Showing @ Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, 2 April
There wasn’t a seat to be had at this RSNO concert of off-the-beaten-track works by Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Alexander Zemlinsky, plus Beethoven’s Symphony No 4. The reason? The appearance as soloist in Korngold’s Violin Concerto of one of Scotland’s best-known musicians, Nicola Benedetti. The Ayrshire-born violinist has a legion of faithful fans, and she didn’t disappoint them.
Korngold composed his concerto in the mid-1940s, drawing on themes from some of the film music he had scored following his arrival in Hollywood from Vienna in 1934. Benedetti, dressed not unlike a star from the Golden Age of Cinema in shimmering silver, took a swooning approach to the opening movement but lost some focus and tone in the central Romance. In the final movement the orchestra provided the stomping barn dance accompaniment to Benedetti’s virtuosic playing, and the brass rounded off proceedings with a glorious Technicolor flourish.
The RSNO’s Conductor Emeritus, Walter Weller, brought all his trademark poise and precision to the Beethoven symphony, his measured approach working its magic on the journey from gloom to glow of the first movement, though bringing the rocking motion of the Adagio perilously close to a standstill. However, the jaunty Menuetto and merry-go-round of a final movement redeemed matters admirably.
The find of the evening was Zemlinsky’s Sinfonietta of 1935, a dark-hued piece, full of sadness, in which hints of Viennese waltz were smothered by a palpable sense of dread and menace, as if the composer had foreseen the fate of Europe.