Stevenson Winds, RCS, Glasgow

Classical music writer

Monday 16 April 2012

FRIDAY was an odd day.

Custom byline text:

Michael Tumelty

Within the space of three hours I baked in the sun, was whipped by a wind from the Arctic and lashed by freezing rain. In the middle of this climatic madness was an oasis of sanity as the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland staged a beautiful concert of French music for woodwinds: music of Mediterranean warmth and colour.

The most striking feature for me of the concert given by the students, present and graduate, was that, with the exception of Poulenc's Sextet For Piano And Wind Quintet, I didn't know a single work on the programme. And what a lovely set of revelations flowed from that, with a gorgeous Bassoon Sonata by Saint-Saens, expertly and effortlessly played by Graeme Brown with the exquisitely attentive Scott Mitchell as pianist: a gorgeous piece; I didn't know Saint-Saens had it in him.Jacques Ibert's Three Short Pieces For Wind Quintet were gems (I didn't know they existed) in the hands of flautist Carina Gascoine, clarinettist Calum Robertson, oboist Siobhan Parker, bassoonist Ryan Sullivan and the super-restrained horn player Rachel Muir; and nor did I know of Jean Francaix's Five Exotic Dances for alto sax: sultry, Latin-tinged pieces, sexily played by Ross Montgomery.Then they wheeled out the big guns, including the extraordinary clarinettist Fraser Langton and French hornist Martin Murphy for a dazzling account of Poulenc's Sextet; though even playing of this quality failed to shift my ambivalence about the composer's structuring: a fast movement will always contain a slow section; a languorous slow movement will always contain a fast section. Still, a very good concert.

Commenting & Moderation

We moderate all comments on HeraldScotland on either a pre-moderated or post-moderated basis. If you're a relatively new user then your comments will be reviewed before publication and if we know you well then your comments will be subject to moderation only if other users or the moderators believe you've broken the rules, which are available here.

Moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours. Please be patient if your posts are not approved instantly.

Stevenson Winds, RCS, Glasgow

Commenting & Moderation

MOST READ

SPONSORED LINKS

MOST COMMENTED