Music
BBC SSO
City Halls, Glasgow
Keith Bruce, four stars
EVEN on a gloriously Sunday afternoon, another of conductor Thomas Dausgaard’s Composer Roots programmes – for which the SSO were joined by the BBC Singers and pianist Behzod Abduraimov, still in his twenties but with a formidable performing career already – was worth sacrificing three hours of sunshine.
The concert would culminate in a memorable performance of Rachmaninov Vespers of 1915, a work that requires singers of the calibre of the BBC’s professional choir to do it justice. Under conductor Elena Sharkova, the twenty four voices supplied the tenor and mezzo soloists as well as a bass who brought a resonant low B flat to the Nunc Dimittis in true Russian style. Such details, and superb diction of the language from everyone on the platform, were obvious, and the way the voices blended, and particularly the altos and tenors when they were divided into multiple parts, was a delight throughout the work’s 50 minutes, from introit to closing hymns.
Dausgaard’s intention was to show what all of Rachmaninov’s work owed to the ancient chants of the Russian Orthodox Church, so the afternoon had begun with the singers processing the length of the balcony singing those as a prelude to what became a stunning performance of the Piano Concerto No.3. The theatre of that opening had the musical effect of mesmerising restraint in the opening movement, carefully maintained as Dausgaard paid tellingly close attention to both soloist and his strings. Technically Abduraimov was superb and the orchestral playing made up for any lack of emotion early on, and even after the fireworks the pianist and the conductor brought the same delicacy to the finale.
More chant preceded the Symphonic Dances, which may draw themes from liturgy but are pure golden age Hollywood in their sweeping strings and eloquent instrumental solo voices – or perhaps more correctly much film music of the era was heavily indebted to Rachmaninov. He was writing the valedictory score of his life, and Dausgaard made sure all its drama made the journey across the footlights.
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 here