Maya Irgalina With The Scarborough Symphony Orchestra

Maya Irgalina’s playing of Frédéric Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 sparkled like the light catching the jewels of her necklace, with a shining clarity and colouristic variety, highly felicitous for a piece written under the stile brillante influence. It was the glorious centrepiece of a concert opening the new season of the sixty-strong Scarborough Symphony Orchestra, marking their seventieth anniversary.

The precociously talented Chopin had no more than a score of years when, as the 1820s were giving way to the 30s, he wrote what passes for his first piano concerto but which actually was his second, an indexing anomaly arising out of the fact he published it earlier than the chronological first. No matter. Both works are full of youthful energy and the first’s opening movement, at the internationally famous Belarusian pianist’s lightest of touches, seemed to cascade poetically, heroically, effortlessly, the beautiful main theme a thing of gentle, expressive, unforced joy.

The melody of the second movement, the Romanze, floated dreamily on the air, casting a reverential spell over the audience packed into the Methodist Central Hall. In the closing Rondo Vivace, her interpretation was both playful and vigorous, dazzling and persuasive. Called back repeatedly, she responded with Chopin’s ever popular Fantaisie-Impromptu, a piece that everyone recognises instantly, and which once gave the youthful Judy Garland, singing I’m Always Chasing Rainbows, a pop hit.

The concert had begun with a rather less well-known work, by Joachim Raff, who is remembered these days chiefly for his Cavatina, one of dear old Alan Keith’s perennial hundred best tunes. Under the revered baton of Shaun Matthew, director here since 2005, the Scarborough Symphony Orchestra made a good case for the revival of Raff, who composed eleven symphonies, a great deal of piano pieces, chamber works and songs. His Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott (a mighty fortress is our God), written in 1855, revised ten years later, is a moving extension of one of Martin Luther’s most famous hymns. The articulation and rhythmic vivacity of the orchestra made for joyous listening, revealing the piece to be a work of stature.

After the interval, we heard another late representative of the German Romantic movement, a rather better known one. Robert Schumann composed his Symphony No. I - the Spring Symphony - in an astonishing burst of creative energy over four days in January 1841. If he wrote it in mid-winter, its unseasonal appearance here was most welcome. Indeed, the orchestral sound was richly sensuous and warm, the tone set immediately by a trumpet call.

Originally scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones and strings, it is in fact a perfect piece to showcase an orchestra’s talent. The first movement pipes the approach of Spring with a solo flute line, before harmonic clouds descend, briefly suggesting we are perhaps celebrating prematurely. Then plangent brass and percussion and blithe woodwinds reassure us spring is in ascendancy. The second movement recalls a mellow early Spring evening, a time to reflect on another year awakening, before the scherzo takes us into playful May.

The last movement is a beautiful expression of the nineteenth-century Romantic agony, that the poet Keats understood so well, the realisation that the most beautiful is the most sorrowful, man’s life being so short and pleasures so fleeting. We should not seek to rush into summer but savour Spring, wish it to last longer - and Shaun Matthew commendably underscores the second element of Schumann’s injunction to allegro e grazioso.

This has been a wonderful week for music in Scarborough. It began last Monday with an opera at the SJT, seemed as though it might peak on Thursday with a world class string quartet in the same venue – before ending with Maya Irgalina making a triumphant return to play with the Scarborough Symphony Orchestra.

The Scarborough Symphony Orchestra, with guest soloist Maya Irgalina, appeared at Methodist Central Hall, Scarborough, on Saturday 23rd November.