BBC SSO, City Halls, Glasgow

Arts Editor

Friday 1 June 2012

It seems necessary to point out that the pithily-titled "New Century" mini-festival of the work of Schoenberg and his pupils Berg and Webern in Candleriggs this week – for which tickets are free – could only happen under the auspices of the BBC orchestra, with its non-commercial programme-making remit.

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Keith Bruce

Curated by principal guest conductor Ilan Volkov, this remains music that is a hard sell. It comes from the last century but still sounds more contemporary than much composition in this one. We still find lessons at the Second Viennese School daunting.

I'm not sure whether dispelling that impression is Volkov's aim, but the work of all three composers emerged as colourful, lyrical, and often very tuneful, even if those tunes do not conform to more familiar patterns. The earliest of them, Shoenberg's ground-breaking Five Pieces for Orchestra from 1909, had its only previous performance by this band back in 1972 in Queen Margaret Drive, which seems insane when it is such a glorious showcase for the solo skills of the principals right across the orchestra. Berg's three movement Lyric Suite, which preceded it, gave the SSO strings (who are on top form) the platform, especially in the middle section with its combination of fast articulation and dynamic restraint.Schoenberg's Violin Concerto makes plenty of demands on the orchestra (even if the six percussionists required are never over-employed) but it is only occasionally not all about the soloist, for all its colourful and lyrical orchestration in the winds and brass. Regular visitor and Royal Conservatoire associate Ilya Gringolts was authoritative, executing the demanding cadenzas with virtuosity and as responsible for the captivating shape of the whole performance as the man on the podium.HHHH

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