Orchestral touring is a famously difficult feat to pull off, requiring Napoleonic levels of organisation and patience that would tax Job himself. Orchestral touring with a chorus teeters on the verge of the impossible, so the Flanders Symphony Orchestra deserve an ovation for managing to pull that feat off at all. They made their three-date UK tour a little more manageable, however, by using the same chorus, the Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, for all three concerts, and that might help to explain their choice of venues: London, Edinburgh and Sheffield, which is half way between them.
Coming to their tour on its final performance, in Edinburgh’s Usher Hall, you could tell that the relationship between the orchestra and chorus had settled in nicely. They even had an encore up their sleeves, Mozart’s Ave verum corpus, which formed a neat companion piece to the main item on the programme, Mozart’s Requiem in D minor.
This was a Requiem performed with focus and energy, held together ably by conductor Kristiina Poska, who preferred fast speeds and tight drama. Those speeds stretched the chorus a little in the fugues of the Offertorio, and there were one or two pitching issues in the Confutatis and Lachrymosa. Otherwise, they sang with concentration and drive, managing proper heft in the Dies irae and impressive agility in the more stately Kyrie fugue. The soloists were first rate, too, sounding terrific in their quartets. Bass Christian Immler brought honeyed beauty to his lower lines, balanced by the clean, shiny soprano voice of Yena Choi, alongside Denzil Delare’s pingy tenor and Kadi Jürgens’ dark mezzo.
The orchestra was on the small side for this piece, with only five cellos and three double basses, but they made a big sound for their numbers, helped by the use of natural timps, trumpets and trombones, with just a little string vibrato to accentuate the period touches. That also helped to bring exciting colour to the Don Giovanni overture. Poska’s way with the opening chords may have been rather curt, but she got the theatrical sense of threat to the slow first section, and when the main Allegro arrived it was fast-paced and delicately shaped, with sparkling semiquavers bringing out the giggle behind the grimace.
Beethoven’s Symphony no. 8 in F major played to the orchestra’s strengths, too, the ebullient opening leading to a first movement with a pleasing sense of build that brimmed over winningly at the start of the recapitulation. The Scherzo was delicate and light, and the swaggering Minuet was offset by solos of transparent delicacy in its Trio, while the finale chased its tail with filigree precision.
Touring programmes tend to go for safe options, and in featuring only Beethoven and Mozart this one didn’t contain any surprises, but it was delivered with care, affection and a great degree of skill. Most audiences would find that very satisfactory indeed.
