Classical review: Scottish Chamber Orchestra - Mendelssohn 200

Published on Sunday 11 January 2009 19:18

SCOTTISH CHAMBER ORCHESTRA – MENDELSSOHN 200 CITY HALLS, GLASGOW

PERFORMERS become conductors with mixed results. Andrew Manze, who first came to prominence as a violinist specialising in early music, is one who has made the transition quite brilliantly.

In this opening concert of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra's Mendelssohn 200 series, his dynamic authority over the players elicited playing of the very highest distinction.

Mendelssohn, himself, was only briefly displayed. The thought behind this series, commemorating the 200th anniversary of his birth, is to position his music among those who inspired him and those whom he in turn inspired.

So besides the concert overture (essentially a tone poem) The Fair Melusine, Manze's programme reflected also on such precursors as Schubert's Tragic symphony and Mozart's well-known B flat Piano Concerto.

The last of these was sensational – not simply a result of pianist Paul Lewis's gloriously incisive performance, but more the immaculate partnership he engineered with Manze.

This was a performance of unswerving direction, both artists sharing the common objective of allowing Mozart's music to shape its own destiny.

Lewis's customary understatement is a tool he uses to tease the ear of the listener. There was nothing gauche or flamboyant in his playing, except for a brief theatrical explosion in one of the cadenzas. But even there you felt that out of intellectual constraint emerged a seething musicality that was intuitively picked up by Manze and the orchestra.

That intuition was equally present in the Schubert symphony, which, Manze was quick to point out, possessed the essence of "tragedy" in the old sense – where resolution is the triumphant outcome of tragic circumstances.

So this was hardly a dirge, but a bright-lit escapade, the brilliance of its orchestration emphasised by the measured penetration of the natural horns and trumpets.

This is music that so often sizzles through the medium-sized forces of the SCO. It balanced perfectly with the Mendelssohn opener, which Manze shaped with crystalline definition and descriptive eloquence.

The Fair Melusine is a fine piece, graced with the same delicate energy of the famous "Octet", the scherzo of which (in Mendelssohn's own orchestration) Manze aptly inserted as an appetiser to the Schubert.

Much more Mendelssohn to come over the next few weeks – what a wonderful prospect.