Royal Scottish National Orchestra

On Friday evening, Joe and I had a special date to the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. The RSNO is based in Glasgow, but makes regular performances at the famous Usher Hall in Edinburgh. We were excited to see they were playing in February and were thrilled to find a student discount which made the tickets very affordable!

Outside of Usher Hall (pre-construction)

© Copyright Kevin Rae and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons License

The theme of Friday's performance was apparently "tragic tales of doomed love." Joe and I appear to have a penchant for this theme, seeing as the last time we went out for a night of art and culture, we had tickets to La Boheme, quite possibly one of the saddest love stories out there. We hear about these performances and excitedly get tickets before ever finding out what the story is about.

Friday's performance featured two pieces, neither of which I had heard before. The first was Sibelius' 1905 orchestral suite, in 8 movements, Pelléas and Mélisande. It was beautiful and emotive and entirely too short. The second piece was de Vlieger's arrangement of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, retitled Tristan and Isolde: An Orchestral Passion. A much shortened adaptation of Wagner's famous (and four hour long opera) this piece was breathtaking and moving and completely consuming. I was shocked when the applause started and realized the piece was already over after 75 minutes--it seemed it had just started.

In addition to the beautiful music, we were treated to the beautiful surroundings of the Usher Hall. Built in 1914, Usher Hall is currently undergoing a multimillion pound renovation. Despite the scaffolding surrounding the outside, though, the inside remains understated and beautiful.

Ceiling

There is also a beautiful organ at the back of the stage, which is really the focal point of the whole theater. Sadly, I could not get a good picture of this, nor find one that I can reprint, but you can click here to see a shot of the organ and choral seating. I couldn't help but think, when I first saw the stage, that this would be an amazing place to hear Handel's Messiah, my dad's favorite.