A PROVOCATIVE duality lay at the heart of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra's Mozart 250 concert on Friday night and it did not rest in the intelligent and logical coupling of works by Stravinsky and Mozart that comprised the programme. Rather, the collision (for so it seemed) stemmed from radically different approaches to the two piano concertos by Mozart that represented the core of the programme: the sunny A major concerto K488 and its darker, more turbulent sibling, the D minor concerto K466.
The profoundly differing perspectives on the concertos taken by pianist/director Piotr Anderszewski were presumably intentional, so consistent was each; but where the D minor concerto performance hit the mark as far as the character of the music was concerned, from its stealthy and stormy shadows to the shafts of wit and sunlight in the finale, the Polish pianist's interpretation of the radiant A major concerto seemed almost to miss the point.
Sure, the playing was pristine, pellucid and super-sophisticated, but Anderszewski's insistence on beauty of line rather than structure and momentum, along with mannered phrasing, exaggerated punctuation and the teasing of every ounce of prettiness from each note, meant that the concerto dragged its heels and lacked vigour and sparkle.
The SCO, while matching the sensitivity and polish of the pianist in its accompaniment to the concertos, came into its own with former leader and guest director Alexander Janiczek in the two works by Stravinsky that opened each half of the concert.
As vibrant and bracing as the performance of Pulcinella was, the SCO's dazzling account of the Concerto in D, with its spicy flavours and stimulating, spiky, assymetrical rhythms, comprehensively stole the show.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article