Even in Scotland the summer seems to have arrived, and the warmth outside the Usher Hall seemed to generate the perfect conditions to listen to the Royal Scottish National Orchestra playing Debussy’s languid Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, perhaps the most sensuous hymn to summer heat ever composed. You could sense the shimmering string haze in this performance, swelling and receding with hedonistic surge, contrasting well with the fluid winds, with that flute solo taken beautifully by principal flute Katherine Bryan, and conductor Thomas Søndergård keeping everything on track in a score that can sound flaccid in the wrong hands.
After this heady daze, however, it was spells of sunshine with squally showers for Lera Auerbach’s Symphony no. 1, here receiving its UK premiere. Auerbach titled her work Chimera, a word whose multiple meanings include a mythical beast that consists of several creatures spliced together. That’s an appropriate metaphor for the score she created, and not just because it grew out of hitherto existing music. More noticeably for the audience, this seven-movement symphony was unusually episodic, often lurching violently from one mood to another.
That might well chime with the Chimera image, but it didn’t always make for a satisfying listening experience. Auerbach’s rather dense programme note could be summarised crudely as “Don’t try to understand: just listen and feel”. Taking the music on its own terms made for an interesting aural journey through; for example, the rapid string figurations of the third movement, the slow-moving doomscape of the fifth or the cinematic tiptoeing of the sixth. The orchestra, to give them due credit, threw themselves into what at times amounted to a concerto for orchestra, and every section made the most of their moment in the spotlight.
However, Auerbach’s decision to unmoor the listener from most recognisable anchor points led to a feeling of being cut adrift that ended up being unsatisfying. I ended up admiring her gifts as an orchestral colourist in a soundscape that included a harpsichord, a rain stick and even a theremin. Whether there was much unifying spirit or bigger picture going on beneath that surface, however, I wasn’t so sure.
The RSNO that sounded so great for Auerbach sounded every bit as fantastic in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, and they shared the limelight impressively with soloist Randall Goosby, conspiring to produce tone of remarkable sweetness in the slow movement, as well as in the meltingly lovely second theme of the opening Allegro. Goosby knows the RSNO well, having played with them several times now, and he’s an admirably modest collaborator, refusing to draw the limelight but instead immersing himself in whatever he plays in a way that almost shuns the attention. The very opening, for example, was poetic and lyrical rather than strident, and his cadenza was remarkably focused instead of being demonstrative. That very focus meant that, energetic as was the finale, his playing felt a little bit serious in what are meant to be heel-kicking high spirits. How much more wonderful would he sound if he’d allowed himself to relax a little bit? That’s exactly what he did in his bluesy encore, a winning strut that had the audience in the palm of his hand.
