In recent years, for reasons environmental, educational and artistic, the Edinburgh International Festival has put a lot more emphasis on residencies for its visiting orchestras. It’s much less common now for an orchestra to jet in, play one concert and then get the next plane out. Instead, more of them stay for a few days and, in addition to playing several concerts, do some work in the community or with young musicians.
Of this year’s EIF residencies, the most exciting and the most expansive is that of the London Symphony Orchestra. There’s a conversation to be had on another occasion as to whether it’s good enough for an international festival of Edinburgh’s standing to have as its star musical attraction an ensemble from elsewhere in the UK, but for tonight, it was enough to celebrate the arrival of a class act, coming to Edinburgh for the first time with Sir Antonio Pappano as their Chief Conductor.
The chemistry Pappano has with the LSO musicians is clear to see. He shared some of that charisma in an introductory chat about the music we would hear. Nicola Benedetti, the EIF’s Director, was nominally the host, but effectively all she did was ask a question and, 15 minutes later, Pappano finished speaking. No matter: what counted here was the music, which bloomed and burgeoned in the orchestra’s hands.
Well, mostly. The most exciting thing about Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony was how big it sounded. These days I’m used to hearing it performed by period players and chamber ensembles, so there was something exciting about hearing the full might of a modern symphony orchestra let loose on it. There was vibrato aplenty, and forces so big they could have raised the roof. That gave tremendous heft to music’s most famous struggle from darkness to light, bringing grandeur to the effort and real scale to the turbulence. With that, however, came a few too many lapses in ensemble, and more ragged entries than you’d have expected from a crew like this.
Some of that came across in Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony too, particularly in the vicious second movement which sounded like it had been let off the leash a little too much, with both Pappano and the players getting a bit too excited where more discipline would have been welcome. I could forgive that and more for the quality of the string playing, though. What had sounded rich in the Beethoven here brought flowing, sepulchral darkness to Shostakovich’s first movement, where the glowing wind solos stood out like pinpricks of light against the Stygian gloom.
Pappano unfurled that movement’s great arch with total confidence, the shattering central climax both increasing and releasing the tension, and he understood the expressive ambiguity of the third movement, too. Is it a grotesque dance, a sarcastic joke or a love song? Heck, why not make it all of those, and add a touch of something coyly mysterious in there, too? The finale also wore its smile lightly, never clear whether its cheeky swirls were a mischievous chuckle or a rictus grin. That’s about right for this composer, though, and it’s a testament to this musical team that they could walk Shostakovich’s emotional tightrope without ever falling off.
