The Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra under Michael Waterman play Puccini, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky in a memorable concert

Sometimes, not often, a concert program stands out as inherently interesting. I thought that when I saw the Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra’s offering last night in Alicante’s ADDA auditorium. The works on offer were by three of the most played composers, but their form in each case was unusual. Giacomo Puccini is justly famous for his operas, but a string quartet in an arrangement for string orchestra…? There followed the String Quartet No8, Op110, perhaps the best known of Dmitri Shostakovich’s fifteen string quartets, arranged in an equally famous version for string orchestra by Rudolph Barshai. And then Tchaikovsky’s underplayed string sextet Souvenir of Florence in a new arrangement for string orchestra by the evening’s concert master and director, Michael Waterman. It’s not often in decades of concert going that I have been privileged to hear a string sextet, certainly many fewer times than I have heard a string orchestra.

I Crisantemi is a piece of six minutes or so written by Puccini for string quartet. The music is delicate, as delicate in places as a flower petal. But it is also lyrical, and, as one would expect from Puccini, the music is song like. It was written alongside Manon Lescaut and at times the string writing is very reminiscent of the intermezzo from that opera. I Crisantemi seems to be an exercise in understatement, but this is not to suggest that it makes anything other than a powerful piece in performance. The arrangement for string orchestra lost none of the music’s delicacy.

Dmitri Shostakovich dedicated his eighth quartet, Op110, to victims of war, but musically it’s about only one thing: “Me… Me… Me…” The four notes, DSCH in German notation, D, E flat, C, B natural in English, form the composer’s musical signature, and, in this twenty-minute quartet, which sounds like it has several movements played without a break, this signature motif provides almost all the material that the composer uses. At times, it is bleak and depressed, at times upbeat and dancing, at times angry and threatening: the quartet number eight almost mesmerize listeners into a trance. Rudolph Barshai was a founder member of the Borodin Quartet and later made a career as a conductor, spending many years directing the Moscow Chamber Orchestra. He also prepared a Chamber Symphony, Op110a, from the Shostakovich eighth quartet. Not only did the composer approve of Barshai’s arrangement, but he also actually gave the piece its name. This is music of almost frightening intensity, whose final pianissimo actually increases the tension transmitted to the audience. There is no tranquil ending here for a work that in effect rips open the emotions of its listeners. And in this performance by the Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra, raw meat was exposed.

In total contrast, the gay abandon of Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir of Florence is filled with joy, exuberance, dance, and beauty. It sounds like a piece that a composer might rattle off very quickly, so spontaneous does it sound. But Tchaikovsky was a composer with considerable craft, and he was still revising it some two years after its initial composition. Michael Waterman’s version for string orchestra retained the fresh sound that this piece achieves when played by a sextet, the extra players in the arrangement adding depth, but neither weight nor clumsiness to this vibrant music. It has to be said that it was largely down to the skill and togetherness of this ensemble that they brought brilliance to this music. A four-movement structure suggests that the composer might have something symphonic in mind and, indeed, Tchaikovsky’s approach reminded me of the Mendelsohn string symphonies. Perfect ensemble, and a very skilful arrangement combined to make this performance utterly memorable.

There was a short encore, another arrangement, this time of a motet, Locus Iste by Bruckner. It was another quiet work that again demonstrated that in a good hall with an attentive audience, a handful of players can fill the place with music. I repeat the experience was utterly memorable.