En route to the Royal Scottish National Orchestra’s Glasgow concert on Saturday evening, I ran once more the gauntlet of the M80 converging on the M8. Speed limit? What speed limit? But there is a new development. They are installing average speed cameras. I’m not sure if they have gone live yet, but their presence certainly makes a difference. Everybody had slowed down. Actually there’s not much point in speeding here, because you are only running into a bottleneck. The M8, for years, has been “up”, and going west it has been reduced down to two lanes. I think the M8 is posing a fundamental, existential problem for the engineers. Many people think that, fundamentally, the M8 was a mistake, going back to the 1960s, when it first cut a swathe through Charing Cross and fatally injured the heart of Glasgow. The RSNO felt its effects even then. Glasgow’s beautiful St Andrew’s Hall had been destroyed by fire, and the orchestra was relegated to a cinema, the Gaiety Theatre on Argyll Street. I would take an electric train to Charing Cross and walk through a mud bath to an oasis of culture surrounded by the diggers and pile drivers. I remember an afternoon concert being abandoned because the orchestra could not compete with the din outside.
There’s still a bleakness about entering Glasgow to attend a concert. Doubtless the desertion of the High Street by people who choose to lead their lives online has not helped. The environ of Sauchiehall Street is a ghost town. You can almost see the tumbleweed floating east from Charing Cross to the concert hall at the top of Buchanan Street. Everything shuts early. There is a seven storey carpark in Buchanan Galleries, just next door to the concert hall, which closes at 9 pm. What earthly use is that on a Saturday night? And the Concert Square car park across the road and next door to the bus station is not salubrious. It has a sullen, ammoniac aroma.
Despite all that, the RSNO continues to be completely wonderful, even when events conspire to thwart its best endeavours. At the start of the concert in the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on Saturday evening, Chris Hart, the orchestra’s principal trumpet, came to the front of the stage to announce that the concert programme had had to be radically altered at the last minute. I can see why the orchestra’s management would have asked Mr Hart to undertake this unenviable task. He has a relaxed, laconic style.
We were anticipating an evening of French music with a watery theme: Trois Femmes de légende by Mel Bonis (1858 – 1937), a Scottish Premiere, les trois femmes in question being Ophélie, Salomé, and Cléopâtre; Ernest Chausson’s Opus 19 Poème de l’amour et de la mer, sung by Scottish Mezzo-soprano Catriona Morison, double winner of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition in 2017; Ravel’s Une barque sur l’ocean, and Debussy’s La mer. Alas, Ms Morison had taken unwell. Conductor Thomas Sondergard later remarked that she had only managed to get through the performance in Edinburgh the previous evening. Orchestras are often very adept at finding replacement soloists at the last minute, but I imagine finding a Mezzo familiar with this repertoire would be extremely challenging. Accordingly, the orchestra’s renowned principal flute Katherine Bryan had volunteered to fill in with Francoise Borne’s arrangement of melodies from Bizet’s Carmen. Then, alas, during rehearsals on Saturday afternoon, Ms Bryan took ill. Not only was Carmen out, but the orchestra was short of a flute in a French programme typically full of the sound of the flute. Adam Richardson, a graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, got the phone call at 7.00 pm, and was on stage half an hour later. He played second flute, and second flautist Jenny Farley was bumped up to the principal position. So we now had a truncated programme with a revision of the order: Ravel, Bonis, interval, Debussy. Despite all of that, it was a marvellous concert. The audience was extremely supportive, and the flute section took a special bow. Well sight-read!
Talking of music, The Last Night of the Proms, Part 3 in the life of the troubled doc, is out, not only online, but in print, between covers. Troubador Publishing Ltd, copyright 2024 James Calum Campbell, ISBN 978 1 80514 311 6. This is a shameless plug. Order it at a bookstore near you!
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