Classical review: RSNO Chamber Series, Edinburgh Dovecot Studios

THE vivid hangings and many-hued bobbins of thread that adorn the walls of Edinburgh’s luminous Dovecot tapestry studios made the ideal backdrop for the bright, colourful Beethoven Septet delivered by the RSNO players in the second of their chamber concerts in the recently converted space.

Written for strings and wind, the 1799 Septet was Beethoven’s most lucrative work during his lifetime, as violinist William Chandler explained in his introduction. And although the composer later tried to disown the piece because its popularity was overshadowing his more serious creations, the RSNO players positively revelled in its bumptious good humour and likeable melodies.

Clarinettist John Cushing produced beautifully shaped phrases throughout, with superb tonal control in his glorious duet with Chandler in the Adagio, and there were fine contributions from horn player David McClenaghan in the catchy Scherzo. Despite a few stumbles here and there, it was hard not to be swept along by the sheer enthusiasm of it all.

Which came as something of a contrast to the performance of Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht that opened the concert. Although this string sextet is one of Schoenberg’s earliest works, written long before his move into atonality, the RSNO players seemed to get so bogged down in detail that they rather missed the simple joys of the piece’s late-Romantic effusiveness. It took a while for them to warm to Schoenberg’s surging, turbulent harmonies, but by the radiant ending they had nevertheless achieved a tentative kind of magic.

Rating: ***