Classical review: Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Edinburgh
Scottish Chamber Orchestra - Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh
* * * *
Playing it alongside another Strauss work, Duet-Concertino for Clarinet and Bassoon (written in the twilight of his career, aged 83) the Scottish Chamber Orchestra not only gave us a “man and boy” comparison, but some very fine solo work from within the orchestra’s ranks.
Superb 28-year-old horn player, Alex Frank-Gemmill, met Strauss’s teenage talent head on, absorbing the music into his bloodstream and handing it back to the audience with a passionate flourish.
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Hide AdIt’s not often that clarinettists and bassoonists get to burst out of the back row, so it was a pleasure to see Maximiliano Martin and Peter Whelan standing front and centre for the Duet-Concertino.
Strauss wrote the piece about a bear and a princess dancing, but Martin and Whelan’s duet felt more like a conversation, that moved from discourteous banter to mutual understanding.
Great, also, to see such movement in the body; with Martin shaking out notes from his clarinet with a flick of the shoulder, and Whelan giving us a rare glimpse of the bassoon in action.
Throughout, animated young German conductor Clemens Schuldt did his fellow country-man proud – as with the spirited Mozart symphonies that completed the bill.
Seen on 03.05.14