Shostakovich Five

On Friday night at the Usher Hall, the RSNO moved through a programme of pressure and release. Bach’s Komm, süsser Tod, in Leopold Stokowski’s four-minute orchestral arrangement, began as a bleeding-string eulogy before the harp opened it into an eruption of horn and flute. In four minutes, it contained almost an evening’s worth of grief, violence and release.

Lawrence Power entered shortly after with Schnittke’s Viola Concerto, his viola thick and sickly, ringed by a small inner circle of strings. The viola seemed almost to contain its own accompaniment. Tubular bells and gong then broke open that tension into fury. Discord gathered into chase and any moments of shine were quickly dragged back to the abyss. Mocking waltz figures and a harpsichord dragging slightly behind the beat gave the atmosphere of a party-turned-nightmare, while harp and xylophone kept nudging the music somewhere stranger. Power held the centre throughout all, the ensemble constantly tightening around him. Power’s encore stripped the sound back again, his viola scratching, sweeping and softening over Principal Cellist Pei-Jee Ng’s balancing accompaniment.

After the interval, Shostakovich’s Fifth began in a burst of panic before settling into a despondent theme led by RSNO Leader Maya Iwabuchi. The oboe opened space in the texture, then double basses and low piano darkened it again as timpani drove the movement towards a cantering, martial urgency. The strings carried much of the attack, while flute and oboe briefly opened the music out before being pulled back into the strings. The second movement twisted that militarism into something like a victory waltz. Iwabuchi again took the lead as the flute glissandoed behind her. The victory waltz never quite settles as the pace continues to slip ahead and away of itself. The third movement stripped the force back. Strings built an eerie, contemplative texture, interrupted and lifted by harp and flute, the instruments passing the lead between them until the music spoke through its spaces and silences. Hahn then brought the fourth back in full force with brass and percussion driving it forward while the strings pulsed the same A again and again, until grandeur became exhaustion.

Shostakovich Five by Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Credit Rsno.