SCO & Anthony Marwood, Edinburgh review: ' a passionate, gutsy performance'

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s 1912 Violin Concerto might not be the easiest piece to love, but violinist Anthony Marwood and the SCO performed it with a persuasive and compelling sense of conviction, writes David Kettle
Anthony Marwood  Anthony Marwood
Anthony Marwood | Pia Johnson

SCO & Anthony Marwood, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh ★★★★

Maybe listeners are happier to be challenged in the evening. There was a surprisingly patchy turnout in Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s matinée concert focused around the 1912 Violin Concerto by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor – hardly a cornerstone of the repertoire (yet), but gaining recognition after decades of neglect. Which was a shame, because soloist Anthony Marwood – who led the entire concert (which he’d masterminded) from the violin – delivered a passionate, gutsy account, with a big, rich sound and a deeply serious-minded perspective on this sometimes blustering, thickly scored piece.

His speeds were perhaps on the measured side, but there was a glorious suppleness to the conductor-less orchestral playing, as though the SCO musicians were telepathically tuned in to each other and their soloist – although there were times when the SCO brass section was a little too enthusiastic for the quieter strings.

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Although it has its glories – the spiritual-inflected opening melody being one of them – the Concerto itself might not be the easiest piece to love, but Marwood and the SCO performed it with a persuasive and compelling sense of conviction.

Marwood’s opening Dvořák Romance – which also had him out front as soloist – was likewise on the leisurely side, but exquisitely and very tenderly delivered.

After the interval, however, Marwood had all the SCO players (bar cellists and timpani) on their feet for Schubert’s teenage Symphony No. 2. Did it add anything to the performance? Surely a new sense of energy and vigour, translated into an engaging crispness in the dashing finale and a rugged determination in the driving rhythms of the minuet.

Few would claim it’s the greatest of Schubert’s symphonies, but the Second is far more than just a childhood curiosity – and in Marwood and the SCO’s hands, it zipped by with a winning sense of panache.

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