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The Herald Scotland
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Review: a masterclass from Randall Goosby at Caird Hall in Dundee
Much of the work of violinist Randall Goosby as the RSNO's Artist in Residence this season has been behind the scenes, giving masterclasses for young string players and working with them on short pieces which will be showcased in Saturday's Glasgow concert of the penultimate week in the orchestra's season. An afternoon recital of chamber music from Goosby in the company of RSNO string players follows on Sunday. His run of concerts began in Dundee, as soloist on the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in the superb acoustic of the Caird Hall. The programme began with a beautifully detailed performance of Debussy's Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune, first flute Katherine Bryan opening the work deliciously sotto voce. Similarly, Goosby, for all his personal self-confidence, had a very tempered approach to the Mendelssohn, and the work was all the better for it. After a crisp account of the first movement cadenza, he and conductor Thomas Sondergard took the gorgeously melodic central Andante at a relatively brisk tempo, with superbly modulated trumpet-playing a highlight alongside rich ensemble string playing. Read more reviews from Keith Bruce: Coming after the Debussy dance-score, there was a light balletic feel to the lively finale, and Goosby followed it with a bluesy encore – likely from his debut solo album, Roots – that encapsulated the young violinist's engaging charm. A further compelling reason to be in the audience at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on Saturday evening is the programme's second half symphony by US-based Russian polymath Lera Auerbach. A poet and concert-pianist as well as a composer, her Symphony No 1, Chimera, is almost 20 years old but this – surprisingly – was its UK premiere. Beyond argument symphonic in scale, it is a long way from traditional in structure, and also shares some DNA with the Debussy. Auerbach's inspiration came from fairytale and Greek myth, and the work is peopled with character-studies and constantly in a state of flux, with some very tuneful passages. Rain-stick and tubular bells feature among the percussion, and the distinctive addition of the theremin was immaculately played by Charlie Draper behind the first violins, and often scored as an addition to the strings. The symphony also provided some eloquent soloing opportunities across the orchestra, but particularly from orchestra leader Maya Iwabuchi.
The Herald Scotland
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Review: RSNO conductor Nodoka Okisawa's Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
Swedish trumpeter Hakan Hardenberger has single-handedly increased the catalogue of concertos for his instrument beyond measure with his orchestral commissions, and the RSNO built this concert around the Scottish premiere of one of the latest, by Helen Grime. It is neither a completely new work – the LSO first played it three years ago and there have been other performances in Europe – nor an especially virtuosic one, and the RSNO's programme was a mixed success in giving it a context. Its closest kin in the programme was Toru Takemitsu's gorgeous How Slow the Wind, but that was written for a much smaller orchestra, and first performed by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in 1991. The Japanese composer's distinctive response to nature, with the crucial addition of orchestral piano and celeste to the sonic palette, is also more compact and to the point. Read more by Keith Bruce: Review: A composer whose remarkable works are very much his own RSNO Hahn review: An odd programme on paper, delivered with remarkable eloquence Grime's Trumpet Concerto: night-sky-blue is inspired by gardens after sunset and most affecting in the muted passages for the soloist at its opening and closing. Percussion, harp, high-pitched winds and the orchestra's trumpet section provide the initial support, while vibraphone and glissando strings add crucial colours at the end. As conductor Nodoka Okisawa appeared to appreciate, it seems to be aspiring to be more lyrical than the orchestra actually sounds during the central parts, while the music for Hardenberger himself recalls both Baroque predecessors and brass band music. The Stokowski arrangement of Debussy's Claire de lune, which opened the second half, also featured Principal Percussionist Simon Lowdon's sparkling vibes playing, alongside the more obvious combination of Katherine Bryan's flute and Pippa Tunnell on harp. The concert had begun on familiar ground with Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture and it ended in the darker territory of Rachmaninov's Isle of the Dead, which share some structural similarities but could have both benefitted from a less austere approach than that taken by Okisawa. The Tchaikovsky received a very measured, almost rigid, reading, with even the big string climax far from lush, although it was redeemed by the closing bars. Her Rachmaninov was perhaps more organic, and the Dies Irae theme that haunts the composer's works beautifully realised, but the work never really felt as ominous as it should.
Scotsman
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
RSNO & Patrick Hahn, Edinburgh review: 'vivid and dramatic'
This death-themed evening was a sold-out triumph for the RSNO and Patrick Hahn, writes David Kettle Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... RSNO & Patrick Hahn, Usher Hall, Edinburgh ★★★★ Death might seem an unlikely concert theme to draw a capacity crowd to Edinburgh's Usher Hall. When one of the evening's works is Mozart's lavish, legendary Requiem, however, that popularity is perhaps more understandable. The Requiem's notorious associations with shadowy strangers and Mozart's own mysterious demise – courtesy of the Milos Forman's movie Amadeus – are largely hokum, but the piece's uncanny power and granitic seriousness remain, and it received a brisk, vivid and deftly dramatic reading from RSNO Principal Guest Conductor Patrick Hahn. Patrick Hahn PIC: Kow Iida The slimmed-down orchestra was on incisive form, even if Hahn's four vocal soloists seemed oddly matched, from stentorian baritone Laurent Naouri to the exquisite soaring purity of soprano Mhairi Lawson, who made several silvery contributions. The RSNO Chorus – pushed firmly into the spotlight in Mozart's demanding writing – sounded occasionally underpowered, but delivered a crisp, energetic, resonant account, particularly in an urgent 'Confutatis'. They spun sumptuously velvety threads, too, through the concert's opener, Beethoven's rarely heard Elegischer Gesang, in Hahn's nicely restrained but richly conceived account. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Hahn took the unusual but very effective decision to segue directly from Beethoven's silky choral miniature into the far harder-edged, grittier world of Berg's Violin Concerto, which, famously written in memory of family friend Manon Gropius who died aged just 18, continued the concert's fateful theme. And it received a commanding but deeply human performance from violinist Carolin Widmann, who unravelled the piece's structural intricacies expertly, but played with such open-hearted, unadorned sincerity that she clearly won over listeners who were maybe less familiar with Berg's sometimes violently dissonant sound world. As in the Mozart, Hahn's tempos were on the speedy side, but that only re-emphasised the performance's absence of wallowing indulgence, and he drew inner lines and details from Berg's often dense scoring to telling and moving effect.
Scotsman
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
RSNO & Patrick Hahn, Edinburgh review: 'vivid and dramatic'
, writes David Kettle Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... RSNO & Patrick Hahn, Usher Hall, Edinburgh ★★★★ Death might seem an unlikely concert theme to draw a capacity crowd to Edinburgh's Usher Hall. When one of the evening's works is Mozart's lavish, legendary Requiem, however, that popularity is perhaps more understandable. The Requiem's notorious associations with shadowy strangers and Mozart's own mysterious demise – courtesy of the Milos Forman's movie Amadeus – are largely hokum, but the piece's uncanny power and granitic seriousness remain, and it received a brisk, vivid and deftly dramatic reading from RSNO Principal Guest Conductor Patrick Hahn. The slimmed-down orchestra was on incisive form, even if Hahn's four vocal soloists seemed oddly matched, from stentorian baritone Laurent Naouri to the exquisite soaring purity of soprano Mhairi Lawson, who made several silvery contributions. The RSNO Chorus – pushed firmly into the spotlight in Mozart's demanding writing – sounded occasionally underpowered, but delivered a crisp, energetic, resonant account, particularly in an urgent 'Confutatis'. They spun sumptuously velvety threads, too, through the concert's opener, Beethoven's rarely heard Elegischer Gesang, in Hahn's nicely restrained but richly conceived account. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Hahn took the unusual but very effective decision to segue directly from Beethoven's silky choral miniature into the far harder-edged, grittier world of Berg's Violin Concerto, which, famously written in memory of family friend Manon Gropius who died aged just 18, continued the concert's fateful theme. And it received a commanding but deeply human performance from violinist Carolin Widmann, who unravelled the piece's structural intricacies expertly, but played with such open-hearted, unadorned sincerity that she clearly won over listeners who were maybe less familiar with Berg's sometimes violently dissonant sound world. As in the Mozart, Hahn's tempos were on the speedy side, but that only re-emphasised the performance's absence of wallowing indulgence, and he drew inner lines and details from Berg's often dense scoring to telling and moving effect.
The Herald Scotland
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
RSNO Hahn at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall review: 'remarkable eloquence'
On paper it looked an odd programme, teaming mid-20th century masterpiece Berg's Violin Concerto with Mozart's Requiem, but, as RSNO Principal Guest Conductor Patrick Hahn explained, preceding both with Beethoven's rarely heard late choral miniature Elegischer Gesang created a sequence of works that all shared a memorial purpose. More than that, however, all three were never heard by their composers, because Mozart and Berg had themselves died before the first performances and Beethoven was deaf. So it was especially appropriate that the concert was signed by the remarkable BSL performer Paul Whittaker. It is not necessary to be reliant on his interpretation of the music to appreciate its remarkable eloquence. Earlier in the week, the RSNO, Hahn and soloist Carolin Widmann had been recording the concerto for a new disc that will pair it with the Violin Concert of Benjamin Britten, who was one of those who recognised its stature at the first performance. Berg's champions are still fighting their corner, and Widmann and Hahn made their case with a performance that relished the range of orchestral colour as much as the virtuosity required of the soloist, particularly in the second movement. Read more reviews from Keith Bruce: With alto sax joining bass clarinet and contrabassoon in the winds, that section's exchanges with Widmann were wonderfully expressive, the whole work framed by sections in which they were joined by the harp of Eluned Pierce. If Hahn was meticulous, precise, but understated in the first half, we saw his more expansive side after the interval as he guided the RSNO Chorus, prepared by director Stephen Doughty, through the Mozart. This was quite a brisk Requiem, a pace that only seemed to catch the large choir out at the end of the Sanctus, and the conductor integrated the choir, players and quartet of soloists in a way that brought out the operatic elements of the score. That front line – Scots soprano Mhairi Lawson and tenor Jamie MacDougall, mezzo Hanna Hipp and baritone Laurent Naouri – were especially good in ensemble in that regard and the might of the full choir was perfectly matched by the crisp playing of the RSNO's trombones in the concluding Lux Aeterna.
