A programme of favourites, under a genuine rising-star conductor: the Barbican should have been packed, but too few London concertgoers seem aware of quite how good the Scottish Chamber Orchestra actually is.
The string tone that Robin Ticciati drew was distinctive from the start: supple, simple and tender, just right for Wagner's Siegfried Idyll. Momentum faltered briefly midway through as the horn took over and the wheeling woodwind birdcalls seemed to stutter, but that was a momentary blip; generally, this was ensemble playing of unusual refinement, and Ticciati's flowing conducting allowed the music to breathe deeply.
Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto sounded competent but less special. The young German violinist Veronika Eberle was the able soloist; there were moments that suggested she was trying to break out of the standard template for this well-worn work, cutting out vibrato or pushing the tempo suddenly onwards, but they didn't add up to a strong, individual interpretation.
A single-minded sense of direction returned with Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, its story shaped by Ticciati into a single chapter of long paragraphs. Sound quality was again key, helped by the relatively small size of the orchestra. Autopilot vibrato had been expunged from the string playing, and the natural horns gave the sound an edge. In the slow movement, the solo bassoon emerged as smooth as a saxophone. Sometimes, the full orchestra was thick-toned, homogenous, almost like a harmonium; elsewhere, you were aware of dozens of distinct lines interacting. For once, it was clear that in the third movement Beethoven meant to show us a rustic knees-up without patronising the yokels.
That the SCO play Beethoven so well should be no surprise: this is, after all, the ensemble with which the late Charles Mackerras gave us one of the finest recorded Beethoven cycles of recent years. With Ticciati at the helm, there should be no chance of it losing the knack.
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