VoxCarnyx

City Halls, Glasgow

As it was revealed in the programme, it seems most unlikely that Sir James MacMillan was the only soul in the City Hall unaware that the Scottish premiere of his new Concerto for Orchestra, “Ghosts”, would be preceded by the award of a prestigious Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Philharmonic Society, as was suggested, but the conceit at least spared the conductor the additional task of preparing an acceptance speech.

More importantly, it gave RPS chief executive James Murphy and the charity’s chair Angela Dixon the opportunity to explain the significance of the honour – MacMillan joining a pantheon that includes many of the most familiar names of classical music – and to remind the audience of the composer’s vast back catalogue, beginning with the acclaim for The Confession of Isobel Gowdie and Veni Veni Emmanuel. (BBC Radio 3 should further expand on that when this concert is broadcast.)

As it stood, however, this was already a mighty evening of music, painting a comprehensive picture of where MacMillan is now, because that new piece was preceded by no fewer than eight orchestral works from composers nurtured at the festival he has established in his home town, The Cumnock Tryst – an event that has already been garlanded by the Royal Philharmonic Society.

They ranged in length from a few minutes to a quarter of an hour and demonstrated a diversity of stylistic approaches, but remarkably all but the first of them, by Copenhagen-based Yorkshireman Matthew Grouse, were by composers from Ayrshire. MacMillan is fond of saying that there must be something in the water to grow such a concentration of talent in the area, but Dixon was correct to point out that the secret ingredient is plainly his dedicated mentorship.

Grouse’s Solods and Tuttis was an intriguing beginning, a collage-work commissioned by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Cumnock Tryst, it attempts to convey the musical experience of the Covid-19 pandemic with the sudden switch to online and filmed performances. Musical quotations and technical glitches were mashed-up in a wry sonic soup that changed gear and tempo relentlessly, a bracing test for both the players and the conductor.

Michael Murray’s brief Visions of the A-Frame, inspired by the relic of the coal-mining industry that stands as a memorial to lives lost near Auchinleck, provided a contrast – and some theatrical direction of the orchestra by MacMillan. The self-taught Murray, has been part of the Tryst story since it began and this atmospheric piece was perhaps the most emblematic ingredient of the evening.

Electra Perivolaris has also been part of the new music at the festival for some years. Her two short environment-inspired works, A Wave Breaking and A Forest Reawakens, owe a debt to Peter Maxwell-Davies as well as her acknowledged influence, Judith Weir. The first featured some particularly lovely writing for the winds, while the second grew to a warm choral climax.

Jay Capperauld is undoubtedly now the best-known of the products of the Tryst and currently enjoying a purple patch as Associate Composer with the SCO, which explained his personal absence from this concert as his newest work, Bruckner’s Skull, was being premiered by the orchestra in Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall.

His equally intriguingly-titled Inertia of a Bona Fide Pyschopath dates from 2014 but this was its Scottish premiere. Melodious flutes and clarinets  alternated with splashy discordant harpsichord in a compelling evocation of mental stress, and Capperauld’s skill with colourful orchestration was always evident as cacophony and statement battled it out.

There was some of that technique in Scott Lygate’s Engines and Men as well. The composer himself was soloist on this single-movement concerto for contrabass clarinet and orchestra, his majestic instrument receiving its own share of the applause when he brought it onstage. He demonstrated a virtuosic range of extended techniques on it too, while the orchestral writing began with a string underscore before ranging into the jazzy involvement of the other winds, and became distinctly cinematic as the work opened out.

After the interval, MacMillan’s own music was prefaced by two short pieces from Gillian Walker, both inspired by poetry, the first in Shetland dialect, the second Lowland Scots and both very redolent of the speech rhythms of their source. The specific melodic echoes in Jean Redpath’s Skippin’ Barfit Thro’ the Heather made it an appropriate partner for MacMillan’s Concerto for Orchestra “Ghosts” which quotes Beethoven’s “Ghost” Trio and alludes to Debussy’s trio for flute, viola and harp.

Larger combinations of instruments within the sections of the orchestra are employed at various points in what is a multi-faceted but very clearly-structured work. Rich in melody, “Ghosts” is MacMillan at his most approachable and it is a piece surely destined for regular performance. Written for the fullest orchestral forces, it also makes virtuosic demands of individual players with some terrific passages for brass and clarinets, and switches from familiar combinations of instruments to more esoteric ones. The SSO played it quite brilliantly for him.

Keith Bruce