Rufus Wainwright & the BBC SSO, Edinburgh review: 'breezy confidence'
This orchestral treatment of Rufus Wainwright’s music enhanced it without overwhelming it, writes David Pollock
Rufus Wainwright and the BBC SSO, Usher Hall, Edinburgh ★★★★
“Pretty good for a day's rehearsal,” said Rufus Wainwright late on in the opening concert of his latest UK tour, once he was confident things were going down well. This wasn’t the first time he’s had the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra as his locally sourced backing, but it’s been 18 months since they were last together at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall.
Now, as then, the occasion was a near-anniversary celebration of Wainwright’s album diptych Want One and Want Two, respectively from 2003 and 2004, which gave him his mainstream breakthrough. Barring a couple of treats at the end, the set was drawn entirely from these records, with touring conductor Lee Mills of South Carolina’s Greenville Symphony Orchestra marshalling the SSO’s 60-plus players through a diverse set of arrangements.
From the swirling violin motif supporting the chorus of Beautiful Child, to the big, joyful, swaggering brass on Crumb By Crumb and 14th Street, to the delicate strings moving subtly under the singer’s lead piano on Dinner at Eight, so much of this treatment perfectly enhanced Wainwright’s music without overwhelming it. His crowd work also remains first-rate, talking up the “Scotland/Toronto” connection, casting the audience’s mind back to the post-9/11 world with sensitive humour before 11:11, and waving aside his own fudging of the solo piano Pretty Things.
In red velvet jacket and cravat, with an impressively venerable silver beard, Wainwright’s voice still shines with youthful, questioning doubt and boyish humour. It’s easy to believe he imagines himself as a Broadway leading man of the 1940s, stepping back out to milk three deserved encores of Oh What a World, Going to a Town and Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. The latter was apparently unrehearsed, but with typical, breezy confidence, came with an invitation to the orchestra to just play it by ear.
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