Music
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, City Halls, Glasgow
Miranda Heggie
Four Stars
Themes of conflict and resolution ran rife through the inspiration behind Thursday evening's deeply passionate programme performed by the BBC SSO. In his SSO debut, Mexican conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto teased out an almost tangible tension from the orchestra in Franz Liszt's dark and brooding interpretation of Shakespeare's tragic and complex hero in Hamlet: Symphonic Poem, capturing the inner turmoil of the character.
James MacMillan's Piano Concerto No 1, named The Berserking after a type of Viking or Celtic warrior (and initially inspired from watching a Celtic game) was executed with a dynamic potency, Prieto steering the orchestra with a paced fervour. Pianist Peter Donohoe gave a solid, meaty quality to the somewhat frenzied opening bars, before seamlessly transitioning into the ethereal middle section. Donohoe seemed to breath new life into every single note, against a thin curtain of sound in the strings, their shapeshifting dissonances adding an eerily disconcerting air to the tranquillity of the piano melodies.
Back to Shakespeare for the second half, where a selection of movements from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet ballet score saw the orchestra play with a piquant vibrancy, invoking the drama of the work in a completely different way to the earlier anguish displayed in the Liszt. The huge spectrum of emotion in Prokofiev's score was beautifully portrayed; the menace in The Montagues and Capulets was wonderfully captured, especially by the lower brass while Masks had a jaunty stealthiness. The final two movements were by far the most moving, with Juliet's Funeral sounding regal yet poignant with a deep sense of angst, before the orchestra melted away with spectral qualities in the final movement, Death of Juliet.
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