A fitting end to the East Neuk Festival
More usually it is the job of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra to close the East Neuk Festival at the Bowhouse, but that task has gone to an agglomeration of string quartets this year, so this marvellous menu of melodic orchestral music opened the programme, and the surprisingly fine acoustic of the big farm shed seemed even more startling as a result.
At the heart of the concert was Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez with Edinburgh's international guitar star Sean Shibe as the soloist. The work is not just the only guitar concerto everyone knows but has one of the most familiar openings of any concerto, one that immediately suggests the start of both the finale and the beautiful Adagio theme the soloist shares with the orchestra's cor anglais.
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Shibe's guitar was subtly amplified with a microphone and small PA to assure its place in the balance, and his relaxed, virtuosic playing – he must already have performed the piece countless times – was always clear but never over-dominant. Conductor Andrew Manze's sympathetic shaping of the music, ensuring that every detail of conversation between the guitar and the other players was heard, was just as essential to what was an immaculate account of the work.
Manze brought the same expansive approach to Schubert's Symphony No 6 after the interval, his realisation of the variations of tempi and dynamics in the slow movement and following Scherzo bringing out all the symphony's youthful drama. His startlingly light touch in the finale emphasised its pastoral feel, which echoed the less well-known piece that had opened the concert.
Lars-Erik Larsson is a 20th century contemporary of Rodrigo, and the Swede's Pastoral Suite, from immediately before the Second World War, is a three-movement concerto for orchestra of enormous charm. The SCO strings were on stellar form from the start, and its central Romance has lush scoring that invites comparison with Barber's Adagio and Mahler Five. The lively conclusion, featuring Andre Cebrian's flute and rhythmic pizzicato low strings, sounded close kin to the best mid-20th century British film scores.
The 2025 East Neuk Festival had a memorable start, before the SCO played a note, when fiddler Donald Grant entered from the back of the barn and walked through the audience to preface Manze and Shibe's appearance onstage. That atmospheric opening trailed his playing in St Fillan's Cave in Pittenweem at the weekend when he and SCO cellist Su-a Lee soundtrack a new video installation by Andy McGregor.
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