SCO, Richard Egarr & Nikita Naumov, Edinburgh review: 'theatrical'

SCO, Richard Egarr & Nikita Naumov, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh ★★★★

Delayed by Covid restrictions not once but twice (the pandemic fallout is clearly not quite over), it’s taken no fewer than five years for Hungarian Péter Eötvös’s double bass concerto Aurora to finally get its Scottish premiere from the SCO. And during that time, its intended soloist – the charismatic Nikita Naumov, erstwhile SCO principal bassist – has even changed bands, shifting to the same role with the RSNO.

Nonetheless, Naumov was welcomed back by his former SCO colleagues with warmth and enthusiasm for the long-anticipated premiere, and gave a characteristically big-boned, larger-than-life, theatrical performance, one that was thoroughly alive to Eötvös’s flamboyant requests to slap the strings or knock the bass’s wood, but that also soared in lyrical melodic fragments.

Nikita Naumov | Christopher Bowen

Aurora was easy to admire, but perhaps more difficult to love, its evident beauties often concealed beneath a gnarly, rugged roughness, its restless, organic sense of form sometimes tricky to grasp. And despite his exuberant performance, Naumov sometimes struggled to be heard amid Eötvös’s rich, active orchestral writing, complete with particularly vivid accordion (played with grit and commitment by Djordje Gagic).

Nonetheless, luxury stand-in conductor Richard Egarr (covering for an indisposed Mark Wigglesworth) coralled the SCO musicians in expressive, detailed playing. And Egarr took some of Aurora’s ruggedness over into his closing Beethoven ‘Pastoral’ Symphony, brisk and bristling with energy, and very much a human tribute to nature rather than an epic vision of wonder.

Egarr’s merry peasants parped joyfully courtesy of bassoonist Alison Green, and after a vicious storm, his concluding hymn of thanks felt tender and personal, rather than grand and triumphant, and was all the more wondrous as a result. Anyone hoping for spiritual splendours would have already experienced them in the opening Musica celestis by Aaron Jay Kernis, in which Egarr beautifully balanced sonic purity and emotional richness to powerful effect.

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