City Halls, Glasgow
Time and Tides was no ordinary Scottish Chamber Orchestra gig, nor was it a typical SCO audience. But then, when has the versatile Finnish musical phenomenon Pekka Kuusisto – violinist, director and funky entertainer – ever made claims to doing things the traditional way? In this, the last of his current four-programme residency with the orchestra, it was anything but business as usual.
Nor were we short-changed. As well as two astonishing UK premieres – former SCO associate composer Anna Clyne’s violin concerto and a new song cycle by Helen Grime, written 2023 and 2021 respectively – Kuusisto, doubling on violin and miniature harmonium, teamed up with Scots fiddler Aidan O’Rourke to introduce some of the traditional melodies used by Clyne in her concerto. Thus, perhaps, the reason for the wider-sourced audience, one that was encouragingly young and vocal. And there was more besides.
First and foremost, this was a programme devised with arched intent. It began with a hint of provocation, the curved-ball dissonant writing of Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür as witnessed in his orchestral piece Lighthouse. Its combination of harshness, meatiness and slithery translucence, also its retro-Baroque inflexions, makes for an atmospheric gem. Under Kuusisto, and with the assured SCO strings, it had a beguiling, delirious impact.
At the other end of the evening came Einojuhani Rautavaara’s avian curiosity Cantus Arcticus, surreal in the way he overlays a luscious orchestral landscape with a cacophony of recorded birdcalls, but also a kind of traditional night cap bringing us back to earth after the concert’s central highlights.
As previously mentioned, Kuusisto’s plan was to ease us into the Clyne Concerto – Time and Tides – by way of a stylistic gear change, he and O’Rourke intimately calming the air with folk tunes from Scotland and Finland, joined ultimately by some upper string backing in close harmony. If physically it wasn’t the smoothest transition, it served its purpose, sharpening the sensitivities required to appreciate the multiplicity of Clyne’s folk-inspired creation.
Written especially for Kuusisto, his eccentricities were exploited – his knack of whistling while playing, his unlimited vocabulary of violin/non-violin skills – and built into a glittering suite of five movements that embraced everything from zany pastiche and wit to reflective soulfulness and airy pastoralism. Within this, the integrity of Clyne’s chosen folk songs – from Scotland, Finland and America – remained hauntingly intact, especially when the players added their own singing voices to the closing mix.
Helen Grimes’ It Will Be Spring Soon – optimistic texts by Philip Larkin, Sandra Cisneros and Jane Hirshfield set to luminous, opulent music – was delivered engagingly by one of its dedicatees, soprano Ruby Hughes (the other being violinist Malin Broman, whose obligato role was conveniently taken here by Kuusisto). Written with echoes of Britten, Grimes creates a magical relationship between the sprightly strings/harp scoring and the soprano’s controlled intensity.
Just how effective the foyer presence of DJ Dolphin Boy (Andy Levy) was during the interval likely depends on personal experience, but with him tucked almost anonymously into a tight corner along from the interval drinks, I’m guessing his efficient efforts may have passed some people by. Good idea; more a venue issue perhaps.
Ken Walton