SCO & Timothy Ridout, Edinburgh review: 'action-packed'
Featuring a peripatetic viola, an off-stage oboe and a rare intervention from an ophicleide, this was a night to remember, writes Susan Nickalls
SCO & Timothy Ridout, Usher Hall, Edinburgh ★★★★
With a line-up of witches, spurned lovers and orgiastic bandits, few composers can match Berlioz for over-the-top characters, often versions of himself, and action-packed music. For their season opener the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and conductor Maxim Emelyanychev showcased works that revealed two different sides to the composer’s colourful personality.
The rarely performed Harold in Italy, a symphony with viola obligato, was seemingly inspired by Byron’s poem about Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage but the hero is really Berlioz recalling his comparatively dull Italian soujourn. However, violist Timothy Ridout put lyrical flesh on Harold and played superbly while wandering on and off stage and even up to the dress circle. This made up for some underwhelming passages despite the orchestra’s enthusiastic efforts and forensic approach to detail. The last movement, Orgy of Bandits, was more animated with scrubbing strings and pompous brass. But with Ridout exiting the stage minutes before the final chord, no wonder the virtuoso Paganini refused to play the piece he commissioned.
By contrast, the popular Symphonie Fantastique with its March to the Scaffold was richly orchestrated with plenty of high-stakes drama. It’s a tale of unrequited love with the artist (Berlioz) attempting to poison himself. Instead, he induces nightmares of being guillotined after killing the object of his infatuation. The agitated strings of the opening daydream drifted into an elegant waltz followed by an idyllic scene in the fields with an off-stage oboe echoing the on-stage cor anglais. But the rumbling timpani and protesting bassoons soon foreshadowed the impending gloom.
Emelyanychev deftly steered the orchestra through a thrilling account of the dynamic finale, Dreams of a Witches’ Sabbath. There were offstage bells, a weighty intoning of the Latin Dies Irae from the basses, interruptions by overly jaunty woodwind and splendid growling from the not-often-heard brass instrument the ophicleide.
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