The Edinburgh Incidental Orchestra is a self-run orchestra for 14-24 year olds, but this was no school concert: the playing was of the highest level. The Tombeau de Couperin by Ravel opened the programme. This was fresh, lively and well suited to the players. featured an unlisted harpist. Vaughan Williams’ Oboe Concerto followed. Despite some problems with her oboe, Siobhan Parker produced a very expressive and impressive performance; the slower, wistful passages ached with emotion. The richly-deserved ovation ended the first half and led to an interval.
The orchestra was filled out with brass and timpani for Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony. The constituent parts were excellent, with Rachel Muir on horn and Ewan Zuckert on clarinet deserving a particular mention for the beautiful tone of their playing. However, the overall effect did not work. This is a huge piece, but the fireworks that disturbed the steward were from the last night of the Tattoo, not from the orchestra. I put forward two theories as to why. This was an Edinburgh event; the genteel foot stamping of applause reminded us that we were in a Church of Scotland building. It was all very safe and this was not the piece for that. Alternatively this was the wrong building. St Cuthbert’s is an aesthetic disaster area: the cream marble relief of the Last Supper surrounded by acres of marble has to be seen to be believed. None of the rest of the building matches it or anything else. The problem for concerts of this type may be that the huge marble pulpit and white marble font force the orchestra to be laid out oddly. The timpani were well forward and easily heard, the brass behind the chancel arch. The sound that came across as a result was flat and safe.
