Popular choral work a hit at Edinburgh Festival opening

Sometimes choosing the opening work for a festival can be something of a gamble. Do you pick a tried and tested work or plump for the relatively unknown? The Edinburgh Festival organisers went for the former, Haydn’s Creation, one of the most popular choral works in the repertoire. They also opted for a line-up of performers that were a truly class act. As opening concerts go this was one of the best I’ve witnessed.

The line-up? The Scottish Chamber Orchestra, conductor Edward Gardner, three stellar soloists and the National Youth Choir of Scotland. Exciting in theory, fabulous in practice.

First the work itself. It is brimful of colour, wonderful ensemble work, cracking choruses and has an orchestration that only a master like Haydn could come up with.

Gardner and the SCO? Gardner knows how to generate atmosphere, to enunciate the composer’s colourful palette and to draw out every wonderful nuance of Haydn’s marvellous score. The SCO delivered Haydn’s music in the marvellous style we are accustomed to.

The soloists? In soprano Sarah Tynan, Robert Murray (tenor) and Neal Davies (bass) we had a match-winning combination, enormously effective in individual arias and recits, even more so in any duet or ensemble manifestation.

And the marvellous NYCOS. To choose them over the equally-excellent Festival Chorus to open the festival might have raised eyebrows, but in my mind this moment was long overdue. There’s something exhilarating about 100 or so young voices giving it gusto and something equally magical in their ability to swap that for delicate pianissimo.