SCO, Steven Osborne & Aaron Azunda Akugbo, Edinburgh review: 'joyful'

SCO, Steven Osborne & Aaron Azunda Akugbo, Usher Hall, Edinburgh ★★★★★

If a chamber orchestra dares to stray into repertoire more usually associated with the sonic power of a symphony orchestra, the big question is: why? What new insights does it bring, and what does it lack? Divisions and demarcations aren’t clear-cut, of course, but in the case of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s season-closing Dvořák “New World” Symphony, the answers to those questions would be: plenty, and hardly anything.

It was a swift, urgent, committed and joyfully agile account from principal conductor Maxim Emelyanychev, one that lacked little in strength and gravitas when needed (the brassy harmonies that kick off the Symphony’s famous slow movement were as rich and resonant as you could hope for), but one that shone gently with dappled light and deftly pranced through Dvořák’s infectious rhythms. New details emerged under Emelyanychev’s crisp and perceptive direction – especially inner parts and interesting basslines – and there was folksy freedom in its slow movement, and grit and determination in a beautifully hard-edged scherzo. Did it cast the Symphony in a whole new light? In some ways, though Emelyanychev remained faithful to the simple beauty of the composer’s tunefulness too.

READ MORE: Aaron Azunda Akugbo and Steven Osborne on tackling Shostakovich's 'conundrum' with the SCO

By way of complete contrast, before the interval Emelyanychev had whipped through two of Shostakovich’s most exuberant pieces. Emelyanychev’s zesty, sparky Ninth Symphony struck a delicious balance between laughing and snarling, and the conductor delved deeply into the composer’s darkness without letting too many shadows fall across the Symphony’s whipcrack craziness. Pianist Steven Osborne and trumpeter Aaron Azunda Akugbo proved finely matched soloists in Shostakovich’s Concerto for Piano, Trumpet and Strings, with a similarly poetic sensitivity on occasions, and apparently limitless frenetic energy and extroversion the rest of the time. Akugbo delivered a wonderfully dusky solo in the Concerto’s slow movement, while Osborne’s high-speed keyboard athleticism in the final movement was simply breathtaking. All in all, a fittingly exuberant, joyful close to the SCO’s season.

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