VoxCarnyx

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

In a couple of week’s time, the RSNO will embark on its first overseas tour in over two years with its music director Thomas Søndergård, giving three concerts in Germany and a final one in the Polish city of Katowice. Last weekend’s home programme – music by Walton, Rachmaninov and Elgar – was something of a dress rehearsal.

Going by Saturday’s Glasgow performances, the European audiences should brace themselves for a wholly novel experience. It’s possible that Walton’s comedy overture Scapino and Elgar’s First Symphony will be completely new to them. But nor are they likely to have witnessed a Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No 2 so impulsive and refreshing as this was in the hands of French pianist Lise de la Salle.

She is a disarmingly powerful player. The opening solo chords came to life with timeless, volcanic immensity, thrillingly sustained as the movement proper got under way, de la Salle pummelling the bass notes to near breaking point and constantly side-stepping expectations with sudden bursts of lightning speed. 

That certainly kept Søndergård and the orchestra on their toes. You could sense the crackling creative tension as they second guessed de la Salle’s next move, hitting the jackpot and finding their own illuminating new things to say, though just occasionally being taken too much by surprise. Even in the famous slow movement, which opened with dreamlike repose, de la Salle’s thoughts venture into heavenly, personalised territory. Anything less than a belt and braces finale would have disappointed. It didn’t.

Søndergård, for whom this Elgar is new territory, took an equally individual tack on the iconic English composer’s Symphony No 1. Indeed, it was decidedly un-English, and what seemed from the slowly affirming start like a probing, unpolluted exploration by the Danish conductor. There was less of the extravagant latitude, the ambling rubato, so beloved by its greatest British exponents. 

Yes, that did cool some of the heart-wringing ardour, especially in the march-like opening, but in its place was an electrifying clarity that threw up new vistas and interrelationships, more the sprightly-tuned spirit of Mahler than six-cylinder Bruckner. Was the RSNO ready for this? Mostly so, as the wealth of colourful detail and the ultimate cohesiveness of the performance – the central movements pivotal as a yin and yang collective – invariably proved.

The launch pad for the entire programme was Walton’s Scapino, and as the titular allusion to the skylarking Commedia dell-Arte hero suggests, it is a bundle of mischievous fun. There was immediate razzmatazz in this performance, driven by dazzling rhythmic twists and the exuberant omnipresence of Walton’s signature smirk. 

Ken Walton

The RSNO’s forthcoming European Tour (3-9 April) will also feature Rachmaninov’s Symphony No 2, Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture and Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto (soloist Midori)