BPO – Evelyn Glennie and Scheherazade – Geoffrey Paterson (conductor)

I’m so glad I did my homework and read Joanna MacGregor’s detailed programme notes before this concert because each work has a fascinating and complex story to follow. The Dome was packed; the stage was crammed full of players and many more instruments than usual; the lights dimmed just a little as Joanna MacGregor welcomed us to her afternoon entertainment. There must have been hundreds of people in the audience who were new to the delights of the BPO Sunday afternoon gala. Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise was the perfect overture to initiate them to the joys of live orchestral music. The lilting ceilidh dance tunes quickly conjured up the wedding, and then broke down easily. There are moments in this work that bring tears to my eyes, they are so horribly out of tune, and then out of time, and the trumpet was out of order, surely! And it’s all in the score, even the depiction of vomit, or something very much like. Geoffrey Paterson stood in calm control, his hands occasionally breaking his profile to indicate a change. You could almost smell the whisky, and then the Sunrise came in, resplendent in the form of piper Robert Jordan, towering over the proceedings in full dress kilt and sporran, topped with an enormous feather bonnet and hackles. After such orchestral bedlam the skirl of the bagpipes, played in proper context, sounded most excellent – and the roof of the Dome probably lifted a little.

Dame Evelyn Glennie

How to follow that? Well Dame Evelyn Glennie was a judicious choice. Doyen of solo percussionists she is a virtuoso champion of her genre and a miraculous exponent of rhythm, timbre and atmosphere. Profoundly deaf, she shares her very different musical experience with a compelling zeal. MacMillan’s Veni, Veni, Emmanuel opens with a startling crash and rushes onwards, Dame Evelyn prowling across the stage in black silk, with bare feet and free-flowing white locks, like an elegant Kabuki Lion dancer. She sometimes looked furious, sometimes just angry, or in fierce concentration as a torrent of sounds flowed out, sometimes vigorous, sometimes calming. I was again grateful to have the written programme to guide my attention, to help explain this fascinating new sensation. It’s amazing that the orchestra kept up, even with Geoffrey Paterson so precise and attentive. They were all on top form. The work concluded with the haunting chimes of tubular bells that took long minutes to fade into silence, Paterson’s static arms outstretched dramatically cruciform. The effect was so intense that it endured even through the ring-tone of a persistent mobile phone!

Dame Evelyn doesn’t travel light and it took a long interval to clear the platform of the comprehensive spread of percussion pieces, great and small This allowed the strings to be brought forward to meet new challenges of a completely different order, all the lush solo sections in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, the orchestral representation of the canny heroine of the Arabian Nights. We had been primed to listen out for the sensuous Persian Princess casting her fairy-tale spell, which was given by the Leader of the Orchestra, Ruth Rogers with her solo violin. Ben Rogerson bent diligently over his cello to give us the rocking pulse of the waves carrying Sinbad’s ship, and every instrument had its moment depicting characters in the tales. Mr Paterson, still without a baton, seemed to embrace the music, wrestle with it, cuddle the sound and cast it about while the orchestra responded intuitively to his every whim. This fantasy work is easy for the audience as it lures us into those reveries, dangers and exotic stories that ended once again with Scheherazade’s own magical theme.

Geoffrey Paterson

This unusual selection of works, carefully introduced and beautifully performed, will have introduced a whole new audience to the wonderful pleasures of orchestral music on a Sunday afternoon. We might expect the Dome to be just as full again for the rest of the season.

Brighton Dome Concert Hall,
1 December 2024
Andrew Connal

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