If you’re going to go out then you might as well go out with a bang, and so this closing concert of the 2023 Edinburgh International Festival featured at its centre Scriabin’s pulsating, kaleidoscopic Poem of Ecstasy played by the hugely augmented forces of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. If you’ve ever wondered what a brass section of 17 players sounds like then you’ll find out if you listen to the upcoming broadcast.
Scriabin’s study in epic hubris is so stark staring bonkers that it’s hard to take it seriously, so it’s refreshing to encounter somebody who does. Conductor Karina Canellakis did an admirable job of bringing a semblance of order out of Scriabin’s musical chaos, shaping the orchestral sound picture from the quietest possible opening, with prinked solos over precisely shimmering violins, through the phantasmagorical middle sections up to a gargantuan, almost orgiastic finale. Heroic brass and propulsive winds kept the whole thing moving forwards, and the orchestra showed itself to be impressively responsive to Canellakis’ beat, from the flickering strings to the trumpet section, who were heroic as a group, despite a couple of unfortunate solo moments. The Poem isn’t for everyday consumption but, as a concluding festival event, it was an intoxicating, supersized sugar rush of a piece. I suspect Scriabin would have approved.
The top-and-tail of Tristan und Isolde was well played, too, with dusky string tone that served the Prelude well, and a beautifully judged transition on the cellos and basses. The Liebestod wasn’t quite so successful, however. Canellakis kept pushing forwards impulsively, pressing the music towards its climax in a way that would have challenged any singer to keep up. This was just the orchestral version, but the climax came and went with little ado in a way that left me feeling a little short-changed.
No such complaints about The Bells, however. The EIF doesn’t really go in for anniversary-related programming, but it doesn’t completely ignore it either, so it’s appropriate to finish the festival in Rachmaninov’s 150th year with his choral symphony, the one of his works that’s said to have been his own favourite. The orchestra tailored its sound very impressively from the light-hearted, fleet-footed sleigh ride of the opening through to the jet-black funeral scene and its strangely transcendent ending; the cor anglais solo that opened that last movement was like an additional singer. However, top honours went to the Edinburgh Festival Chorus, here giving their final performance under outgoing chorus director Aidan Oliver. They sang with terrific heft and fervent conviction throughout, affectionate and winsome in the wedding scene but hair-raising in the raw power of the third movement’s horror story.
In all this they were joined by a trio of soloists who were as different to one another as they were individually impressive. David Butt Philip sang with heroic brightness in the first movement, while Olga Kulchynska managed to imbue the wedding scene with strange, dark beauty. Finest of all, though, was Alexander Vinogradov, whose voice was the most darkly authoritative bass you could imagine for the final movement. Rachmaninov may have transfigured the music into a major key for the very last moments, but Vinogradov’s voice hung over it like Poe’s raven, making it impossible to forget the darkness even as the composer tries to point to hope for the future.
