Music review: SCO Chamber Ensemble & Maxim Emelyanychev, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh

Maxim Emelyanychev PIC: Chris Christodoulou

SCO Chamber Ensemble & Maxim Emelyanychev, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh ****

Bit by bit, pieces are falling back into place as we continue to emerge (keep everything crossed) from the worst of the pandemic. This weekend, it was the turn of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s Sunday afternoon chamber concerts, back at Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall in front of a capacity, non-distanced crowd. It was an even more poignant return since this was a concert originally planned for 29 March 2020 (and we can all remember what we were doing then). But if there was a sense of joy at the concert’s return within the audience, that was more than reflected on stage.

It helped, no doubt, that the music itself was so upbeat. But these were performances that somehow managed to be exquisitely crafted and microscopically considered, but still flamboyant, spontaneous and, well, pretty devil-may-care. Clarinettist Maxmiliano Martín and cellist Philip Higham showed off magical phrasing and shaping in swapping the elegant melody in the middle movement of Beethoven’s B flat Trio, Op. 11. But there was a bustling theatricality to the outer movements, driven by the SCO’s multi-tasking principal conductor Maxim Emelyanychev on fortepiano. He led a breathtaking nimbleness in texture from all three players, who were deadly serious about the music’s sometimes unashamed silliness.

Higham returned with bassist Nikita Naumov in the Rossini Duo that followed, and the briskness and buoyancy continued, even from these two apparently sepulchral voices. Even more joyful was witnessing Higham and Naumov elegantly swapping roles and material, sliding between foreground and background, to allow space for the other to soar in Rossini’s remarkable flights of fancy.

But it was Schubert’s Trout Quintet that was no doubt the concert’s big draw, and its five players – Higham, Naumov and Emelyanychev returning, plus violist Fiona Winning and SCO leader Stephanie Gonley on violin – delivered a remarkably searching account, but one that never forgot the music’s sheer sense of celebration. It meant a brilliantly percussive scherzo, and variations on Schubert’s famous song tune that slipped in and out of contrasting characters as the movement progressed. Emelyanychev’s occasional improvised additions to Schubert’s keyboard writing only added to the sense of eagerness to engage and entertain – which this vibrant, joyful performance did in spades.

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