Amal Choucri Catta finds the Cairo symphony on form for an excursion to the Scottish highlands Cairo Symphony Orchestra, cond Jan Stulen, flautist Abdel-Dayem, violinist Yasser El- Serafi. Main Hall, Cairo Opera House, 17 April 8pm The Cairo Symphony Orchestra seems increasingly in need of motivation: currently they appear to depend a little too heavily on technique. There is an edge missing -- what once sounded heartfelt now echoes hollow leading to performances that are sometimes surprisingly soulless. The notes might be in the right place but something that was once there is now missing. And audiences are noticing. Last Saturday remains one of those vivid instances that confirm the fact that audiences are staying away which, in the case of a concert joining conductor Jan Stulen and flautist Abdel- Dayem, is something of a pity. Stulen managed to offer his audience an exemplary programme, introducing works by Ralph Vaughan-Williams and François Borne, and closing beautifully with Felix Mendelssohn. The concert opened with The Lark Ascending, Vaughan- Williams' romance for violin and orchestra, with soloist Yasser El-Serafi. Vaughan-Williams was a British conductor and organist, born on 12 October, 1872. He studied at Cambridge and at the Royal College of Music and, later, with Bruch in Germany and with Ravel in Paris. Organist at Saint Barnabas, he began collecting English folk songs and was deeply influenced by the revival of interest in English 16th century composers. Aged 36, he studied for three months with Ravel and thereafter produced a series of major works, including Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, On Wenlock Edge and A London Symphony. He served in WWI as an orderly and after the war was active in every area of Britain's musical life, as conductor, teacher, writer and composer. Vaughan-Williams' music is remarkably individual, with the modal harmonies characteristic of folk-song, yet owing something to the French influence of Ravel and Debussy. He wrote works in almost every genre, from operas and symphonies to choral works for amateurs and for highly professional choirs, as well as concertos for neglected instruments, including the harmonica and the tuba. He believed that a composer should make his art "an expression of the whole life of the community" though he remained, paradoxically, a very personal composer. Except for Riders of the Sea his operas have not, so far, held the stage, though all are spasmodically revived. His nine symphonies range from the Sea Symphony and the picturesque London to the programmatic Antarctica. A wide range of orchestral colour is not only deployed in these works, but also in his large-scale choral works. The basis of his work is melody and the rhythm, though sometimes unsubtle, has a visionary, appealing quality. He died in London on 26 August 1958. For their Saturday concert Cairo Symphony chose Vaughan-Williams' The Lark Ascending, composed in 1914, just before the outbreak of war, and revised in 1920 and 1926. The author dedicated the work to the violinist Marie Hall, who premiered it in 1921, at Queen's Hall, under the baton of Sir Adrian Boult. The quotation of a poem by George Meredith heads the score. Revealing glimpses of the English countryside while soaring into auburn skies and diving into evergreen meadows, the lark's flight is symbolised by the violin solo accompanying the poem and opening with a nostalgic melody: "He rises and begins to round,/ He drops the silver chain of sound..." The violin is extended to the highest pitch as the lark is driven out of sight by wayward winds. "For singing till his heaven fills,/ 'Tis love of earth that he instills,/ And ever winging up and up,/ Our valley is his golden cup,/ And he the wine which overflows,/ To lift us with him as he goes..." Violin and orchestra follow the poetic cues. Vaughan-Williams' ascending lark is a newcomer to Cairo's Symphony Orchestra and was beautifully interpreted by soloist Yasser El- Serafi. The musical flight was as pure and as clear as a spring morning. First violinist of the Cairo Symphony, El-Serafi's touch is remarkably sensitive, his phrasing nuanced. Contemporary French composer François Borne was represented by the Fantasie Brillante : On Georges Bizet's Carmen for Flute and Orchestra, according to an arrangement by Jean-Pierre Rampal, with soloist Abdel- Dayem. Based on Prosper Merimée's novel about a gypsy girl, Bizet's Carmen enjoys enormous popularity. The wealth of its musical material lends itself to interpretations and transcriptions of different styles of music. Two orchestral suites have been extracted from the score, while Pablo de Sarasate wrote a fantasy for violin and orchestra, and Schedrin a ballet based on Bizet's music. François Borne's version for flute and orchestra often disengages itself from the rules of Bizet's score, creating a romantic virtuoso piece using themes from the original opera while adding variations to each theme allowing the flute to display all the virtuosity of the soloist and all the sensitivity of the instrument itself. Abdel-Dayem's performance was breathtaking as she gave the audience two or three variations on each of the well-known tunes and arias, including "Sur les remparts de Seville" and "L'amour est enfant de Bohème". She delved from one subtle theme into an accelerated moto perpetuo, triumphantly closing with an exhilarating prestissimo. Abdel-Dayem has often embarked on difficult musical adventures and generally comes out with flying colours. This time she did it again and as she reached the finale was met with well-deserved cheers. It was during the second part of the concert that the conductor's brilliance became overwhelmingly evident. Born in 1942 in Amsterdam, Jan Stulen studied at the Amsterdam Academy of Music. He was conductor at Munster Opera House, chief conductor of the Netherlands Ballet Orchestra and the Netherlands Dance Theatre, and has headed orchestras in Germany, Belgium and Transylvania. One time professor of conducting at Maastricht Musica Academy, since 2003 he has occupied the same position at Rotterdam Music Academy and has been a guest conductor with a great many distinguished orchestras. His conducting is -- to use an old-fashioned term -- noble, and that nobility was very much on display as he navigated Cairo's symphonists through Mendelssohn's Third Symphony in A- minor, Opus 56, often referred to as the Scottish Symphony. The composition was begun in 1829, while the author was spending three weeks in Scotland, an experience that also resulted in The Hebrides and Fingal's Cave. Mendelssohn found his stay in Scotland exhilarating. In a letter home he wrote the following: "In the evening twilight we went today to the palace where queen Mary lived and loved. A little room is shown there with a winding staircase, leading up to the door. Up this way they came and found Rizzio -- assumed to be her lover -- in that dark corner where they pulled him out, and three rooms off, there is a dark corner where they murdered him. The chapel close to it is now roofless: grass and ivy grow there and at that broken altar Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland. Everything around is broken and moldering, and the bright sky shines in. I believe I have found today, in that old chapel, the beginning of my Scottish Symphony..." Mendelssohn made a preliminary sketch of 16 measures of music during his trip to Scotland, though the actual composition of the symphony took place between the end of 1840 and January 1842. It was premiered on 3 March 1842 with Mendelssohn conducting the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig. After a slight revision, the symphony was first performed in its final form on 17 March 1842. Although published as Mendelssohn's third symphony, the Scottish belongs, together with the Opus 64 violin concerto, among the composer's final works. Though Mendelssohn insisted that the symphony is "absolute music with no reference whatsoever to any programmatic or depictive connection", the music continually evokes dreamlike landscapes, starting with a profoundly melancholic theme and proceeding to one of the loveliest adagios ever written. It is unashamedly nostalgic as Mendelssohn sets about tugging at the strings of his listeners' feelings: his symphony, a masterpiece of musicianship, transports the audience from exultation to melancholy, closing on a tone of solemn regret. It was a stunning performance, overwhelmingly beautiful. The maestro deserved all the ovations that followed.
