These days the Royal Scottish National Orchestra’s concerts often begin began with a brief spoken introduction by a member of the orchestra; a few light hearted thoughts to welcome the audience and set the scene for the evening. This one did, too, which wasn’t unusual except that the speaker finished by introducing the conductor as “the great David Niemann”. The great? That’s quite an accolade for a conductor making his debut in the RSNO’s regular concert season. (He has performed with them only once before as the conductor for the 2023 Scottish International Piano Competition.) Yet they shuffled their feet for him as he arrived on stage – the highest compliment the musicians can pay! – and as the concert unfolded you could sense that there’s an impressive level of chemistry already there between the podium and the players.
In the Wagner extracts, for example, there was a lovely sense of organic growth and of balanced temperaments. The Tannhäuser Overture proceeded from its stately opening with an impressive sense of gathering momentum, and had a glittering Venusberg section that showcased the orchestra’s virtuosic speed as well as the alluring beauty of the winds. Likewise, Niemann conducted the Tristan Prelude with admirably precise gestures and careful shading of dynamics that created a natural ebb and flow to the music’s great arch, and which also gave the orchestra space to demonstrate the full breadth of their palette from sweeping strings and drooping woodwinds to powerful brass and rich basses.
Soprano Sunyoung Seo is most familiar to Scottish audiences through Scottish Opera’s Puccini, and hers isn’t a natural Wagner voice. There’s power there, but her phrasing was somewhat choppy in both extracts, and her Liebestod began too loudly, leaving her with nowhere further to go. Still, if there was never a sensation of cresting the Wagnerian wave, then it was still a pleasant voice to hear in the context of concert extracts, and her Elisabeth had a good sense of the character’s expectant joy.
It was in Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique Symphony, however, that things really gelled. Niemann had the full measure of the work and brought out the best in the orchestra. The first movement’s major key second theme, for example, was suffused with beautiful melancholy, almost a sense of regret, growing into something full-bodied and strong that was tragically cut off by the maelstrom of a central development section made all the more dramatic for being taken so quickly. The second movement had a winning lilt, properly con grazia, while the third movement march was played with knife edge precision and just a hint of oppressive weight. There then followed a finale with string sound so warm that it made the unfolding tragedy feel little short of heartbreaking, Niemann holding the orchestra so securely that he didn’t even flinch when a mobile phone alarm went off just as the trombones were finishing their deathly chorale.
As the final bars ebbed away, Niemann holding the ensuing silence for such a long time that it became a part of the music, there was a definite feeling that that the audience had just been in the presence of something significant, something special; one might even say something great.
