SCO Baroque Inspirations, Edinburgh review: 'a must-see and a must hear'
Firecracker conductor Maxim Emelyanychev was in his element sharing a bracingly diverse collection of music, writes David Kettle
SCO & Maxim Emelyanychev: Baroque Inspirations, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh ★★★★★
A hectic foyer, a jam-packed auditorium, an expectant buzz in the air: the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s annual Baroque Inspirations jamboree has clearly become a must-see and must-hear fixture in Scottish musical calendars. Understandably so.
To be accurate, that’s the SCO and principal conductor Maxim Emelyanychev’s Baroque Inspirations jamboree: this joyful but illuminating collision of early and modern music has Emelyanychev’s freewheeling, firecracker spirit smeared all over it, to brilliantly compelling, involving effect.
He was in his element throughout, evidently eager to share this bracingly diverse collection of music with listeners. He bounced on his harpsichord stool to direct a whipcrack-fast Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 3: if its opening movement seemed brisk, that was nothing compared with the whirlwind of the finale, right on the edge of playability, but crisp and clearly articulated all the same.
The orchestra’s string players had changed to age-appropriate gut strings for the evening, SCO flautist Marta Gómez earlier informed us, which added richness and rawness to both the opening Bach and the subsequent Britten Simple Symphony, whose ‘Sentimental Sarabande’ slow movement exerted a rare power and emotional heft. Visiting oboist Kyeong Ham and resident horn players Kenneth Henderson and Gavin Edwards provided star turns in the First Suite from Handel’s Water Music, shapely and gutsy by turns.
So much for the evening’s authentically ancient music. SCO Associate Composer Jay Capperauld’s glistening, jewel-like Stylus Scarlatti – orchestral reimaginings of four of the earlier composer’s keyboard works, receiving its first performance – got rather overshadowed by the grinning, gurning, grotesque Schnittke Gogol Suite that closed the concert. It saw Emelyanychev goading the orchestra – plus piano, harpsichord, organ, electric guitars and plenty more – to ever greater heights of pitch-black musical humour, taking in barbed references to Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart and others along the way.
Under Emelyanychev’s perceptive direction, it delivered plenty of belly laughs, but they often caught in the throat. It was a wild evening of new revelations and unsettling discoveries, and it went down a storm.
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