Arts review of 2023: Ken Walton on the year in classical music

All eyes were on the Edinburgh International Festival in 2023, writes Ken Walton

Whatever else was happening in Scotland’s classical music scene in 2023, all eyes were fixed on the Edinburgh International Festival where Nicola Benedetti had everything to prove as the new festival director. How successfully would she introduce fresh ideas within its time-honoured framework? Wisely, she adopted a strategy of persuasion rather than revolution – a theme that posed the simple question: “Where Do We Go From Here?”

The Usher Hall sustained its high-end symphonic content, notably an opening spectacle of Tan Dun’s exotic Buddha Passion, a powerfully moving performance of Tippet’s A Child of Our Time with the RSNO under Sir Andrew Davis, and Messiaen’s coruscating Turangalîla Symphony from Simon Rattle and the LSO.

But it also threw in “alternative” experiences, such as the Budapest Festival Orchestra’s “beanbag” concert, the audience scattered amid the orchestra as it dissected and performed Dvorak’s Eighth Symphony to conductor Iván Fischer’s friendly commentary. They’ve been doing this in Budapest for years and it’s transformed concert-going. Scottish orchestras take note.

Nicola Benedetti oversaw her first Edinburgh International Festival this summer since being appointed director. PIC: Andrew Perry

If it was business as usual for the Queen’s Hall morning series, The Hub’s new Reimagined series offered a club-style alternative for later in the day. Chic, cabaret-style informality opened up the floor to a genre-defying panoply of artists, some letting their hair down between more formalised festival appearances, others exclusive to the series, including multi-skilled South African-born cellist/ethnic singer Abel Selaocoe.

Concerns were voiced about the lack of opera, but it was there, albeit in a less conservative manifestation. Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera got the full Barrie Kosky treatment, predictably self-indulgent, while Theatre of Sound and the Hebrides Ensemble’s reimagining of Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle proved a hard-hitting psychological portrayal of dementia. Ingenious without corrupting the original.

Away from Edinburgh’s cultural centrepiece, regular activity prevailed with its inevitable ups and downs. In May, the RSNO hit the crowd-pulling jackpot with an all-star Beethoven Triple Concerto bringing together violinist Benedetti, cellist Kanneh Mason and pianist Benjamin Grosvenor. More recently, having developed a useful sideline in film soundtrack production, it resembled Hollywood royalty in a glitzy 70th birthday tribute to Scots film composer Patrick Doyle. Music director Thomas Søndergård, opened the current season with a magnificent Strauss Ein Heldenleben, while in December James MacMillan directed the long-awaited Scottish premiere of his Christmas Oratorio.

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra has been riding high with its 50th anniversary season, inspired increasingly by the fireball charisma of its chief conductor Maxim Emelyanychev. He makes every performance seem like the ink is still wet on the page, as in the Mozart Piano Concerto he played/directed in April on fortepiano, complete with impromptu improvisations and playful gamesmanship with the orchestra. He also conducted a magnificent premiere of SCO associate composer Jay Capperauld’s The Origins of Colour.

If anything is dampening the SCO’s celebrations, it was the recent news that completion of Edinburgh’s new Dunard Centre concert hall, the orchestra’s new home, has been put back yet another year to 2028, costs having rocketed from the original £45m to £114m. Can Jo Buckley, recently appointed as chief executive to the charity overseeing the project, prove a positive driving force? She did wonderful things with Edinburgh’s Dunedin Consort, now transformed into a truly international phenomenon.

The SSO, likely to face its own challenges as the parent corporation implements expected cuts, delivered golden moments, among them a moving Mahler 9 under Donald Runnicles in January, the recent premiere of David Fennessy’s extravagant symphonic trilogy Conquest of the Useless, and in March when the aforementioned Abel Selaocoe premiered his wildly exciting Four Spirits. If Chief conductor Ryan Wigglesworth still seems to be working towards a sustained rapport with his orchestra, he revealed his undeniable skill as a composer with his own Piano Concerto featuring Steven Osborne as soloist. The two had also collaborated on a compelling Tippett Piano Concerto performance at East Lothian’s Lammermuir Festival.

Which is where, in September, 2023’s cruelest moment struck, Lammermuir revealing that Creative Scotland had, at the 11th hour, rejected its grant application. Remarkably, the long-established festival proceeded with one of its best programmes yet, including a glowing Scottish Opera performance of Richard Strauss’ rarely-heard Daphne. No obvious such worries yet for the Cumnock Tryst and East Neuk Festivals, which delivered true to form.

As for Scottish Opera, its key season triumphs centred on David McVicar’s inspired staging of Puccini’s Il Trittico, and a timely revival of Thomas Allen’s rib-tickling production of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville.