'A rollercoaster of emotions' - Rachel Podger prepares to play Bach with the SCO

Rachel Podger | Broadway Studios

Have you noticed how increasingly versatile the Scottish Chamber Orchestra has become of late? It’s always been a band at ease with stylistic time travel - capable of cutting a convincing Rameau in the gestural flamboyance of the French Baroque one week, striking up some pristine Mozartian classicism or slipping seamlessly into a lush Romantic symphony or the uncompromising complexity of a 20th or 21st century masterpiece the next.

But equally interesting are the orchestra’s deeper explorations into period performance, no doubt encouraged by such enquiring minds as principal guest conductor Andrew Manze, dynamic chief conductor Maxim Emelyanychev, or the many specialist visiting guests who fly in and out leaving their influential mark. More and more we’re witnessing performances of Bach, Haydn, even of composers increasingly closer to our own time, characterised by the soulful heat of gut strings, the edge-of-the-seat thrill of risky natural horns and fiery trumpets, and a genuine grasp of the spirit and techniques of earlier epochs.

So when one of the world’s leading Baroque violinists, Rachel Podger, directs and performs a January matinee programme in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen showcasing two of Bach’s glorious Brandenburg Concertos, with a smidgen of Telemann to cleanse the palate, what’s to stop the SCO going full German Baroque?

“I haven’t spoken to them about that yet, but I know their track record,” Podger says. “So yes, we’ll probably have a meeting of minds and go with gut. These make the string section play in a very different way, adjusting the way they address the strings, the speed at which they use the bow, making the instrument speak more like a voice. It's a different technique altogether.”

If anyone can drill them in such dark arts, Podger can. She’s been steeped in the vagaries of historically-informed performance for as long as she can remember. “It’s something I came to very early in life,” she says. Born of a German mother and English father, both of whom sang in Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s groundbreaking Monteverdi Choir, she spent her childhood years in Germany singing in choirs that were steeped in the Bach tradition.

“We sang a lot of the cantatas with the local Staatsorchester, then at school I became aware of pioneering early music specialists like Musica Antiqua Köln under Reinhard Goebel, who seemed to be turning all the accepted performance conventions on their head. As a violin student it got me thinking, and when the conductor of another choir brought in a Baroque orchestra to play with us I was amazed. My parents were hosting a couple of the violinists who let me play their period instruments. I was around 16 at the time, used to playing all the regular violin repertoire, but this experience got me absolutely hooked.”

Podger continued with her conventional repertoire studies until a place at the Guildhall in London finally gave her the opportunity to specialise in Baroque violin. “I knew London was the place to be for early music. I was now able to hear lots of concerts, get involved, and gather like-minded people together as you do when you’re young and keen. It took off from there; there was a lot of work around in the 1990s and a lot of it came my way.”

Even so, this was a time when those involved in the early music scene were still often regarded as nerds. Overcoming such high-minded derision remained a professional challenge. “It seemed to mainstream, high-flying players that you did Baroque if you hadn’t made it as a violinist. Also the playing style was caricatured as being very mannered, too many belly swells, a lot of which at the time was probably true,” Podger recalls. “I found it strangely exciting, but I also found myself thinking ‘is it really okay that I’m doing this?’ To convince myself I simply tried to be the best I could, just to prove the point. It’s not like that today.”

Success bred success. Podger was instrumental in co-founding specialist Baroque chamber groups The Palladian Ensemble and Florilegium. In an impressive career she has led the Gabrieli Consort and English Consort, guest directed the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and many other flagship bands worldwide, also sharing her accumulated wisdom as a sought-after teacher, currently as professor of Baroque violin at both the Guildhall School in London and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

Her decision 20 years ago to settle in the Welsh market town of Brecon led to involvement locally and the founding of the Brecon Baroque Festival, which she inaugurated in 2006. It attracts some of the world’s leading period musicians who engage each October with Podger’s own students and young musicians in the local community. “When we moved there the kids were little, I was around more, mostly teaching and not touring around. The timing was perfect.”

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra at the Usher Hall, Edinburgh | Christopher Bowen Photography

As for her ensemble, also called Brecon Baroque, it is, says Podger, “expandable and contractable”.

“Right now we’re about to record the Biber Violin Sonatas of 1681, such wild pieces, so flamboyant, what a whizz!” When they recorded Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, one fulsome review claimed the performances “make us dream, smile and shudder”. The Times colourfully described another hit recording of Podger’s as “so much tastier than a plate of pigeon pie”.

For her SCO programme, Podger returns to her first love, Johann Sebastian Bach, and a focus on some of his most recognisable works: the Brandenburg Concertos Nos 1 and 2, and Orchestral Suite No 3 in D, best known for the so-called Air on a G string - or the old Hamlet cigar advert to those of a certain age. Be prepared, too, for the Sinfonia to Cantata 174, otherwise instantly recognisable as an expanded orchestration of the popular Brandenburg No 3.

“He’s everything. Without Bach we’re nothing,” Podger extols. “You get this incredible intellect, but he also sets things up, runs with them, then suddenly takes you by surprise - just like the best movie really. A rollercoaster of emotions.” Hold onto your hats...

Rachel Podger directs the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos at the Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, 9 January; City Halls Glasgow, 10 January; and Aberdeen Music Hall, 11 January. Booking details at www.sco.org.uk

The Scotsman is the official media partner of the SCO’s 2024-25 Season. For a 20% discount on tickets, use the code TSMSCO20 when booking – available via venue box offices