Tag Archives: City Halls Glasgow

BBC SSO: Bluebeard’s Castle / Chan

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City Halls, Glasgow

Bartók’s one-act Symbolist opera Bluebeard’s Castle has enjoyed variously fascinating manifestations in Scotland over the years, not least in a memorably insightful reimagining at the 2023 Edinburgh International Festival that presented female protagonist Judith, not in traditional Gothic horror terms, but as a sufferer of dementia and its impact on her marriage to a strained and bewildered Bluebeard. Thought-provoking theatre at its psychological best. 

The fascination of Thursday’s concert performance by the BBC SSO was utterly different. The focus here was solely on the music, the sweltering interaction between the two soloists (Hungarian mezzo soprano Dorottya Láng and compatriot bass-baritone Gábor Bretz), the monumentally intense, expressive power of the orchestra, all functioning hungrily without theatrical props or movement under the direction of conductor Elim Chan. 

It made for an impressive and concentrated hour’s listening. The singers were extraordinary, their natural affinity to the original Hungarian text giving visceral authenticity to their performances. In particular, Láng’s seemingly limitless power, a mezzo voice enriched by effortless consistency at every point in its extensive range, captured the inexorable mounting tension as the seven mysterious doors reveal the pain and sadness of the memories within. Add to that Bretz’s magnificently stoical Duke Bluebeard, an enigmatic feast of tortuous cruelty, surprising empathy and ultimate submission. This was perfectly compatible casting.

Chan’s vision was equally in tune, guiding a fully-stocked SSO on the most colourful and potent of journeys. From its perfectly timed interaction with the quizzical spoken prologue, through the mountainous peaks and troughs of Bartók’s thrilling orchestral landscape, and in particular the explosive catharsis symbolising the revelation behind the fifth door, this was a knock-out performance. While Chan’s gestures were incisive and clear, the resulting response was emotionally expansive and thoroughly riveting. 

The first half of this afternoon programme was not as wholly successful. While Britten’s Sea Interludes from his opera Peter Grimes made sense as an appetiser to the Bartók, it did not feature the same polished delivery. There were moments that shone promisingly: the timelessness of Dawn’s opening bird calls, the jaunty pointedness greeting Sunday Morning, the shadowy reflectiveness of Moonlight and the ferocity of the Storm. But ragged edges got in the way: a rather raw-sounding first violin section, shoddy togetherness among the wind and brass, even the odd mistimed entry, all of which seemed contrary to Chan’s neat, energised lead. 

Then there was some audience confusion in response to Shostakovich’s biting incidental music for Hamlet, as gathered together in his 1932 concert suite. The programme note suggested we were hearing all 13 pieces of the Op 32a Suite, while in reality we heard five excerpts compiled from the Film Suites, Op 116 and116a. Satisfyingly gutsy as these performances were – I’d love to hear this crackling music within the context of an actual Hamlet production – the final moments were greeted by a pregnant silence as the confused audience weighed up the situation.

Thursday’s concert also coincided with the SSO’s launch of its 2026-27 Season, details of which are now available on the orchestra’s website.

Ken Walton

This concert is repeated in Aberdeen tonight (Friday 17 April) and was recorded by BBC Radio 3 for future broadcast, beyond which it will be available to stream for 30 days via BBC Sounds.

BBC SSO / Lazarova / Duo Játékok

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City Halls, Glasgow

Thursday’s BBC SSO programme wasn’t quite what everyone expected. From the advertised line-up of Lutoslawski, Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky, Lutoslawski’s short Little Suite had been quietly excised to facilitate the continuity of BBC Radio 3’s live broadcast. According to foyer intelligence circulating beforehand, manoeuvring two concert grands onstage for a Mendelssohn double concerto so soon into the programme would have played havoc with the ears of radio listeners. 

As it happened, they, and we, were treated to a blaring pop song mid-Mendelssohn from an errant mobile phone, its panicked owner struggling to silence it. Radio presenter Kate Molleson couldn’t have been much clearer in her concert preamble: “turn them off!” 

Despite all that, the resulting programme proved evenly-balanced and not short of revealing, enjoyable, even thrilling moments. At the helm was conductor Delyana Lazarova in only her second appearance as the orchestra’s principal guest conductor. These are early days for her with the SSO, but already she cuts a confident, motivational presence. Not everything fell perfectly into place – mistimed tutti attacks in the concerto, balance issues in Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique Symphony – but there were plentiful highs in the performances to suggest a fruitful partnership ahead.

The orchestra were joined by Duo Játékok – aka French pianists Naïri Badal and Adélaïde Panaget – in Mendelssohn’s Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in A flat major. It’s a monumental piece – around 45 minutes – which the composer wrote when only 15. In both scoring and style it bears considerable witness to Beethoven, and where the content doesn’t always justify its length (not least the mammoth opening movement), youthful exuberance pervades a score in which Mendelssohn’s nascent fingerprint is unmistakably persistent. 

It certainly suited the bubbly personalities of Duo Játékok, instantly demonstrated in the conversational to-ing-and-fro-ing of the hectic piano writing. It was like watching a Wimbledon rally as phrases were parried back and forth with increasing insistence, the first movement rippling with high-energy drama, the slow lyrical Andante (once the phone had stopped) calmly pre-echoing the composer’s many Songs Without Words, then a whirlwind of contrapuntal complexity driving the swashbuckling finale to its perfunctory conclusion. 

There was splashiness in some of the piano playing, but the French twosome made up for that in dexterity and spirit, and in a calming encore – Kurtag’s piano four-hand arrangement of Bach’s Sonatina from the Cantata Actus Tragicus – which they memorably included in an earlier SSO visit four years ago.

After the truculent youth of Mendelssohn, the second half turned to the near-death utterances of Tchaikovsky in his Sixth Symphony. You have to admire Lazarova for the risk she took in adopting such an achingly slow tempo in the initial Adagio. While logic supported it – a heaving sigh of resignation – in practice it failed to fully convince, ripped of genuinely soulful intensity. Where the opening is repeated after the long pause, it was as if Lazarova was saying “okay, let’s try that from the start again”. Thankfully the arrival of the Allegro came with a keen sense of purpose and direction. 

Where the opening movement was now awash with impetuous turmoil, the quirky lilt of the ensuing 5/4 waltz, introduced glowingly by a suave cello section, offered smiling respite before the emphatic pomp of a third movement whose exultant ending frequently tricks audiences into thinking it’s the end of the symphony. No exception here, as the applause rang out, only to be hushed by the return of the sombre opening mood for the actual finale, a powerfully exhaustive, despairing farewell. 

Tonight’s Aberdeen performance replaces the Mendelssohn concerto with Mozart’s Violin Concerto No 5 and soloist Esther Yoo, and opens with Lutoslawski’s Little Suite.

Ken Walton

This concert was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and is available via BBC Sounds for 30 days

SCO / Borrani / Johannsen

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City Halls, Glasgow

What promised on paper to be an enjoyably unpretentious programme by the SCO proved to be exactly that. A bubbly Rossini overture, Beethoven’s emotive concert aria Ah, perfido!, the set of Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge that set Britten on course to international fame, and Beethoven’s perfunctory Eighth Symphony benefitted more from the dynamic self-motivation of their delivery than the routine miscellany of their grouping.

Much of that dynamism came from Italian violinist/director Lorenza Borrani, quite the fireball, whose energetic, edge-of-the-seat presence was a visible inspiration injecting heated interaction into so much of the delivery. It’s a mode of performance the SCO excels at – vital elements of the music flitting from section to section, instrument to instrument, like a seamless passing of the parcel. It’s wonderful to watch, even better to listen to.

As an opener, Rossini’s overture to The Barber of Seville struck a joyous note, its marshalling opening chords a rip-roaring wake-up call before the expectant warmth of the slow introduction and ever-increasing exuberance of its dash to the finish line. Besides the ensemble’s bright-lit incision, it was especially revealing to hear solo lines emerge with such unique character, not least those comic effects – whether deliberate or not – emanating from the raw animalistic trilling of the natural horns. 

What followed was a world away from Rossini’s boisterous opera: the torment of Greek princess Deidamia, abandoned by her lover Achilles, expressed through anguished soliloquy in Beethoven’s early-composed Ah, perfido!. American soprano Robin Johannsen was a gripping presence centre-stage, her vocal delivery as trenchant as it was heartfelt, her timbre blessed with a defining edge that oozed vibrance and character. The reactiveness of the orchestra was as supportive as it was reflective, even if the errant mobile phone erupting in the final bars was a spooky, jarring intervention.

Britten’s 1937 Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge – in many ways a portrait compilation of his teacher’s complex personal traits – offered a substantial conclusion to the concert’s opening half. It was also where Borrani exerted her most memorable influence. The kaleidoscopic nature of this performance was its greatest strength, the vigorous pungency of the Introduction and Theme boldly preemptive of a sequence variously tossed between the wistful wrong-note waltzing of the Romance, the brusque galumphing of the Wiener Waltzer, the sobriety of the Funeral March, the high-spirited Aria Italiana, the time-travelling Bourée classique and dizzying Moto Perpetuo. The spectral weirdness of the penultimate Chant was especially magical.

The Beethoven symphony in a short second half was the evening’s least successful enterprise. That’s not to say the pliability of this interpretation was any less stimulating; there was still a sense of genuine spontaneity at play. But there were awkward issues with tempi, occasional lapses in exact coordination, a palpable nervousness at times, a general sense that the big picture was not wholly within sight, that rather killed the emphatic impact of this eccentric symphony.

Ken Walton

Tectonics: BBC SSO / Volkov

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City Halls, Glasgow

The last thing you want to do when presenting difficult music, not least the extreme experimentalism that defines such contemporary music festivals as Tectonics, is to do so with a sense of trepidation, even apology. 

Thankfully, there’s no danger of that in this annual Glasgow jamboree, which ran over the weekend with its intrepid founder/curator/conductor Ilan Volkov at the helm and – in the case of Saturday’s climactic opening night orchestral performances – the one band you can always rely on to tackle the most testing, sometimes near-impossible, demands of composers many of us have not yet heard of – the BBC SSO.

That guarantee of witnessing the music in its best possible light is what gives Tectonics the integrity it has earned, what encourages the fan base it has garnered over the years, but more importantly aids judgement on what works and what doesn’t quite pass muster. Any composer featured in Tectonics is given the best possible platform.

The SSO’s second performance slot on Saturday evening was a classic example of that. The two pieces featured – the UK premiere of Clara Ianotta’s strange bird – no longer navigating by a star and world premiere of Timothy McCormack’s a vapour (no body, no image) – were ravishingly played, but where the former proved hypnotically compelling, the latter, for all its detailed fascination, struggled to live up to the expectations of its stated programme.

There was no doubting the sincerity of McCormack’s intentions: a heartfelt musical reckoning on “how queer individuals learn of, reconcile, grieve, and hold space for the lost generation of queer and gay individuals who died during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and ‘90s”. Yet for all its sustained and pained intensity, a lack of genuine bite conveyed more a sense of submission than successful intent. 

Nor was the work’s message sharpened by the stentorian growls of vocal performer Ty Bouque, strangely attired in string vest, presumably uttering words (from the journals of writer and AIDS victim Hervé Guibert) that were difficult to make out. Even the music’s final utterance – a dismissive orchestral chirrup – seemed frustratingly inconclusive.

Ianotta’s work is also about loss, based on poetry by Dorothy Molloy, yet her intentions proved so much more convincing in a performance that made a feature of the score’s nebulous fascination. Even where passions seemed to be suppressed, frissons of excitement persistently tickled the senses. Volkov’s ear for detail illuminated the textural subtleties – a sound world more suggestive than prescriptive, yet heaving with animated undercurrents – while his grasp of the big picture ensured a satisfying sense of completeness.

If any one work summed up the adventurousness of Tectonics, it was Øyvind Torvund’s 40-minute Symphony, previously championed by Volkov in Oslo and Bergen, now disclosing its thought-provoking unorthodoxy to a Scottish audience. It’s a piece whose perception is determined by the actions of the audience itself, and here’s why.

Øyvind Torvund’s Symphony (Photo: Alex Woodward)

Firstly, sections of the orchestra and three soloists are placed in disparate areas of the entire venue. For Saturdays performance the strings occupied the first floor bar; the wind in the foyer outside the Recital Room; solo saxophone Kjetil Møster, percussionist Jennifer Torrence and synth/electric guitarist Jørgen Træen variously on stair landings and balconies, while the brass cut a noble presence as sole occupiers of the main auditorium stage. Linked to Volkov’s beat via TV screens, the combined sound was perceivable everywhere via speakers.  

In turn, we were instructed – without talking! – to walk freely around, each audience member effectively creating their own personalised “mix”. It was genuinely thrilling to be able to shift the emphases between the blanket density of the strings, the insistent chattering of the woodwind, and the profundity of successive brass flourishes by simply altering your vantage point. 

And that was the point. Volkov’s theme for this Tectonics was “the profound art of listening”. To give us control of that was a practical and visceral revelation. And a reminder that Tectonics is guaranteed to make you think way out of the box.

Ken Walton

[Images: Alex Woodward]

Tectonics 2024

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City Halls, Glasgow

There’s always a risk with a contemporary music event like Tectonics that you can get too much of the same thing. The most refreshing aspect of Day 1 in this year’s two-day festival was the varied extent of its content. 

Whether it was the passing tilt towards traditional music in the BBC SSO strings’ collaboration with two folk musicians, the club vibe of a concerto for turntables, or visceral spirituals-based improvisations of performance artist Elaine Mitchener, a “fun” side complemented the hard-edged avant-garde experimentalism more associated with this perennial event by joint creators Ilan Volkov and Alasdair Campbell.

What it avoided was any lull in momentum whatsoever, Saturday’s experience amounting to a continuous stream of mid-afternoon to late-evening performances, the sizeable cult-like audience processing seamlessly from one City Halls venue to the next. 

There was a touch of the weird in the series of six improvisations – Common Sense Will Not Prevail – delivered in what seemed an ironic setting, the bijou elegance of the small Recital Room. Billed as featuring Kate Armitage & Co, its eponymous leader had called off due to illness. What remained of her “entourage” were the performers Dave Jackson, Helmut Lemke and one Miss Vymethoxy Redspiders, whose extemporised delivery – both vocalised and aided by an assortment of manipulated objects – was strangely mesmerising in its collective bizarreness.  

In a similar vein, and equally ritualised, Eiko Yamada’s solo recorder (descant and tenor) improvisation – Traces of Air – seemed proportionally out of place in the main Grand Hall, its fluttering pianissimos and ephemeral multiphonics like cries of despair from a far-off world.

Yet both of these offered vivid contrast to the energised magnitude of two feisty performances in the Old Fruitmarket. Mitchener’s solo programme showed this gritty solo performer at her eye-catching best: her singular presence mid-stage within a halo of smoke and dramatic lighting hauntingly reminiscent of a Samuel Beckett scenario; her penetratingly deconstructive, electronically-enhanced musings on the spirituals Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child (Olly Wilson’s Sometimes) and Amazing Grace viscerally engaging. 

As for that incursion by the SSO strings into the extended folk idiom of participating Norwegian-based fiddle-guitar duo, Sarah-Jane Summers and Juhani Silvola, they had the joint jumping with Summers’ The Spirit Multitude. In a work, directed by Volkov, that fused racy, foot-stamping reels with evocative excursions into the realms of the truly surreal, the temperature of this festival jumped to mercury-busting heights. It wouldn’t have been out of place in Glasgow’s Celtic Connections.

The main evening concert by the full SSO was equally inclusive. The first half opened with the world premiere of Marc Yeats’ spatially-conceived A Point in the Landscape, in which order is sought out of chaos. With the orchestra divided into mixed groups, on and off stage, and the process governed by the timers on the players’ own mobile phones, the effect was remarkably liberating, not to mention admirable in this conductor-less entity’s success in finishing as one. 

It wasn’t a beautiful experience, a quality subsequently delivered by violinist Ilya Gingolts in his breathy, sotto voce unaccompanied performance of Salvatore Sciarrino’s solo Caprices.

But it was the 6 Scenes for Turntables and Orchestra, jointly composed by Mariam Rezaei and Matthew Shlomowitz with the former as soloist, that finally brought the house down. Rezaei’s spellbinding floor show – like a DJ on speed – elicited rhythmic bite and stratospheric sound effects that added ecstatic overlay to Shlomowitz’s free-flowing, hi-octane orchestral score. It was an exhilarating climax to an illuminating day.

Ken Walton  

(Photo: BBC/Alex Woodward)

BBC SSO / Chauhan

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City Halls, Glasgow

At least the errant mobile phone momentarily delaying the opening of Bruckner’s Symphony No 9 in D minor was in the right key. If audible to those listening at home to the live Radio 3 broadcast, be assured this belligerent and persistent D was not part of the some newly discovered revision of the symphony by a composer prone to such second thoughts. That, of course, could never be in this case here, as he died before completing this final symphony.

As it happened, Thursday’s conductor Alpesh Chauhan was quick-thinking. He not only waited for the ring tone to cease, but had the presence of mind to segue perfectly into the trenchant solemnity of Bruckner’s opening movement, effectively creating art out of an accident. (The last time I witnessed something like this was with the same orchestra in a Mahler Symphony, where the lonesome final note on double basses was matched uncannily by a passing plane, the inevitable Doppler effect unfortunately turning fortuitousness into farce.)

That aside, this was a Bruckner bicentenary performance by the BBC SSO that made its own luck. Chauhan weighed in with bullish bravado, which ensured the symphony’s mountainous peaks towered magnificently over the expansive landscape. At the other end of the spectrum he stood back from the fray, tempting the strings in particular to voice their own verdant response to the lower-lying pastures. But the middle ground was messy, imperfections of tempo change, attack and intonation (especially the woodwind), that emphasised the potential pitfalls of Bruckner interpretation, and the need for an unstoppable sense of trajectory to counter the composer’s block-like mentality.

To his credit, Chauhan’s Scherzo was a particular delight, its puckish Trio sounding like Prokofiev before his time. Either side, the extant outer movements acted as solid bookends, as cathartic as they were despairing. The hushed conclusion had question mark written all over it. Had he lived, where would Bruckner have taken us next?

Chauhan had already taken us to Italy and Russia, opening with two Puccini Intermezzi from his operas Madama Butterfly and Manon Lescaut before charting unfamiliar Tchaikovsky territory in his symphonic fantasy Fatum (Fate), a work the composer chose to destroy after its second performance, but which was reconstructed after his death. Thankfully so, for it is particular interesting, its heraldic power-driven unisons and punctuating ballistic chords not unlike a Puccini opera opening. We heard a volatile work, heated and febrile, if swithering ambivalently between operatic and symphonic ambitions. 

No such question with the Puccini, though aspects of Chauhan’s performances seemed emotionally constrained in this concert hall context. The Madama Butterfly Intermezzo opened magnificently, its heaving expectant anacrusis giving way to swooning lyrical enchantment and exotic colours, the players adding whistling to emulate the twittering birds. Principal cellist Rudi de Groote’s molten solo, in particular, set in motion a moody Manon Lescaut extract, even if later tutti moments seemed tempered by ragged entries. Nor, to be honest, did this performance absolutely capture the all-pervading resonance and glow Puccini’s music ought to inspire.

Ken Walton

This concert was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, and is available for a further 30 days on BBC Sounds. The SSO performs Bruckner 9 again at The Glasshouse (formerly The Sage), Gateshead, on Sunday 3 March

BBC SSO / Berglund

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City Halls, Glasgow

Previous attempts by Norwegian conductor Tabita Berglund to debut with the BBC SSO were scuppered due to Covid-related issues. Last week in Glasgow and Perth, however, things finally came together and the rising star and former cellist directed a substantial crowd-pulling programme of Dvorak and Tchaikovsky, prefaced by a short opener by the mildly eccentric 20th century composer Geirr Tveitt as a kind of musical visiting card from their shared homeland.

Also from Norway was cellist Truls Mørk featuring as soloist in Dvorak’s Cello Concerto. For some reason, what should have been a significant highpoint in the programme never quite got off the ground. There was a cloud of disquiet pervading this performance, slow to assert itself, unsettled in tempi, with suspicions of panic in terms of aligning the orchestra with Mørk’s sometimes wayward intentions. Berglund seemed slow to anticipate, resulting in misfired coordination, and too often allowed the brass overwhelming free rein. Even where Mørk spun his signature magic, an air of tension hovered menacingly.

Best to discard that as a momentary glitch, for what surrounded the concerto revealed Berglund to be someone in full command of her thoughts and her ability to engage with the players. Tveitt’s gorgeous orchestral realisation of the Norwegian Hardanger folk tune Vélkomne med æra (a song to welcome guests at harvest time) cast an instant spell, its tranquil impressionism and rippling colours evoking a fireside warmth. Berglund caressed its gentle contours and fluid textures, drawing pulsating heat from the sumptuous SSO strings and reduced woodwind. 

She ended with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No 5, presenting this symphonic warhorse as if the wrapping had been removed for the first time. It was remarkable for its lucidity, particularly the main thrust of the opening movement which was refreshingly light-footed but still robust in its message. The third movement Valse unfolded with effortless glee, and the finale never once succumbed to thick-set overindulgence. Here, the brass redeemed themselves with well-tempered precision. Only the slow movement lacked in melodic character, though effectively acknowledging the febrile mood shifts at its centre. 

The Dvorak aside, this was an impressive SSO debut for Berglund. There’s an honesty in her musicality – already witnessed in an earlier appearance with the RSNO – that points to an promising future. And going by the unending cheers that greeted her in Glasgow on Thursday, she already has a raucous Scottish fan club. They’ll want her back!

Ken Walton

Thursday’s Glasgow concert was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and is available for 30 days on BBC Sounds.

BBC SSO / Wigglesworth

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City Halls, Glasgow

As chief conductor Ryan Wigglesworth’s programmes with the BBC SSO go, this was one of his most conservative offerings. Yet even with such loveable mainstream workhorses as Elgar and Brahms at its core, he threw in a fascinating new BBC commission – “An acre ringing, still” by Australian-born composer Lisa Illean – for good measure. As a substantial concert opener it provided food for thought – intrinsically beautiful but uniquely challenging, to some extent discomforting.

Scored for chamber orchestra, 11-piece “consort” and pre-recorded electronics, it’s a work defined by expressive containment, an ephemeral sound world played at minimal volume, with even its climaxes teasingly frustrated. Lasting around 20 minutes, that’s a powerful proposition, and this performance elicited the most magical, imaginative colourings, amplified paradoxically by their quiet intensity. That the electronic dimension was so subtly embedded within the textures as to be barely perceptible is a positive observation.

As for any discomfort, you could sense an acute tension within the audience, unused to such dogged musical hypersensitivity. The tiniest crinkle of a programme brochure, the practised tiptoeing of an usher, the squeak of a seat, even in this case the wagging tail of a guide dog seemed like a heightened sonic distraction. In a sense, we were asked to play our part, which was perversely exciting.

There was mild perversity, too, in the approach of Japanese soloist Dai Miyata to Elgar’s Cello Concerto, inasmuch as his was a highly personalised interpretation, generously poetic, but too often wildly poetic.

It was mildly unnerving in the opening minutes, where Elgar sets up his stall with gathering thoughts, but which needs a binding momentum to make directional sense. Miyata’s over-egging, and an initially lagged response from Wigglesworth, brought to mind Wilfred Owen’s “cursing through sludge”. Once free of that, the journey ahead was surer of foot. 

The best moments emerged in the sublime tranquility of the Adagio, its timeless opening theme, and in the closing moments of the finale, where – despite a sense that Wigglesworth was following rather than anticipating events, notably in the offbeat chords – a triumphant oneness and tempered resolve took hold.

Brahms’ Third Symphony was what you might term a “pipe and slippers” affair, fireside Brahms that seemed content to follow time-honoured interpretational traditions rather than chance anything more thought-provoking. Wigglesworth and the SSO gave a solid performance: casually-paced, heftily textured, sweeping but emotionally reserved in the outer movements, while recognising the lighter hues of the Andante and the gracious lyrical warmth of the gorgeous Allegretto. A fuller string sound would have better matched the substantiveness of the wind and brass, but for those who like their Brahms safe and reliable, this will have done the trick.

Ken Walton

This concert was recorded for future broadcast on BBC Radio 3, when it will be made available on BBC Sounds for 30 days. A repeat performance takes place tonight (Friday 2 Feb) in Aberdeen Music Hall

SCO: 50th Birthday Concert

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City Halls, Glasgow

It was in this very hall, on 27 January 1974, that a brand new Scottish Chamber Orchestra first broke onto the scene, offering a mid-sized complement to the magnitude of the nation’s existing symphony orchestras. On Friday, in a spruced-up City Halls – refurbished 18 years ago – today’s SCO presented its 50th Birthday Concert to both a packed house within, and a live Radio 3 listenership at home.

As its current chief executive Gavin Reid explained in his pre-concert welcome, this was a programme representative of an orchestra with an exciting future ahead, but expressed in terms of the unique strengths that have sustained it for half a century. So there was a core Classical menu of Mozart and Haydn, offset by the contemporary sounds of composers Elena Langer and Jay Capperauld, not forgetting the vivacious, spontaneous creativity of principal conductor Maxim Emelyanychev, who makes every programme he directs seem like it is fresh out the box.

That was true from the word go in Moscow-born Langer’s quirky suite Figaro Gets a Divorce. In the same way that Christopher Rouse’s percussion concerto “Whatever Happened to Alberich” imagines how life for Wagner’s miserable Ring Cycle anti-hero turned out, Langer muses on the comic fate of Mozart’s (and Rossini’s) Figaro. 

Emelyanychev took it for what it is, a musical pantomime playing free with pastiche and parody to  manufacture its gauche, sometimes cartoonesque, delights. After the shady, scene-setting fog of Almaviva’s castle, a love song introduced a theme not dissimilar from one of Ravel’s in his Daphnis et Chloe. Indeed, the spirit of Ravel was often conjured up in music that was artfully textured, often unnervingly beguiling.

And there was plenty fun – a Keystone Kops-like chase, a steamy tango (all the more woozy for Ryan Corbett’s accordion interjections within the ranks) and a big-time Cabaret-style skirmish – A Mad Day – that romped unchallenged to the end. It was a piece that triumphed on adrenalin, its attendant energy overlooking any momentary weaknesses in compositional continuity.

Emelyanychev was joined by fellow pianist Dmitry Ablogin as duelling soloists in Mozart’s Concerto in E flat for Two Pianos – or rather fortepianos, as the Russian duo opted for the more delicate period choice of instrument. It may not feel like one of Mozart’s most accomplished works (everything’s relative!), but with the entertainment value provided here, and the gutsy clarity that is the SCOs signature Mozart sound, thrills weren’t short in supply.

And surprises! What was this showmen-like tit-for-tat preamble improvised by the pianists? Surely not Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto? Which is exactly what is was, conveniently in the same key of course, and a languorously hanging dominant chord to complete the joke, the punchline being its segue into the Mozart proper. 

From hereon in, Emelyanychev and Ablogin ramped up the solo dialogue into a cat and mouse game, enclosed physically within the surrounding orchestra, the whole mischievous visual interaction adding to the playfulness of the music. The final Rondo was the icing on the cake. 

Or rather it would have been, had it not been marginally upstaged by principal cellist Philip Higham’s poetically breathtaking encore performance of The Swan from Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals, accompanied by the two pianists. 

On paper, the second half was exclusively populated by Haydn’s “Surprise” Symphony, the orchestra now standing to deliver a performance that responded immaculately and vitally to Emelyanychev’s imaginative twists and turns. It was perfection without being boring, neatly coordinated nuances that momentarily froze time without losing focus and direction. Ample surprises, but all in the best possible taste.

What followed was also meant to surprise – a masterful piece of “occasional” writing by the SCO’s composer-in-residence, Ayrshire-born Jay Capperauld. His birthday gift was an ingenious variation-like fantasy on the tune Happy Birthday to You, the theme’s rhythmic essence teasingly displaced, almost hooligan-like in its swagger and belligerent domination of the entire piece. 

This was virtuosic writing, bullishly imaginative, concise but emotionally extravagant, perfect for its purpose and ripely thrown off by an obliging SCO. I’ve probably said this before, but Capperauld should turn his hand sometime to the world of film music. He has an instinctive feel for capturing the moment.

Ken Walton

Here this concert again on BBC Sounds

SCO: Maxim’s Baroque Inspirations

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City Halls, Glasgow

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra are shamelessly, but successfully, trading on the “Maxim” brand. He’s the orchestra’s charismatic left field chief conductor – Maxim Emelyanychev – and his zany presentational mark penetrated every aspect of Friday’s programme, entitled Maxim’s Baroque Inspirations. 

Even that had a tantalising dubiety. Did “Baroque” refer simply to the 17th/18th century musical epoch, or to its meaning in arts criticism as something bizarre or exaggerated? Given that this programme cast its net wider than Bach and his contemporaries – both in actual terms and by virtue of later influence – the former was stretching credibility. The latter, however, seemed more appropriate.

It hardly mattered in what was a captivating evening. There was barely a moment where activity ceased. The lights dimmed on an empty stage, then action: Emelyanychev bounded onto the platform with his SCO strings, having foregone their customary onstage warm-up, to launch immediately into Vaughan Williams’ Renaissance-inspired Fantasy on a theme by Thomas Tallis.  

In an acoustic naturally less glowing than the work’s original 1910 Gloucester Cathedral setting, Emelyanychev took every opportunity to explore forensically the score’s finest detail and antiphonal texturing. There were magical interactions, and just one or two moments of wavering intonation.

A few words from the restless maestro on the thinking behind the programme before he leapt towards the harpsichord for his solo spot in Philip Glass’ Harpsichord Concerto. A strangely incongruous work, with frequent jarring collisions between pastiche Baroque fantasia and the composer’s trademark minimalism that wouldn’t have been pout of place in a hammy 1970s TV horror soundtrack, it eventually took flight in an exuberant finale propelled by devilish rhythmic zest.

Respighi’s Ancient Airs and Dances, Suite No 1, ended the opening half on a delicate note. There was jewel-like precision from an orchestra now enlarged to accommodate the composer’s refined re-imaging of the original Renaissance lute pieces. The opening Balletto: “Il Conto Orlando” was grace personified, complemented by a Galliarda that was sweet and jaunty. A plaintive Vilanella with gorgeous oboe solo and sporadic “pings” from the harp gave way to the closing Passo mezzo e mascherada, its agile flutey trumpet the icing on the cake.

The second half was genuine uninterrupted Baroque, opening with Corelli’s Concerto Grosso in B-flat, one of his fine Op 6 set, before taking us into unfamiliar Telemann territory with his Concerto in D minor for two Chalumeaux (forerunner of the clarinet) and a 1970 reconstruction of Bach’s spirited Triple Concerto in D.

These were a showcase for individual virtuosity within the SCO. The Corelli earned significant overtime for principal cellist Philip Higham, at one point racing through fistfuls of notes at hair-raising speed. The Chalumeau duo, Katherine Spencer and SCO clarinettist William Stafford, displayed an enticingly dulcet timbre in the Telemann, and there was scintillating team play from the Bach solo trio – violinists Stephanie Gonley, Marcus Barcham Stevens and Gordon Bragg.

If all that wasn’t enough to digest, the interval was consumed by Renaissance dances in the foyer, Emelyanychev now on cornett and sopranino recorder and egging on his fellow minstrels. He was even spotted on stage a moment later tuning the small chamber organ for the second half. Clearly his show!

Ken Walton

BBC SSO / Wigglesworth

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City Halls, Glasgow

It took Elgar until he was 50 to complete his First Symphony, the upside of which being its emotional maturity, technical mastery and a self-confidence through which the composer’s fingerprint dictates every level of its being. It was the major work in Thursday’s BBC SSO programme, a meaty challenge for its principal conductor Ryan Wigglesworth, and an epic, ear-catching conclusion to an evening that had hitherto blown hot and cold.

That’s not to say there was anything objectionable in soloist Martin James Bartlett’s performance of Mozart’s D minor Piano Concerto, K466. Indeed, the 2014 BBC Young Musician winner was entirely consistent in his ultra-poetic delivery, an approach that underlined Mozart’s uncommon journey (for a concerto) into minor key realms, and allowed the pianist to challenge the orchestra’s escape attempts with visibly calming gestures and return to containment.

What his playing did require as a counter measure was steelier, more incisive finger work. For all its lyrical pleasantries it fell short in genuine sparkle. In turn the ghosts lurking within Mozart’s score struggled to surface other than benevolently, and little details, like Bartlett’s uneven ornamentation, transmitted low-voltage results. Where he did apply physical energy – those fiery cadenzas by Hummel (first movement) and Beethoven (finale) – the temperature briefly soared. 

Bartlett’s encore, on the other hand, was absolutely sublime, a meltingly poised performance of Schumann’s “Of Foreign Lands and Peoples” from Kinderszenen. 

Wigglesworth opened with a work he himself has championed, Jonathan Woolgar’s Canzoni et ricercari. Originally scored for 12 string players and premiered in Gloucester Cathedral in 2021, Wigglesworth suggested the composer create a version for enlarged string orchestra. Here it was, beefed up to full onstage and smaller offstage strings, and a performance all the more teasing for its theatrical surprise.

We were told the offstage strings were “hidden”, but not exactly where, so when they did release a screaming counter-offensive from behind us, the impact was nerve-tingling. The ensuing dialogue proved invigorating, the more extensive discourse on stage – a striking interplay of melancholic density and exhilarating frenzy – provoking varying degrees of bullish retort in return. The performance was wholesome, animated, if partly rough around the edges. 

Full-blooded consistency in the Elgar gave this concert a lift beyond the ordinary. Wigglesworth was impressively composed throughout, establishing grounded, timeless authority in the opening slow march, and navigating the shifting contours and moods of the lengthy first movement with clean, meaningful discipline. Similarly, the frenzy of the second movement Allegro giving way uninterrupted to the glowing inner warmth of the Adagio was as heavenly as the composer intended. The finale, with its affirmative thematic retrospection, was a conclusive triumph.

No small thanks to a impassioned SSO for this, nor to such exquisite solo snippets as the self-assured consistency of leader Kanako Ito. There was scope, perhaps, for Wigglesworth to apply a more airborne, expansive sweep, a stepping back to embrace the biggest picture, yet there was more than enough in this performance to take away and savour long after the event.

Ken Walton

The programme is repeated on Sunday at the Usher Hall, Edinburgh at 3pm.
Thursday’s performance was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and is available on BBC Sounds for 30 days

BBC SSO / Chauhan

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City Halls, Glasgow

This hefty BBC SSO coupling of Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler was not for the faint-hearted. Few will have left the City Halls on Thursday without feeling they’d been squeezed through the emotional wringer. On their own, Strauss’ Symphonic Fantasy based on his opera Die Frau one Schatten and Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde are exhaustive enough as examples of post-Romantic, Austro-German intensity. Together, the danger was they might be one fix too many.

That wasn’t the case. Alpesh Chauhan – until recently the assistant conductor of the SSO – seemed ever-alert to the possibility, assured in his gestures and generously poetic in his phrase-shaping, but with a modicum of reserve and judicious application of self-indulgence. For us, that meant little discomfort and an ample double-helping of gratification.

There were some obvious issues – tenor Brenden Gunnell’s intrepid efforts to be heard over the orchestral clamour dominating the opening Mahler song (he was just short of screaming at one point, to little effect), and a general feeling that not everything had been done to fine-tune the expressive dove-tailing of the sinuous orchestral textures. But besides that, the delivery was impressive.

Strauss’ Symphonic Fantasy proved fascinating for the ground it occupies away from the opera that spawned it. Never conceived as a string of greatest hits – which don’t really exist in Strauss’ more organically creative mind – the impression is one of symphonic distillation. Recognisable themes provide the essential impetus for a powerful, self-contained, cathartic stream of consciousness. 

Foremost in this performance was its thrusting inevitability, wave upon wave of tidal surge punctuated by moments of idyllic calm (the early slow, smoking crescendo by the strings) or the thwack of menacing chords. Chauhan gauged the mood swings well, from Debussy-like mirages to irreverent playfulness. It was wild and heated, tempered by a cool head.

The Mahler, once its balance was better calibrated, was exquisite and every bit as compelling, Gunnell’s soaring tenor complemented by the golden-grained mezzo of Karen Cargill. There was pastoral frivolity from Gunnell in his songs, the scherzo-like “Youth” and a captivating laissez-faire in “The Drunkard in Spring”. Cargill revelled in her more reflective selection, the wistful ruminations of “The Lonely One In Autumn” and the shifting images of “Beauty” with its rapturous climactic interlude. 

But it was in the heart-stopping “Farewell”, meltingly sung by Cargill, that the full impact hit home.  Beyond the filigree instrumental delicacies of the earlier songs, and Mahler’s confection of impressions, from chattering chinoiserie and bird-like menageries to swarthy folk scenes, it was in this final timeless transcendence that magic happened. At its impassioned peak Cargill’s low register was a scorching presence. In the final fade out, pierced by a chiming celeste, we were left only with a chilling, seemingly eternal, silence. 

Ken Walton

BBC SSO / Volkov

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City Halls, Glasgow

There’s something about the “idée fixe” – a theme or motif composers weave and manipulate throughout a work to both unify and characterise their creations – that gets under your skin. It is a powerfully defining device that Berlioz, most of all, applied with obsessive emotional pungency to such Romantic epics as his Symphonie fantastique. But, just as in the psychological definition, it can be an irritating fixation. Whether or not it was her intention, and I suspect it was, Cassandra Miller plays that card to its extreme in her Duet for Cello and Orchestra.

That possibly wasn’t the reason conductor Ilan Volkov pitted these works against each other in Thursday’s thought-provoking BBC SSO programme, but it was hard not to be minded retrospectively of Miller’s, to some extent, cynical extremism in the later unfolding of Berlioz’s musical angst.

This was a return visit by the SSO, Volkov and soloist Charles Curtis to Miller’s concerto, which they premiered at the 2015 Tectonics Glasgow festival. Miller describes it as a homage to Sicilian opera composer Vincenzo Bellini, and to be sure, its progressively intensified orchestral episodes emulate the syrupy, ecstatic ripeness of southern Italian folk music, in this case based on the actual Sardinian folk song, Trallallera. 

These glitzy repetitive sunbursts, dominated by a bullish and brazen SSO trumpet section, seemed intent on goading the intransigence of Curtis’ belligerent cello performance – for the most part an unceasing repetition of two oscillating notes – into action. It took most of the 30-minute duration for that to have the desired effect, like a release from an inescapable hypnotic nightmare, the cellist responding with a brief and final catharsis of stratospheric harmonics before abruptly signing off with a throwaway glissando. 

Volkov’s cool insistence, and the SSO’s charismatic response, captured the obstinacy of Millar’s quirky mindset. (For those taken by it, and with a propensity to travel, the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester is presenting a day-long focus on Miller’s chamber and orchestral music on 19 October.)  

On its own, this concerto performance would have left us in a mild state of anxiety, but Berlioz’s effusive musical depiction, the Symphonie fantastique, of his infatuation for the actress Harriet Smithson – he subtitled it “Episode in the Life of an Artist” – provided a coruscating antidote. 

Once again, it was the tangible chemistry Volkov enjoys with an orchestra he has been associated with for the past 20 years that guaranteed the rollercoaster thrill. Every vivid scene, every emotional deviation in the fantastical journey, was heightened by a natural, visceral synergy, which the conductor inspired with an empowering economy of gestures.

The entire band swayed physically as one, negotiating the hazy uncertainty of the opening Daydreams, the whirling delirium of the Ball scene, the pastorale sentimentality of the Adagio, and the combined bombast and finality of the March to the Scaffold and Witches’ Sabbath, with unfettered inevitability. This was a masterclass in disciplined passion, where less was very much more, where by keeping the eye on the ball – the centrifugal persistence of the idée fixe – this volcanic music ultimately took care of itself.

Ken Walton 

Repeated tonight (Fri 29 Sep) in Aberdeen Music Hall. Thursday’s live broadcast from Glasgow available on BBC Sounds for 30 days.

BBC SSO / Brabbins

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City Halls, Glasgow

It’s over 25 years since the BBC SSO performed William Wallace’s “Creation” Symphony in C sharp minor. It was a studio session in Glasgow recorded for BBC Radio 3 and a Hyperion CD. So it’s not before time that conductor Martyn Brabbins included it in his “Sound of Scotland” matinee programme with the same orchestra last Thursday, a performance that sealed its aesthetic and technical worth, but equally pointed to a London-based Scots composer responding in the 1890s to a musical world still starstruck by Wagner, while living amidst the stirring potency of Elgar.

These are the overriding influences in this symphonic representation of the biblical creation story, its dark opening groping steadily and Parsifal-like towards successive peaks through which Wallace demonstrates a mastery of orchestration and structuring. 

Such repertoire is right up Brabbins’ street, his relaxed, authoritative lead capturing the momentousness of the score, almost film-like in its epic ebbing and flowing. The SSO responded with infectious self-belief, going all the way with the first movement’s sugar-coated conclusion, the sunbursts that offer glimpses of character in the occasionally bland Andantino, a scherzo-like Allegro verging on jolly-hockey-sticks joie-de-vivre, and a finale oozing pride and pomp, as if Wallace was saying: “And God created the British Empire, and he saw that it was good”.

Such was the climax to a programme that began with Judith Weir’s tribute to the geometric Swiss painter Paul Klee, her Heroic Strokes of the Bow based on his musically-inspired “Heroische Bogenstriche”, but also mixed and matched a refreshing couple of viola duos with Iain Hamilton’s virile Clarinet Concerto.

Where Weir transforms Klee’s images into sparkling sonic gestures and whirlwind textures, all dramatically threaded through this pellucid performance, Hamilton’s early concerto proved an eye-opener for those more familiar with the acerbic rigour that dominates much of his later music. Soloist Richard Plane had the full measure of the piece, packing his delivery with physical vitality, athletic virtuosity, and where called for, sweet lyrical charisma.

Why the interspersed viola duos? It just seemed, Brabbins explained, an opportune moment to showcase the SSO’s front desk principals – Scott Dickinson and Andrew Berridge – who had used the restrictions during Covid to seek out new repertoire for themselves. Here were two of a still-growing collection: James MacMillan’s Canon for Two Violas; and the world premiere of Camino by none other than the unassuming Brabbins.

There was a satisfying complementarity between both works, the plaintive intimacy of MacMillan’s, with its wistful melodic charm and softly intermeshing complexities, countered by the sparkier interactions of Brabbins’ Camino, its more impulsive introspection inspired by his daughter’s solitary pilgrimage along the Camino Santiago de Compostela. In each case, Dickinson and Berridge brought accomplishment and poetic empathy to their performances.

Ken Walton

Recorded for future broadcast on BBC Radio 3

BBC SSO / Wigglesworth

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City Halls, Glasgow

On the same night the BBC SSO released its plans for a challenging and adventurous new 2023-24 season, its chief conductor Ryan Wigglesworth was pre-echoing that explorative spirit directing a concert dominated by one of the eight tableaux, The Sermon to the Birds, from Olivier Messiaen’s only opera, the epic Saint François d’Assise. 

Completed late in the French composer’s life, and premiered in 1975, it’s an encapsulation of Messiaen’s life and music. A self-styled radical, he called on the ecstatic freedom of birdsong, the distinctive qualities of systematic modes and Eastern-inspired rhythms from which his harmonic and melodic sound world was derived, and an engrained Catholicism, to formulate one of the most distinctive modernist 20th century voices.

The tableau performed here from the opera’s central act – The Sermon to the Birds – is perhaps the most demonstrative of this: the cathartic extravagance of its avian counterpoints rich to the point of wild cacophony; the powerful juxtaposition of compressed harmonic colour, constant rhythmic surprises and searing melodies; the spine-tingling exuberance from a colossal of the percussion section; and the heart-stopping intensity delivers by those high-density major chords that finally appear as if to ground the whole experience.

Wigglesworth and an expanded SSO gave it big licks in Thursday’s riveting performance, one which, with the help of assistant conductor Emilie Godden and the luxury of three penetrating Ondes Martenot, was a triumph of controlled and mostly well-coordinated intent. The two soloists, Scots tenor Nicky Spence and bass-baritone Ashley Riches, proved a solid, complementary and emotive pairing, though audience access to the text – surtitles perhaps? – would have facilitated a more detailed appreciation of the French narrative. 

The Messiaen followed an earlier paean to nature, Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony. Wigglesworth’s approach may have been essentially cautious – we’ve witnessed far more impetuous storms and expansive countryside greenery from the SSO in the past – but in this performance he elicited such endearing warmth from the strings and meaningful fluidity from the wind that any brief moments of laxity proved inconsequential. 

The programme is repeated at the Usher Hall Edinburgh on Sunday 16 April, 3pm

Ken Walton

This concert was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and is available on BBC Sounds. It is also repeated at the Usher Hall Edinburgh on Sun 16 April at 3pm

SCO / Emelyanychev

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City Halls, Glasgow

It helps to get off to a good start. That’s as much the case for journalists – are you still with me? – as it is for musicians, be they performers or composers. This SCO programme, guided by the impishly convincing eccentricity of chief conductor Maxim Emelyanychev, was all about good attention-grabbing openings.

First up, those three arresting chords that herald Mozart’s overture to The Magic Flute, in this case supercharged with electrifying brutality, yet still seriously solemn to the core. It was a call to attention no one could ignore, least of all the SCO whose response was instant and penetrating. 

Then, as if to intensify the conflict inherent in Mozart’s final opera – an intellectual discourse steeped in the symbolism of Enlightenment ideals and Freemasonry disguised, as all good satire is, within pantomimic nonsense – Emelyanychev played feverishly with the music’s jostling extremes. Responding to the stern chords, a hell-for-leather fugue bristled with red-hot energy, superbly intensified by sparky symphonic jousting, individual instruments firing out motivic one-liners like petulant points of order only to be countered by matching reaction. In total, and in every sense, what an opener.

The tone changed completely for Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony and an introductory 8-bar cello and bass melody that cast a sense of mystery and awe, its simple melodic framework woven with unhurried deliberation and expressive wholesomeness, almost complete in itself. 

What impressed here and beyond was the intoxicating sensitivity Emelyanychev drew from the SCO, every utterance freshly conceived, every detailed moment worth savouring. Again, his role was simply to set the scene and inspire freedom within a performance that oozed spontaneity within his prescribed vision. With such casual, but never laboured, tempi the impression was one of leisure well spent. If ever there was an argument for Schubert leaving these two movements as they were (he did sketch out ideas for a third movement) this was it. 

As openings go, a deafening whistle blast from a referee is something guaranteed to send the adrenalin into overdrive. It did so – timpanist Louise Lewis Goodwin doubling pointedly on said whistle – in James MacMillan’s Eleven, a succinct concert work about football written last year and premiered by the SCO on tour in Antwerp, now receiving its UK premiere. Raucous, impetuous, and symbolising everything in the “beautiful game” from terrace chants and on-pitch exuberance to post-match melancholy, it’s typical of MacMillan that he finds musical depth and allure in such a commonplace scenario.

Even the number eleven presents him with intellectual stimulus, feisty combative themes that seem to snap off prematurely (twelve possesses more rounded proportions, but would be less provocative), dense harmonies that mask the familiarity of such familiar tunes as “Auld Lang Syne” (I wasn’t aware it had common football usage?) and flavour the unexpectedly demure ending to an otherwise bombastic entertainment. 

Emelyanychev certainly viewed his own solo role in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 22 in E-flat as genuine entertainment. He performed on, and directed from, the fortepiano, intrinsically a delicate instrument, but played here with such incisive sparkle that, even in those moments where the orchestra surged powerfully, the Russian’s playful motions were still enough to convey his intentions.

Nor did he stick religiously to the written score, something the famously spontaneous Mozart would no doubt have approved of. Where he felt the urge, Emelyanychev casually threw in impromptu right-handed flourishes, either stolen from existing instrumental lines or fruitily embellished, though never at the expense of the composer’s core material. In that, this enlightening performance was charmingly authentic, with some initiatives – such as occasionally cutting the string ripieno down, concert grosso-style, to solo quintet – that sharpened the intimacy. 

Then there was Emelyanychev’s quirky opening, a moment that caught us all on the hop, where the pre-match tuning process morphed almost unnoticed into an improvised fortepiano transition, its final paused chord providing the expectant springboard to the music proper. It’s not often the very opening note of a Mozart concerto brings with it an appreciative snigger from the audience, but such is Emelyanychev’s confident appeal, and such was the power of this unexpected gesture. He encored with the slow movement from Mozart’s similarly-scored K.488 concerto.

Ken Walton 

BBC SSO / Oramo

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City Halls, Glasgow

The colourful personality and striking originality of South African cellist/singer/composer Abel Selaocoe created a sensation the last time he appeared with the BBC SSO. That – and his growing international reputation – no doubt accounted of the anticipatory excitement that filled the City Halls foyer on Thursday, where notable swarms of young people and the accompanying buzz gathered noisily with the traditional BBC SSO audience. There was certainly something in the air!

Before long, in the main concert hall, that “something” had made its indelible mark, though not initially. Arvo Pärt’s Fratres, in its version for strings and percussion, provided first a softly pungent scene-setter, the SSO initiating an unplanned fresh partnership with the young Finnish conductor Taavi Oramo (son of the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s chief conductor Sakari Oramo). Brought in last minute to replace the advertised Anu Tali, he launched slightly cautiously into the Estonian composer’s hypnotic meditation.   

Oramo seemed a little tense to start with, the oft-repeated string incantations and punctuating  percussive tick tock of the claves rather coldly configured, but later finding a more sublime inner soul, enchantment and ultimate tenderness. 

Against such solemn quietude the ebullient appearance of Selaocoe, oozing rock star charisma, was like a bolt of lightning. Dressed in traditional South African outfit, he acknowledged the crowd as if he was headlining at Glastonbury. He spoke of his latest “release” – the imminent world premiere of his concerto Four Spirits – in which he would combine his own ethnic singing style with virtuoso cello performance, but also incorporating a dynamic inner dialogue with guest percussionist and collaborator Bernhard Schimpelsberger, placed within the orchestra but visually prominent in beanie hat and casual clothes.

What transpired as the four movements revealed themselves was a work of powerful emotional worth and democratic involvement, Selaocoe remaining seated only when issuing kaleidoscopic effects on his cello, but otherwise on his feet to broadcast mesmerising vocalisations ranging from piercing paeans of joy to subterranean rumbles and bewitching chants. 

The score, which explores various aspects of human purpose and community, cast in a language that fuses African and Western idiom, calls on the orchestral players to use their voices. Mention should also be made of orchestral percussionist David Kerr’s matching partnership with Schimpelsberger. And what a gloriously moving peroration as Selaocoe inspired the audience to join in singing the final moments. It all seemed so natural, so visceral, something very different and unforgettable. 

There was no option beyond that but for an encore. Schimpelsberger came front stage to join with Selaocoe in Wake Up, a possibly improvised dialogue that found its natural endpoint in dazzling jazz riffs and dizzy virtuosity.

How do you follow that? The answer here was Sibelius’ Second Symphony, a challenge that Oramo  met with coolness and taut discipline. There was an assuredness in his overall vision of the symphony – from the craggy inevitability of the opening movement and heart-rending intensity at the core of the Andante to the euphoric explosiveness of the Scherzo and radiant heroism of the Finale – but there were moments, too, where judgment erred, whether mis-balancing conversational solo lines or allowing the brass to over project.

But, no matter, for this concert will be remembered almost exclusively for the phenomenon that is Abel Selaocoe. 

Ken Walton 

BBC SSO / Sanderling

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City Halls, Glasgow

Musical dynasties can be problematic for some, but not, it would seem, in the case of conductor Michael Sanderling, son of Kurt and brother/step brother of fellow conductors Stefan and Thomas. He proved his independent worth, without question, in the driving seat of the BBC SSO last week.

The former cellist – and one of considerable, international prizewinning note before he picked up the baton full time just over a decade ago – established instant chemistry with the orchestra in a relatively youthful symphony by Mozart, his 13th, written mostly in Milan at the age of 15. Sanderling wasted no time sourcing a stylish bite from the players – just horns and oboes in addition to the reduced strings – that captured the music’s exuberant decency.

It was a neat touch reducing the Menuetto’s trio section to solo strings, giving added intimacy to this airborne movement, and in the broader context of a performance that packed no shortage of musical surprises and delights, from the teasing tunefulness of the Andante to the rhythmic dash of the outer movements.

Mozart featured again in this affable afternoon concert, as seen through the thicker lens of heavy-duty German Romantic composer and academic Max Reger, his Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Mozart. The theme in question is the siciliano-like opener from the A Major Sonata, which in Mozart’s hands was already subjected to exhaustive variation. Reger, as you’d expect, deals with it in more circumspect, a times torrid, terms. 

Sanderling never once allowed dark clouds to assert their presence, instead giving a fleetness of foot to Reger’s restless harmonic contortions – some pretty ingenious ones at that – and therefore freer flight to internal chromatic meanderings that, in less-intuitive hands, might so easily have muddied the momentum. Such, too, was the refinement and grace of the orchestral colourings that the journey towards the concluding fugue, and its exultant closing restatement of the Mozart theme, was one of several thrills and much overall satisfaction.

Coming back to musical families, the afternoon’s solo spot was filled by one of the many prodigious Kanneh-Mason siblings currently in circulation. This was Isata, a pianist of growing stature and musical maturity, as witnessed in recent previous appearances in Scotland. She featured this time in Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto, noted for its bristling energy and dynamic physicality, but also for the quintessential mysticism that offers some spellbinding contrast in the central movement.

Kanneh-Mason’s performance was beautifully poised and not without fire. She doesn’t yet have the full shoulder power to fully address the ferocious dimensions of this concerto, but the fiery agility of her finger work compensated, and where gentle reflection was called for she delivered it with poetic perfection.   

Ken Walton