone not expect a Ring cycle to top this poll? It would have to be good, of course, as well as extravagant. And within the annals of Scottish Opera (if we ignore Richard Jones' curtailed 1990s Ring, and touring productions from earlier in the 20th century) there were two to choose from: Tim Albery's intelligent production of 2003, mounted in collaboration with the Edinburgh Festival; and the original Scottish Opera Ring of 1971, engineered by the dynamic team of director Peter Ebert, musical director Alexander Gibson and designer Michael Knight.

In the end, we went with the earlier project, for several reasons. Firstly, it was ground-breaking - a major benchmark for a national opera company approaching its 10th birthday. Secondly, it had been hugely anticipated over a six-year period, its four constituent operas featuring exceptional performances by David Ward as Wotan, Helga Dernesch as Brnnhilde, Ticho Parly as Siegfried and local lad Bill McCue as Fasolt.

And, finally, it heralded that magical moment when the musical world took note of Scottish Opera as a force to be reckoned with, despite the constraints of Glasgow's King's Theatre, where rehearsals were frequently disrupted by conflicting preparations for the theatre's annual pantomime season.

It was an unqualified triumph for Gibson, who had clearly had the work in his sights since the day he left Sadler's Wells to return to Scotland and rejuvenate the Scottish National Orchestra before founding his beloved opera company. "As good a Ring as in many a German opera house," reported the Financial Times.

The production's success helped fire the inspiration for a proper opera house in Glasgow, and Scottish Opera's subsequent purchase and refurbishment of the Theatre Royal. Anyone who saw it can recall it instantly.

KENNETH WALTON

REST OF THE TOP 20

5 Mahler's Song of the Earth, Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 1-12 September, 1947

6 Bluebeard's Castle, King's Theatre, glasgow, 1957

7 Cos Fan Tutte, Perth Theatre, 12 April 1967

8 The Blind Fiddler, St Magnus Cathedral, Orkney, June 1978

9 The Catiline Conspiracy, Stirling, 16 March 1974

10 The Trojans, King's Theatre, Glasgow, 3 May 1969

11 O Bone Jesu, Stirling, 1507

12 Artur Schnabel, Usher Hall, Edinburgh, August 1948

13 Iain Hamilton's Sinfonia for Two Orchestras, Usher Hall, Edinburgh, August 1959

14 Bla Bartk, Stevenson Hall, Glasgow, 29 February 1932

15 Britten's War Requiem, Usher Hall, Edinburgh, August 1968

16 Carmen, King's Theatre, Edinburgh, August 1977

17 Parsifal, Edinburgh Festival Theatre, 12 August 2003

18 Berg's Wozzeck, King's Theatre, Edinburgh, August 1966

19 Jessye Norman, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, 14 November 1990

20 BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Osmo Vnsk, City Halls, Glasgow, 1 May 1997

DO YOU AGREE?

WHATEVER you think of our choices - and our omissions - we'd love to hear your views. Get in touch with us, either by post or on the website at www.scotsman.com/top20</strong.