As a teaser for this concert, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra had a short video of their staff ‘having a go’ at the snare drum rhythm from Ravel’s Boléro and a demonstration of how to do it right from the orchestra’s principal percussionist, Simon Lowden. We will return to that piece as it ended this intriguing and varied programme of Polish and French music with works from Saint-Saëns, Lutosławski and to begin, Grażyna Bacewicz’s Overture for Orchestra.
Bacewicz was a trailblazing composer, violinist and concertmaster of the Polish Radio Orchestra during the Second World War. Her Overture for Orchestra was written in wartime under Nazi occupation, premiered in 1945. The seriousness of war pervades the piece, with deep brass and darkening strings, but the woodwinds turns the gloom brighter as the music settles into a brief peaceful respite. It is a defiantly optimistic piece, the timpani tapping a morse V-for-Victory rhythm, the snare drum, brass fanfare and frantic strings building to a blazing finish, conductor Thomas Søndergård guiding his players towards brightness in this thrillingly filmic score.
Simon Trpčeski made a welcome return to the RSNO for Saint-Saëns' Piano Concerto no. 5 in F major, “Egyptian”, a delightful postcard from North Africa. Trpčeski’s light touch introduced the main theme with the breeziness of a Mediterranean zephyr, floating phrases as the music picked up with lovely flute and oboe parts emerging. Trpčeski changed the mood on a sixpence with muscular arpeggios and trills, with Søndergård’s players amplifying key moments, not least the gorgeous Nubian love song in the Andante, where the mysterious double chord piano sequence with trembling violins was dramatically intense. The helter-skelter of the finale, Trpčeski’s shoulders dancing as he made the virtuosic keyboard whirl look easy, was thrilling, Søndergård finally letting his players off the leash. Trpčeski showed his accompanying skills in a delightful encore, inviting Katherine Bryan to join him in the slow movement from Poulenc's Flute Sonata, exquisitely played.
Witold Lutosławski’s Symphony no. 3 was written in 1983 when martial law was finally lifted in Poland. The music is deeply troubled and fragmentary, the work’s seven movements played without pause. Scored for a large orchestra including two harps, an array of percussion, piano duet and celesta, the composer restlessly explores the sound world of unlikely sectional pairings. It is music that can be hard to love, but it was utterly mesmerising to watch it being performed, Søndergård wholly immersed in his task, a master at work. An initial loud orchestral thump sent three flutes chirping in freeform, the first of several passages where Søndergård simply stopped and allowed various orchestral commotions develop before picking the music up again, mostly using his baton, but sometimes plucking a note from one section between his finger and thumb and throwing it across to different players. I loved the argument in the upper strings, started by the violas, countered by affronted violins and the passage of eerie soft cacophony like a horror film. A final coda with a nod to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony motto brought this fascinating and challenging work to a close.
From the barely audible side drum, it was wonderful to watch Ravel's Boléro grow right in front of us, watching the two flutes passing the long rhythmic single note duties between them, through the mischievously bendy solos from saxophone and trombone, the side drum joined by a second as Søndergård stepped it up to its thrilling climax.
