Music
BBC SSO
City Halls, Glasgow
Keith Bruce
*****
GIVEN his close association with the BBC’s Manchester-based orchestra for so many years, it is perhaps not that astonishing that Thursday evening was conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier’s debut with the BBC Scottish, deputising for the originally-announced Donald Runnicles. He was far from the only dep onstage, however, with guest principals on seven front desks across strings, winds and brass. It says much for the conductor, orchestra leader Laura Samuel, and the musicians onstage that this made not an iota of difference to the delivery of a stonking programme.
As former SSO manager Hugh Macdonald wrote in a characteristically-thoughtful programme note, Ravel’s La Valse is an ideal precursor to the Symphonie fantastique of Hector Belioz in more ways than the substantial forces both works require. It may have failed to prove a “poeme choreographique” on stage for Diaghilev, but it is unfailingly so as a concert piece. Tortelier directed both without a score, carving his interpretation in the air around him in mesmerising detail.
Between the two, and casting Beethoven in the rare role of providing the relatively calm centre of a concert - albeit one pulsing with uncertainties and surprises - pianist Steven Osborne gave a riveting account of the Fourth Concerto. Vigorous subtlety is what Osborne does best, and he gave equal attention to the smaller stories that are part of the enthralling narrative of the piece. The tension in the conversation between soloist and strings at the start of the Andante second movement was breath-catching.
The Berlioz may be a huge score, but the composer husbands his resources for a long time, with the poise of the SSO strings the key ingredient in the earlier movements as the winds make key cameo appearances, with the contribution of guest principal clarinet Jean Johnson (Osborne’s partner) increasingly significant as the work unfolds. The offstage instruments ideally handled, Tortelier delivered a brilliantly controlled performance, particularly in the dynamics of the dramatic climax.
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