Maxim Emelyanychev’s annual juxtaposition of Baroque and modern music with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra is an event keenly marked in many Scottish musical calendars, flautist Marta Gómez explaining that we would hear music over a 300+ year span. With the string players on period gut strings, anticipation was keen because audiences have come to expect the unexpected with the effervescent Emelyanychev in charge of this ‘Baroque Inspirations’ programme, including the now customary immersive interval entertainment.
Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto no. 3 opened the first half of well-known works, performed as written for three violins, three violas, three cellos with bass continuo, the players hugging Emelyanychev’s harpsichord. The warmth of the period string sound was striking, players taking the opening Allegro at a lick, the musical textures erupting in a spirited dance. A short delicate central Adagio allowed a brief respite before the final movement, taken at breakneck speed, became a whirl of excitement. I wondered if period strings deserved a little more space as the astonishing haste slightly blurred definition, but this was both a musical and visual feast, watching the players playing pass-the-parcel with phrases, urged on from Emelyanychev’s lively harpsichord.
What a treat it was to hear Britten’s Simple Symphony on period strings, the initial ensemble joined by a full complement of players creating a rich balm, stately in the Boisterous Bourée with generous shaping. Emelyanychev made the Playful Pizzicato suitably playful, starting from barely audible, building the notes but slowing the music teasingly in the strumming sections and keeping us guessing with false finishes. The Sentimental Sarabande was packed with drama, violas floating elegiac themes, players drawing us in to listen between the phrases, before a bucolic Frolicsome Finale ended the work in style. Rounding off the familiar, First Suite from Handel’s Water Music saw star turns from Kenneth Henderson and Gavin Edwards on (modern) horns and Kyeong Ham’s lovely oboe playing, in a joyous performance from all.
SCO Associate Composer Jay Capperauld arranged four of Scarlatti’s sonatas for full orchestra titled Stylus Scarlatti, receiving its world premiere. It was interesting to hear these keyboard pieces transferred to a grand scale, from the energetic K159 to the violent ferocity of K141, but it was the graceful oboe in the slower K42 which most caught the imagination. A playful piccolo featured in the elegant K209 ending this wide-screen modern take on the Baroque.
To finish, and overshadowing everything, Alfred Schnittke’s zany Gogol Suite featuring orchestra, piano, prepared piano, celesta, electric and bass guitars, plus an army of percussionists tackling an array of instruments including a flexatone and swanee whistle. Written as incidental music for The Revision List, a 1976 play mashing up Nikolai Gogol’s writings and characters, the music quotes various Baroque composers in a freewheeling eight-section work. A short chaotic overture with squawking violins moved into Chichikov’s Childhood, a jaunty affair with echoes of Haydn’s Surprise Symphony, but which soon became unruly and wild. The Portrait is a music box waltz which was disrupted by crashes from the orchestra and percussive rumpus. An otherworldly combination of piano, harpsichord and celesta introduced The Overcoat which became a mad, grotesque circus with tubular bells taking the tune. Compounding the avant-garde, Emelyanychev grabbed a microphone spouting madcap text about cows going into a shop and the earth landing on the moon before the music resumed. It was all huge fun, the orchestra at one stage playing lower and lower until they ran out of notes, but a soft melody from Ukraine, Gogol’s birthplace brought a thoughtful resolution, the bells sounding like a distant carillon.
