Robin Ticciati & SCO - Farewell Concert - Dvorak - The Herald

ALTHOUGH Robin Ticciati’s season-long paralleling of the music of Dvorak with that of Bach did not materialise, this concert still made considerable sense as a stand-alone demonstration of the musical breadth of the relationship he has built with the SCO over the past nine years. The Orchestral Suite No.4 is not Bach at his most accessible, but, with half of the small ensemble standing, it was a fine precursor to Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, which is written for a small string orchestra to accompany the soloist, principal clarinet Maximiliano Martin.

After the bracing Bach, the opening of the Copland seemed a little slushy, but it swiftly perks up with plenty of rhythmic jazzy energy, as you would expect for a work commissioned by the king of swing clarinet, Benny Goodman. In Martin’s hands the concerto did not sound in the least dated, although it is a work very much of its time (1950) and the influences around then, in the orchestral world as well as the dance hall.

It was after the interval, however, that it became clear what the SCO loses – and will need to replace – with Ticciati’s departure. The larger orchestra, with 40 string players, required for Dvorak’s New World Symphony still had the sparkling clarity of narrative line through opening movement that the conductor brings to everything he directs. There was a surprisingly corrugated, uneven moment at the start of the Largo, before the entry of Tom Davey’s cor anglais with that famous melody, but the movement ended captivatingly with one of Ticciati’s distinctive heart-stopping interpretive pauses, setting up a beautifully shaped dramatic journey to the finale.

With even the choir stalls well-filled, Ticciati’s final season concert as principal conductor was an occasion to remember, and importantly there were a great many young people in the audience to treasure that memory in the years beyond the orchestra’s faithful subscribers.