9th opens RSNO season

[bernardc]

The exciting young French conductor Stéphane Denève began his new job as principal with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra on Saturday night. His tall frame and studious glasses gave him a natural authority, his bouncing mop of hair evoking the great man himself!

I missed the first half of the concert (new commission and Ravel) but I sure wasn't going to miss Op 125. After a rather lame opening movt he really let rip in the tornado-like Scherzo and managed to caress the violins in the soaring theme which forms the core of the slow movt.

As always that astonishing "concoction" that is the final movt brought the (full) house down and we all went away with a definite hope in our hearts. I overheard one old gentleman muse to another, "How could a man who was stone deaf compose THAT?" Indeed!!

[Sorrano]

I don't suppose it's so much the fact that a deaf man could write something so profound as the 9th symphony or the final quartets and piano sonatas as is that someone with so much to despair of in life could offer up so much hope, courage, and serenity as occurs in that music.