Hebrides Ensemble – review
Alexander von Humboldt, German scientist and explorer, travelled the new world at the turn of the 19th century and wrote his reports in quasi-Romantic prose. His Personal Narrative of a Journey is an odd mix of scientific fact, glum nostalgia for a wilderness that existed before humans messed it up, and prophetic angst for the disappearing rainforests of today. Around the same time, Beethoven was painting shoes happier portraits of people in nature; Scottish composer Peter Nelson takes the Pastoral Symphony and Von Humboldt's Narrative as starting points for Lost Landscapes, a septet commissioned and premiered by the Hebrides Ensemble. Nelson worked with Xenakis in the 80s and shares his sense of meticulous proportion. He treats Von Humboldt's quaint descriptions crocodile and boa are masters of the river; a deep calm reigned in those lonely places in careful evocations. The work seems over almost as soon as it begins, Nelson's academic detachment – he is head of music at Edinburgh University – creeping in at the edges. But his fleeting images are beguiling. The first segment teems with busy motives over an adventurous walking bass; later, subdued string chords jostle up like giant lily pads on the Amazon.Lost Landscapes is scored for the same mellow combination of low strings and winds as Beethoven's Septet in E flat, Opus 20 – the other work on this programme. The Septet was a hit when it premiered in 1800, but has fallen out of fashion; the Hebrides played with polish but didn't convince me to campaign for a major revival. They pick their players from the best of Scotland's freelancers and occasionally lack the intuition that comes from playing together all the time – palpable more in Beethoven's slow movements than the peppy horn calls and fiddle runs of the finale.
