Classical review: Scottish Chamber Orchestra

Published on Wednesday 3 March 2010 18:03

SCO CL@SIX – BAROQUE MASTERS **** ST CUTHBERT'S PARISH CHURCH, EDINBURGH

AFTER a long day at the office, the restorative and calming qualities of baroque music are hard to beat, particularly this lively selection of Handel and Bach concertos presented by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Richard Egarr from the harpsichord and chamber organ.

The concerto grosso was a popular form for composers although the styles varied enormously. In Concerto Grosso in B flat Op 3 No 2, Handel floats his oboes lines over a bed of scurrying strings in a conventional suite format.

However, five years later by the finale of the A minor Op 6 No 4 Concerto Grosso for strings, he is far more daring in terms of challenging rhythms, harmonies and melodies. The SCO, with an animated Egarr at the harpsichord, clearly relished these idiosyncrasies in this entrancing performance.

But the contrapuntal crown undoubtedly belongs to JS Bach and his six Brandenburg Concertos are among the finest in the repertoire. Egarr gave a fascinating insight into the numerological aspects of the third concerto – the numbers three and seven underpin the whole structure – before leading the SCO in a thrilling performance of this high-velocity work that demands split-second timing.

As a party piece, Handel's Organ Concerto No 13 in F, The Cuckoo and the Nightingale, is a gift for a musician such as Egarr who's clearly not afraid to embrace the challenges of improvisation, here coaxing an array of bird-like tweets from the organ with wit and panache.