RSNO at Caird Hall

Apr 23 2010 Perthshire Advertiser Friday

THE final concert in this year’s RSNO Season at the Caird Hall, Dundee, was satisfying with touches of brilliance.

Their guest conductor Christof Perick was on home territory as Chief Conductor of the Bavarian State Theatre in Nürnberg in the first work: the Overture to Weber’s opera Der Freischütz. Here the Romantic shudderings of the strings and the horn sounds from the forest were just right. John Cushing, as Principal Clarinet, and Emmanuel Laville were superb, the oboe of the latter cast against the demonic brass.

Sharon Kam joined the orchestra playing what looked like a basset clarinet for Mozart’s famous Concerto in A, K622 – it allowed the excellent soloist to highlight the low chalumeau register, which Mozart admired in his chosen first soloist and wrote for both in extended passages and wide arpeggio figures. Sharon played with grace and fluidity. In the past it has been possible to criticize the RSNO in Mozart adversely. Those days are long past and they gave a stylish account of their part: alert and flexible.

After the interval came Brahms’ Haydn Variations. Though perhaps a little comfortable in places, Christof Perick was adept at conjuring the right colours from the orchestra: woodwind that was both characterful and blended well, a good depth of string tone, nicely bucolic hunting sounds for the horns.

The master performance of the evening was Hindemith’s Sinfonische Metamorphosen über Themen von Carl-Maria von Weber. It is an example of Hindemith’s wit that he used this dry-as-dust title to disguise his most colourful, joyous, approachable work. The opening Hungarian Allegro had low woodwind against growling brass. Wildness mounted in the Turandot Variations with mad trills, then the jazzy brass syncopations and percussion cadenza.

Innocence with beautiful flute decoration came out in the Andantino before the exultantly macabre Funeral March showed off the exciting virtuosity of the entire RSNO.

A super concert and climax to the season.

Ian Stuart-Hunter