The syllabus

After the Edinburgh Festival was over, there was a time when we used to wait with  something less than bated breath  for the unveiling of the Scottish National Orchestra’s winter season. If Karl Rankl or his successor Hans Swaorowsky was in charge, with one routine programme following another, this was not exciting news.

The syllabus, as it was sternly called, looked drab. Not until these plodding Viennese routiniers were succeeded in the1960s by Alexander Gibson did the concerts waken up and Sibelius - whose works had been banned by the churlish  Karl Rankl - began to form part of the programme planning, with Gibson doing all seven symphonies in his opening season.

Th Edinburgh Festival, which itself had seemed to be losing impetus  around this time, likewise suddenly galvanised itself by the appointment of Lord Harewood  as director, with his invention of themed festivals - like one-man shows as   Christopher Grier put it in The Scotsman.

Starting with Schoenberg, he proceeded to  Shostakovich, Tippett, Berlioz, and Boulez. Such things had never been done before in Edinburgh but they were now happening with a vengeance and transforming the Festival into a more bracingly adult event.

The knock-on effect was that the winter seasons similarly grew more exciting and Scottish Opera was founded.This was Scotland’s glorious moment, and it was seized by everybody who cared. Today the RSNO’s brochure is infinitely more colourful, but can the same be said of the actual programmes?  It’s a moot point.
3  September 2014