Classical review: Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Edinburgh

MUSIC

SCOTTISH CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

USHER HALl, EDINBURGH

* * *

This is a heavy-hitter of a piece. No doubt about that in the beastly March to the Scaffold or the demonic tolling underpinning the nightmarish Witches’ Sabbath. Could such a small-scale performance, pared way down in the strings, service such Gothic excess?

The question is irrelevant in terms of what Ticciati set out to do. This was not a performance dependent on bombast and rhetoric. Adherents to the Berlioz norm may have felt the absence of the short-term cathartic high as the symphonic journey neared its climax, and I confess as much myself.

But it was, in effect, a revisionist approach; one that rethought the dimensions, allowed the wind to articulate more subtly, and the whole ensemble to resemble supercharged Beethoven rather than pre-emptive Liszt. A vibrato-less ending to the Reverie lent a heightened purity and serenity.

The exposed approach left the ensemble prone to accidents, and there were fleeting ones – the odd gasped note in the wind, or tense attack in the strings.

The main risk in Berlioz’s Tristia – three settings for choir (the SCO Chorus) and orchestra – was the sheer fragility and lace-like delicacy of the score. These are extraordinary examples of this composer’s unrivalled originality – moments of daringly groundless harmony that hover above the choir like an unearthly glow. Not easy, but confidently delivered.

The programme opener, Schumann’s overture to Genoveva, seemed routine in comparison. The evening was about Berlioz, and an interesting opportunity to reconsider the nature of his genius.