Sir Alexander Gibson (1926-1995) became principal conductor
of the Scottish National Orchestra in 1959, the first native Scot to
lead an orchestra which had known distant moments of glory under Barbirolli
and Szell (to the best of my knowledge no recorded documentation of
their work with the orchestra exists) but had by then sunk very low
indeed. By sheer hard slog and by taking the long view he built up an
orchestra worthy of a national reputation, encouraged works by native
composers, brought to Scotland the music of major contemporary names
such as Henze, took the orchestra on tours first of Europe and then
of the United States, and brought them into the recording studio first
for Classics for Pleasure (not forgetting a few one-offs for Saga and
EMI during the 60s) then for RCA and CRD (these recordings then reverted
to Chandos). There were many critics at the time who felt that a great
association was in the making, rather on the lines of Ansermet/Suisse
Romande or Barbirolli/Hallé, an association where perhaps the
orchestra was not an absolute world-beater but one in which conductor
and orchestra became inseparable in the public mind.
But, having started his career with the Sadler’s Wells,
Gibson’s heart was in many ways in opera. His creation of Scottish Opera
in 1962 was one of the outstanding success stories of post-war Britain.
He was soon attracting soloists of the highest international calibre
as well as encouraging Scottish talents. His "Ring" in 1971
was a milestone and so was his "Trojans"! Without in any way
belittling Sir Colin Davis’s historical achievement in putting Berlioz
on the international map, I hope it has not been forgotten that it was
Gibson’s production (with Janet Baker) which set the ball rolling (but
the Scottish roots of the "Trojans" revival go back to Eric
Chisholm). After many years fighting the recalcitrant Edinburgh authorities
to have an opera house built in the only European capital that lacked
one (and which harboured a citizen who published a letter in the "Scotsman"
showing, figures at hand, that, opera lovers being very few, it would
be cheaper to cart them all off to Bayreuth once a year at public expense
than to build an opera house in which they could indulge their fancies),
Scottish Opera finally made its home in Glasgow with the reopening of
the Theatre Royal in 1975. For Gibson’s pains, not a single complete
opera was ever commercially recorded under his baton, though a few discs
of extracts were made.
Gibson held his post with the SNO till his jubilee
year of 1984, and remained with Scottish Opera another three years to
complete his jubilee there too. Perhaps today’s fidgety world is no
longer the place for such long reigns. The recording world quickly forgot
about him as Chandos flooded the market with Järvi-led SNO (now
RSNO) recordings which seemed to show a flair that Gibson, for all his
honest musicianship, never quite managed. He began recording again for
Collins in the 1990s but had done little before he died, at no great
age as conductors go.
I myself spent four years as a student in Edinburgh
at about the half-way point of his long reign (1971-5), during which
time I must have attended every concert or opera performance he conducted
in that city except during the International Festival, and I think my
abiding memories today are of both gratitude (for a remarkably well-balanced
diet of the basic classics, a smattering of contemporary works and the
odd rarity) and affection for an interpretative profile to which I found
I increasingly warmed. That said, "Gibby-bashing" was a popular
sport in the stinking cess-pit of unwashed coffee-cups and fag-ends
that went under the name of the "students’ common room" (we
thought principal guest-conductor Gary Bertini much better; I’ll talk
about that if I get a Bertini record to review). And there were times
when "Gibby" seemed to want to prove us right. There were
evenings when he just didn’t seem to care how things went, and others
when, finding the orchestra was not with him, he whipped up the tempi
and scampered rough-shod to the end of the piece. But there were times
when, having maybe piloted the orchestra through some new Scottish piece
(he was very expert at this) and accompanied a famous soloist with no
great flair (his accompaniments rarely transformed into partnerships),
he would take the centre of the stage with a romantic symphony, his
gestures would achieve a remarkable symbiosis with the orchestra and
by the end he would have his critics dumbfounded and cheering. There
was a Rachmaninov 2 that was the talk of the town (the excellent recording
that followed was not a patch on the live performance) and a triumphantly
surging Elgar 1 that was followed a few months later by a hasty, ragged
and listless parody of itself and then by a recording that was not ragged
and listless but never quite caught wing either. Alas, Gibson was direly
unpredictable and Chandos had their commercial reasons for forgetting
him when Järvi could so unfailingly deliver the goods, but for
all that his direct, selfless yet cumulatively structured way with romantic
symphonies has remained with me as an ideal to be pursued.
Mendelssohn’s two Scottish works make a typical record
programmer’s "horses for courses" choice (I never heard him
conduct either work, yet I was still in Scotland when this disc was
made). More to the point, it shows him somewhere near his best. One
characteristic of his conducting was an ability to create a sense of
exaltation in fast tutti passages while actually holding the tempo firm;
the overture achieves some thrilling storms as well as some subtle undercurrents
in the quieter moments (the opening is deceptively calm, with the latent
power of the ocean already felt), and all with only minimal adjustments
to the basic tempo. As for the symphony, this is far from spick and
span Mendelssohn: he conducts it with a quite disarming warmth and generosity
of phrasing, for all the world like the great national Scottish symphony
which no native composer had written. From the proudly carolled opening
through to the gathering of the clans in the finale this is a passionately
romantic symphony, and nowhere is it more remarkable than at the very
end. So often this coda seems an anti-climax (the great Otto Klemperer
actually wrote a new ending, not for his recording, but which has now
surfaced on a live issue); Gibson seems to believe in it wholeheartedly
and brings to a triumphant close a performance that has so much of the
tension of his best live concerts that I almost expected to hear a cheering
audience at the end. A full-sounding recording which often seems on
the verge of overloading adds to the excitement.
Lockhart’s "Italian" only points out Gibson’s
real stature, but I do not wish to dwell on this since Lockhart did
much good work at Sadler’s Wells and ENO and may well be doing good
work still in Germany (an Internet search revealed no recent information).
Classics for Pleasure policy was to take an orchestra that could hardly
play badly if it tried (the LPO in its halcyon Haitink-days), put any
competent conductor in front of it that happened to be handy and get
the thing taped. No time to obtain a real rapport between conductor
and orchestra. Under the circumstances Lockhart pitches into the outer
movements with admirable vitality, but opportunities for lyricism go
for little while cello and bass accompanying figures bump along on automatic
pilot. It’s not bad, but it does nobody any favours resurrecting it
now. If the original two works were not enough for even a cheap CD,
then it would have been better to forget the all-Mendelssohn aspect
and give us another example of Gibson at his best. Or else forget the
all-Classics for Pleasure aspect and let us hear, for example, the "Italian"
that Boult recorded for World Record Club with the same orchestra in
the late 60s, surely a more interesting proposition.
Christopher Howell
Scottish National Orchestra/Sir
Alexander Gibson (1), London Philharmonic Orchestra/James Lockhart (2)