Romantic Love Stories with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra

It seems to be the fashion nowadays to give cheap titles to concerts in order, one imagines, to make them more marketable. The last Scottish Chamber Orchestra, ‘Romantic Love Stories’, was no exception to the rule. Fortunately, the title proved somewhat inadequate: there was little love, and a lot of Romanticism.

The concert begins with Gluck’s Overture to Alcestis (1767), which from the first chord – dominated by the low brass – conveys an atmosphere of pervasive gloom. The following piece is as close as one gets to the promised ‘Love Stories’, but Berlioz’s song-cycle Les Nuits d’été also deals with death and separation. At any rate, the SCO and the Scottish mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill give a fine performance, especially in the wonderful Le Spectre de la Rose and Sur les lagons, where Ticciati brings out the glittering orchestral colours. This is a tricky cycle for a single singer, as the orchestral version is scored for mezzo, baritone and contralto, but Cargill manages it all quite comfortably and with great effect.

The romantic thread continues after the interval with Schumann’s Second Symphony, which could not be further removed from the theme of ‘Love Stories’: it is a tormented and at times rather violent piece. Ticciati does it well, although one could have wished for tauter playing, especially from the brass who dominate the Queen’s Hall acoustics, to enable all the sections of the orchestra to come out clearly. However, the climax of the first movement is impressive, and the wonderful woodwind-playing in the slow movement conveys a deeply moving sense of yearning. The last movement could be faster, but it is as engaging as ever; a pregnant pause in the midst of the final build-up only adds to the tension as the music rushes towards the glorious, shattering conclusion.