The Philadelphia Orchestra’s Edinburgh residency hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons before the orchestra had even crossed the Atlantic due to the Beethoven Nine mask fiasco. This, the second full-scale concert of the orchestra’s residency, largely passed under the radar, although it too was not without controversy. The very belated Scottish premiere of Florence Price’s First Symphony was never likely to be a big draw to the seemingly increasingly unadventurous EIF classical music audience. Even the pulling power of one of America’s great orchestras and conductor of the moment Yannick Nézet-Séguin, with the added sweetener of violinist Lisa Batiashvili (playing Szymanowski’s gorgeous but hardly super popular First Concerto) failed to tempt the Edinburgh audience who stayed away in large numbers.
This was a pity as Price’s First Symphony is definitely worth hearing, particularly when it finds a loving advocate such as Nézet-Séguin. The conductor is fond of championing the underdog and his advocacy of Price (the first half of a planned complete symphony cycle was released last year) is bringing her music out of the shadows and on to the international stage. Her First Symphony is a landmark work in being the first symphony by a Black woman to be performed by a major American orchestra (the Chicago Symphony in 1933). With its heavy allusions to Dvořák’s New World Symphony and rather wayward structure – two meandering movements followed by two so short they barely seem to get going - the symphony is certainly no neglected masterwork. Yet, historical significance aside, with its African tribal-inflected drum rhythms and luminous orchestration it has its moments, particularly the gorgeous brass chorale of the slow movement.
With the Philadelphia Orchestra lavishing all the gloss and polish you’d expect from one of America’s premier orchestras Price has found a persuasive champion. But the overall programming felt somewhat questionable. How to relate Price to Szymanowski’s forward-looking First Violin Concerto, for all there was much to admire in the sumptuous colour and soaring ethereal lines of Batiashvili’s solo violin? A cynic might point out that Nézet-Séguin and Batiashvili’s recording of the concerto was released last week, just in time for the orchestra’s European tour.
