TOMORROW night, at the Easterbrook Hall, Dumfries, the sensational Scottish Ensemble will open the 36th Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival with a rousing, lively performance of From Russia with Love. This is a powerful showcase of two of the country’s master composers, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich, and an absolute audience favourite. Expect an evening of extreme emotions expressed through music, from despair and devastating brutality to beauty and passion.
We asked the festival to give audiences a brief glimpse into the programme and a taste of what to expect.
Tchaikovsky – Andante Cantabile
Watch the video here.
The first piece we’ll be playing is so powerful that it made Leo Tolstoy cry (a fact which programme-note-writers have been delightedly using ever since). This may be because it really captures an element of the melody that is difficult to describe other than ‘really, really beautiful’. Played by solo cello it’s haunting, luscious and evocative – but you can listen for yourself.
As Tolstoy was known as not being a fan of classical music, preferring folk tunes, it was perhaps the recognition of the main melody performed on this beautiful instrument and bolstered with the sweet sound of the orchestra – it’s actually a tune Tchaikovsky heard being whistled by a carpenter working on his sister’s house in the Ukraine.
Shostakovich – Chamber Symphony in C Minor
Watch the video here.
If you’re familiar with this piece, it may well be the original string quartet version, which has been used in films pretty much ever since people were first left speechless at its incredible extremes of feeling (as well as the technical capabilities needed to play it). At the height of the Cold War, Shostakovich had been forced to travel abroad as a Soviet ambassador as well as joining the despised Party, and was tormented by a deep depression. When he returned, he presented this as his suicide note.
The version you’ll hear Scottish Ensemble play is the arrangement his good friend, Rudolf Barshai, made of it for string orchestra. Whenever we play it you can feel an almost tangible cloud of emotion hanging over the audience, due to the desolate melody but also the display of physical intensity from the players. We’re actually surprised there haven’t been more severe shoulder and neck injuries!
Shostakovich – Two Pieces for String Octet
Listen:
Shostakovich is probably one of the Marmite composers – you’ll either love or hate this stuff. But if you’re looking for characteristic Shostakovich, these two pieces tick many of the boxes. Started when he was a student, and finished years later, they’re full of the spiky jarring harmonies and driving rhythms which you hear in his later career. There are so many good moments – winding chromatic melodies from the cello, slithering muted triplets in the violins, a vigorously pounding cello accompaniment in the Scherzo.
Tchaikovsky – Serenade for Strings
Watch here.
This one by the Vivaldi Orchestra is a beautiful version of this big, sonorous, romantic piece by Tchaikovsky. It’s also really quite different to how you’ll hear us play it as a string orchestra – listen for yourself here.
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Scottish Ensemble play the opening night of the Dumfries & Galloway Arts Festival at the Easterbrook Hall, Dumfries, on Friday, 22 May at 8pm. Tickets from the Midsteeple Box Office, Dumfries, 01387 253383, or on the door on the night.
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