My Edinburgh International Festival Monday involved not one, but two performances of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony from the same set of musicians; but I was still learning new things by the end, hearing this symphony from a different inside-out perspective, its textures and inner workings prised open by the musicians of Aurora Orchestra, playing in Scotland for the first time, and giving a tour de force performance from memory.
The afternoon performance was the more remarkable, taking place in an Usher Hall where the stalls seats had been replaced by beanbags with audience members sitting interspersed among the players who, considerately, gave us all more space by not having to bring music stands. The EIF has made a speciality of performances like this, and some have worked better than others, but this one was a success because conductor Nicholas Collon had only a few splashes of explanation before letting the musicians loose on the score.
If you’re new to the music then the explanations are useful, but if you know the score then the really fun thing about these experiences is the way they sound when you’re wedged into an unusual position between the musicians, with perspectives skewed, just like what it must be like if you’re playing it.
For the first two movements I sat splayed behind the bassoons, across from the phalanx of strings, and a (mercifully) long distance from the brass. A rearrangement for the third and fourth movements brought me into uncomfortably close proximity to the horn section, but also gave me a fresh perspective on the violins and cellos, where the keening edge of third movement has never sounded so sharp; nor, earlier, the breathy quiet piccolo notes which I’d never noticed before.
The key thing about their playing from memory is the responsiveness it produces. Seeing them at such close quarters, the musicians looked at each other as much as they looked at Conlon, and it was rather lovely to notice the nods, winks and grins they gave each other after a solo or duo section. No doubt Collon took a critical lead in rehearsal but, experiencing it up close, this seemed like a much more collective musical organism.
In the evening concert, in addition to a second go at the Shostakovich, Aurora played from scores for Abel Selaocoe’s Four Spirits, as well they may have done because the music was bitty, episodic and sometimes baffling. Selaocoe styles it as a concerto for orchestra, cello and voice, but it felt more like a communal ritual than a coherent piece of music, with Selaocoe singing and chanting over the piece like a charismatic preacher or a pagan shaman, sometimes playing his cello and sometimes casting it aside to address the audience. Listen beyond the bravado, however, and there wasn't much there, the actual lines of music sounding abstract, disjointed and ultimately unsatisfying. This was very much the Abel Selaocoe show – there’s no way I could imagine anybody else performing it – the orchestra, and even busy percussionist Bernhard Schimpelsberger relegated to onlookers for much of the piece. A shame, because Selaocoe brought the audience into the communality very successfully. It's just a pity there wasn't more substance to what he was doing.
