Music
Katherine Bryan
Merchants House, Glasgow
Keith Bruce
five stars
AT the heart of this Westbourne Music recital by RSNO principal flute Katherine Bryan sat, surprisingly, her debut public performance of the sonata by Paul Hindemith through which she has guided students of the instrument. Not only were some of them present to hear it, but the 80th anniversary of the piece also coincided with her father's 80th birthday. Such personal detail was an incidental delight in a concert that had a perfect arc.
If the slow movement of the Hindemith speaks of the melancholy of the time of its composition, the finale is much more positive and a marvellous example of the partnership between the flautist and pianist Scott Mitchell that was launched powerfully with the opening Ballade by Frank Martin, composed just three years later, on the eve of war, and a virtuoso piece of contrasting interlinking sections. Its conversation was clearly echoed in the Jascha Heifetz arrangement of Gershwin's It Ain't Necessarily So that ended the programme, also from the 1930s.
That appropriation of a violin party piece is very much in Bryan's line at the moment, and she included two selections from her Silver Bow album: a Romance of Saint-Saens with Mitchell that eloquently argued the case against the fiddlers having all the best tunes, and a showstopping solo version of Paganini's Caprice no 24 (the South Bank Show tune) that demonstrated her percussive embouchure pizzicato technique as well as fluid articulation.
The latter quality was just as evident in the duo's performance of Bach's C major flute sonata, the element of the programme arguably best matched to the venue, its composition dating from exactly the era of the bequests recorded on the walls of this home of mercantile city history.
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