Slow-burners blossom into a wealth of melody

There was one thing that caught my attention on Thursday’s Scottish Chamber Orchestra programme in the Perth Concert Hall and it wasn’t Beethoven’s third piano concerto or his famous fifth symphony. These are all-too-familiar works, while Weber’s overture to the opera Der Freischuzt isn’t,

writes Garry Fraser.

Weber was a contemporary of Beethoven though not nearly as famous, and there is a distinct similarity in content between their works for the stage, in the latter’s case his overtures to Egmont and Leonora.

They are slow-burners that blossom into a wealth of melody with fine rousing orchestration. Weber captures the drama behind the opera’s storyline – romance mixed with the supernatural – and the SCO under conductor Case Scaglione delivered an excellent interpretation.

The music of Beethoven is deeply embedded in the orchestra’s DNA, and quite often I find them peerless in this genre. Maybe not this time, as the performances of the third piano concerto and the fifth symphony were not the best I’ve heard.

The symphony was the better of the two, not that I could find any faults in the concerto. That was perhaps the problem. Robert Levin played it to the letter, or to the note, with the tempi strictly regimented. His choice of colour did add something, with delicious pianissimos and excellent cadenzas true to the Beethoven spirit.

When I hear the fifth, I try to get inside the work and grasp its innermost feelings. Scaglione helped, making sure the balance was perfect and letting the inner parts sing through.

It’s an exciting enough work at the best of times – the triplet motif is repeated to great effect – but his choice of tempi upped the ante considerably.