SCO, David Brophy & Mari Samuelsen, Edinburgh review: 'an extraordinary evening'

This remarkable performance of Recomposed, Max Richter’s rethink of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, looked more like a rock gig than a traditional classical offering, writes David Kettle

SCO, David Brophy & Mari Samuelsen, Edinburgh ★★★★★

How gratifying to see an almost full Usher Hall for a concert of music entirely by living composers, remarked conductor David Brophy in his entertaining introduction. Indeed. And how gratifying, too, to see such a broad and eclectic range of ages and people – familiar SCO attendees and new faces alike – and to experience such anticipation, focus and rapt attention as well. The SCO’s forward-facing New Dimensions concerts strand is clearly going from strength to strength: this latest outing focused around Max Richter must not only have been its most popular concert, but also reconfirmed the magnificent versatility of the SCO, on dazzling form in Richter’s emotionally laden post-minimalism.

Brophy directed a beautifully shaped, exquisitely balanced account of Richter’s Beethoven-inspired Opus2020 before the interval – perhaps a little on the subdued side, but velvety and luminous all the same – and segued seamlessly into a particularly angular, fierce Company by Philip Glass, and a gloriously sumptuous account of John Adams’s arch The Chairman Dances, all approached with the same care and deep affection.

The concert’s big draw, however, was Richter’s transcendental musical rethink of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons after the interval, the uncannily profound, often deeply moving Recomposed. Replacing the pre-interval orchestra was an intimate Baroque band, almost all standing, and fronted by Norwegian violinist Mari Samuelsen. She’s a regular Richter collaborator, and you could tell: her furiously focused, impeccably articulated playing was the ideal match for his neo-Baroque exuberance, and she balanced fiery abandon with icy restraint to remarkable effect, backed by the SCO players on equally energetic form.

With subtle but judicious amplification, and vertical lighting that shifted hue as Vivaldi’s year progressed, it might have looked more like a rock gig than a traditional classical offering. But that didn’t detract from the SCO’s fastidious, period-inflected playing, nor Samuelsen’s apparently boundless athleticism. It was an extraordinary evening that thoroughly deserved the ovation it received.

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