Framed by the dark legacy of Stalinist oppression and the quiet solitude of mortality, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra brought together three works inextricably linked by themes of grief, irony, and resilience at the Usher Hall on 2 October.
Yet the overall effect was curiously uplifting rather than depressing.
Under the baton of Principal Guest Conductor Patrick Hahn, the thoughtful programme paired Alfred Schnittke’s haunting and occasionally wild 1985 Viola Concerto with Dmitri Shostakovich’s monumental Symphony No. 5.
What emerged was a carefully curated arc of tension and resolution, delivered by the orchestra with meticulous clarity and unflinching emotional commitment.
The concert opened on a quietly arresting note with Leopold Stokowski’s arrangement of J.S. Bach’s Komm, Süsser Tod (Come, Sweet Death). Hahn treated the brief orchestral adaptation not as a lush showpiece, but as a hushed prelude of solemn but irrepressible beauty.
The RSNO strings established a sombre, translucent and reverent tone, allowing the rich lower registers to ground the harmony without entirely smothering the contrapuntal architecture of the original. It served as a fitting prologue: a silent meditation on mortality that framed the weightier canvasses to follow.
The centrepiece of the first half was Alfred Schnittke’s extraordinary 1985 Viola Concerto, a landmark of Cold War polystylism. Featuring soloist Lawrence Power, the performance was a masterclass in dramatic tension and instrumental colour. Power’s opening phrasing possessed an urgent, speaking quality, navigating Schnittke’s volatile shifts between fragile lyricism and violent, declamatory outbursts.
Power handled the instrument’s tricky balance with the orchestra skilfully, drawing out a dark, woody timbre that cut through Schnittke’s cluster-heavy scoring. In the central movement, Hahn managed the complex, competing textures with clarity, ensuring that the quotes of pseudo-baroque themes felt less like pastiche and more like fractured memories struggling against an overwhelming modern anxiety.
The agonizing slow fade of the finale – where the viola is left isolated against a decaying orchestral backdrop – was executed with exceptional control, leaving the auditorium in a breathless, suspended silence.
This concerto is little short of an unnerving masterpiece. Written just ten days before the first stroke and a bout of ill-health that was to haunt Schnittke for the rest of his life, it is bathed in mortality – but also resounding in its moments of playfulness, dissonant exuberance, and light piercing the darkness.
Power’s performance was quite exceptional in its control, delicacy and evocative force. The audience demanded an encore, and got a special one. A very personal, evocative treatment of Baroque composer Marin Marais’ Les Voix Humaines (The Human Voices), full of fleeting breath and pizzicato against a single cello’s harmonic backdrop
The second half was dedicated to Dmitri Shostakovich’s famous fifth symphony, which filled the Usher Hall with a constantly shifting sonority. Written in 1937, under the shadow of Stalin’s purges and artistic condemnations, the work requires a conductor to navigate its essential ambiguity – balancing the surface-level heroic narrative required by the regime against its underlying pathos and deep longing.
In some musical circles it has become fashionable to dismiss Shostakovich as theatrical or superficial. This is misplaced. Symphony No. 5 is full of cracking tunes, superbly weaved together and wonderfully orchestrated. But there is also aching sadness, biting satire and brooding dissonance, plus numerous references to Mahler in the first and third movements.
The opening Moderato, in D minor, is in sonata form. Introducing and developing two principle themes, it also has a sly, descending five-tone reference to Shostakovich’s fourth symphony – one the composer withdrew because he knew it would be condemned, and which was only performed some years later.
That gesture might have been lost on the premiere audience and the censors in Leningrad in 1937, but it shouts to us today. Shostakovich’s unmistakable but subtle dissent, beneath the guise of “a Soviet artist’s response to justified criticism”, becomes even clearer as second movement’s scherzo provides a brief, grotesque dance, where the solo violin and woodwinds generate a biting, satirical edge.
The heart of this performance, however, lay in the extraordinarily heart-rending Largo. Without the brass or percussion, the RSNO string section produced a warm, deeply expressive sound, sustaining its long, grief-laden lines gorgeously. Shostakovich also creates an array of solo spotlights across the orchestra. The flute and oboe solos emerged like fragile solitary voices, suspended over a shimmering backdrop of divided harps and tremolo strings.
In the Allegro non troppo finale, where grandiosity appears to reign, but with deliberate cracks, Hahn resisted the temptation to rush towards an easy triumph.
The closing bars were heavy, deliberate, and relentless – a forced march, rather than a joyous celebration. The hammering repeated D notes in the brass and timpani sounded less like victory and more like an inescapable fate, bringing a powerful and emotionally resonant performance to a resolute close.
The applause was long and well merited.
