SCO, Andrew Manze & Amalie Stalheim, Edinburgh review: 'bewitching'
The two Tchaikovsky pieces in this programme offered warmth, familiarity and richness, but it was two lesser-known Swedish works that really hit their mark, writes David Kettle
SCO, Andrew Manze & Amalie Stalheim, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh ★★★★
Sometimes, clearly, bravery pays off. In a concert that was half Tchaikovsky, half lesser-known Swedish music, you might reasonably expect the charm, heart-on-sleeve emotion and effortless melodies of Tchaikovsky to generate the biggest reaction. Certainly under the thoughtful, insightful direction of SCO principal guest conductor Andrew Manze, Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings sang and soared very movingly, with glistening textures and nimble rhythms. There was grace and elegance aplenty, too, in the Variations on a Rococo Theme that preceded it, even if Bergen-born cellist Amalie Stalheim perhaps made the solo part a little more effortful and hard-won than it needed to be, in a surprisingly muscular and forcefully projected account.
Rewarding though Manze and Stalheim’s Tchaikovsky was, the night’s biggest reaction in fact came from the concert’s wild card, Swedish composer Anders Hillborg’s exquisite, contemplative Cello Concerto from 2020, which collided together Renaissance-style polyphony and cinematic expansiveness to bewitching, often hypnotic effect, and drew a performance from Stalheim that was simply sublime: sometimes ice-cold, sometimes almost otherworldly, but always shot through with deep understanding and identification with Hillborg’s often uncannily powerful music.
Manze held a firm grip on the piece’s towering architecture, in which not much seems to happen for quite long stretches, only for the music to erupt in violence and energy as if from nowhere. It was the work on many listeners’ lips during the interval: how a piece so single-minded and uncompromising could also be so deeply effective, not to say affecting. No wonder the composer got shouts of appreciation when he took a bow.
Beforehand, to kick things off, Manze had conducted a beautifully nuanced account of fellow Swede Lars-Erik Larsson’s Lyric Fantasy, almost caressed into being, and with luminous Vaughan Williams-esque harmonies and distinctly folk-like tunes. Yes, the two Tchaikovsky pieces offered warmth, familiarity and richness, but it was Manze’s two Swedish discoveries – for most of the audience, at least – that really hit their mark.
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