Composer James MacMillan is a busy man, but it was not hard to understand why he had taken time out of his creative and performing schedule to join the Scottish Chamber Orchestra at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on Tuesday.
When he was introduced by presenter Paul Rissman to the audience of 800 school pupils from the city and Ayrshire, he was greeted like a rock star with whooping, cheering and thunderous applause. Composers, however feted, are used to more restrained appreciation.
Of course, MacMillan's incentive to join the gathering was much more honourable than that, but the event was worth every decibel of the young people's enthusiasm. On stage under the baton of Pierre-Andre Valade were the orchestra that had commissioned the work being played, the concerto Veni, Veni Emmanuel, almost certainly the most successful work by the man introduced by Rissman as Scotland's greatest living composer, with more than 400 performances under its belt - a remarkable figure.
The soloist was Colin Currie, who must have given more of these performances than any other percussionist, including Dame Evelyn Glennie for whom it was written, and whose 1997 recording with the Ulster Orchestra likely found its way into more collections, not least because it cost £5.
The lunchtime concert was one of the SCO's Masterworks events from its Connect education and outreach arm, and in the second half we heard a full performance of the half-hour work, with Currie scampering about the stage between the huge array of tuned and untuned instruments. Before that, Rissman, with input from the soloist, the orchestra and the composer, took us through the piece, explaining its melodic origins in 15th-century plainchant, its rhythmic pulse derived from the human heartbeat, its utilisation of 12 tone and mainstream harmonic structures, its devotional inspiration and much else, with the help of superb projected graphics. It was captivating - and I thought I knew the work.
The Glasgow performance was one of three, alongside Edinburgh and Inverness, and I was delighted to hear how the young folk received it. Although I had wonderful music teachers in my younger days, I can recall nothing as inspirational as this event.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article