VoxCarnyx

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Reading about last week’s flight trials by aircraft fuelled on reconstituted chip pan oil brought the fateful story of Icarus to mind. Which may partly explain the mild shivers experienced while listening to another Icarus, Russian-American composer Lera Auerbach’s eponymous concert piece, extricated from her First Symphony, and a quick-fire opener to the main part of Saturday’s RSNO Glasgow concert.

Not that Auerbach actually wrote her work with the story of the reckless Greek, who flew too close to the sun, in mind. As she explained in a pre-performance introduction with second oboist Peter Dyke – a smooth-talking natural to the compering role – the whole concept of programmatic music, as prescribed by a composer, is not her preference. “It’s for you to decide how you respond to music that is intrinsically abstract,” she told us. So why call it Icarus? Apparently it’s the first image that came to her after hearing it.

That seems perfectly justified, given that it conveys an unmistakable sense of soaring ever upwards, the elemental ferocity of Icarus’ opening bars morphing swiftly into an ET-like fantasy flight, its instrumentation as sparkly and filmic as any John Williams score, its ultimate destination stratospheric, only to tip towards oblivion. The piercing theremin – the electronic instrument once comically championed by Bill Bailey and played here by Charlie Draper – added a weird, otherworldly sonic dimension.

It was then up to the RSNO’s new principal cellist, Australian-born Pei-Jee Ng, to bring us back to solid ground. He’s the latest of the orchestra’s key players to reveal their talents under the solo spotlight, the vehicle for which in this instance being Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No 1. 

Working with his regular colleagues under music director Thomas Søndergård, proof of their close-working synergy was immediate. What this performance had in spades was unfailing togetherness, Ng’s precision engineering of the opening movement, rather teasingly suppressed in dynamics but articulated crisply and robustly, inspiring instant motorised excitement. 

The second movement, Moderato, transported us to ghostlier territory, a classic example of Shostakovich in darkly austere, almost despairing, mood from which Ng’s cadenza movement emerged like a Shakespearean monologue. He held it back emotionally to some extent, deliberate preparation perhaps for the swashbuckling romp of a Finale. 

Then the product of a very different Russia, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade: music steeped in luscious Romantic melody, endlessly inventive harmonies, technicolor orchestration, and an exoticism fired by evocative subject matter taken from The Arabian Knights Tales.

This was fruitful territory for Søndergård, whose malleable nurturing of his forces unleashed kaleidoscopic bliss. Every new idea came at us with fortified radiance and purpose, in the way of good storytelling. 

The oceanic scene-setting of the opening movement bore a sturdy countenance; The Tale of the Kalendar Prince, spiced with soft eccentricity and characterful detail, was enchanting; The Young Prince and the Young Princess scene oozed exotic charm and seductiveness; the Finale, teeming with turbulent festivity, powerfully climaxed before settling to its somnolent close. Crowning many fine solo contributions was leader Maya Iwabuchi’s exquisite prominence on violin. 

Before all of this, the Glasgow audience had witnessed a bonus performance, a showcase moment for the children of Sistema Scotland’s Big Noise Govanhill celebrating the Glasgow scheme’s 10th anniversary and the RSNO’s partnership role. Together, these diminutive instrumentalists (seated within the RSNO) and their rumbustious choir sang “We Make a Big Noise, written by storyteller and composer Penny Stone and presented in an attractive and buoyant arrangement by Seonaid Aitken. Their beaming faces said it all.

Ken Walton