Ilan Volkov�s impact on the BBC SSO has been so great that the orchestra won�t let him go completely. By Michael Tumelty

ILAN Volkov has an exciting new job. When the Israeli musician finishes his term as chief conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra at the end of this season, to be succeeded by the Scottish-born, American-based superstar conductor Donald Runnicles, he will proceed directly to his next appointment: a principal guest conductorship. And with which orchestra? With the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the band he will have just left.

The BBC's announcement yesterday of Volkov's new three-year appointment has a dash of audacity to it, as well as a certain logic.

Some conductors finish their three-year contract, then move on. Many, if the relationship has been a strong one, will sign a second contract for a further three years, as did Volkov (and Stephane Deneve at the RSNO). Others will stay on even longer, for a third three-year term (as did Joseph Swensen at the SCO).

But there can be few precedents for what has just happened at the BBC, where a retiring chief conductor will come straight back in as the number two. What is the BBC SSO up to?

It transpires that both Gavin Reid, director of the orchestra, and SSO senior producer Simon Lord, had been thinking independently along the same lines. "We're a group that is always trying to build up a stable of high-quality conductors, with titles or not," says Reid. "And it's always been on my mind that we don't have a principal guest conductor. We have been looking for the point where the right person comes along."

Other factors now feed into the equation. Donald Runnicles, who takes up his post as chief conductor next season, is incredibly busy. He is still artistic director at San Francisco Opera, and will be doing a Ring cycle with them until around 2011.

Additionally, he's not yet completed his contract as number two conductor with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. And, critically, he has taken over the reins at the Deutsche Opera in Berlin, which will occupy around five months of his year.

Therefore, his basic contract with the BBC SSO, which is just eight weeks per season, leaves a lot of the season to fill.

"It's all the more reason, then, for having another name conductor in a titled post to ensure that the artistic profile is as strong and high as it can be," says Reid. "It's important also that we don't have real artistic peaks every now and then, and run the risk of artistic dips through the year."

Enter Ilan Volkov again, with a new three-year contract as principal guest conductor that will have him with the SSO for four weeks each season, making Stravinsky recordings with Hyperion, and likely appearances at the Edinburgh International Festival and the Proms in London.

After a slightly dodgy patch in the middle of his present contract, where things looked a bit shaky and were clearly under pressure, it's universally acknowledged that morale, vitality, sense of purpose and strength of character, along with the old electricity, returned to the Volkov-SSO partnership.

"We were always intending to invite Ilan to return as a guest conductor, but this has also come about through the extraordinary concerts he has been giving with the orchestra over the last year or so, and it's just getting better and better," says Reid.

"A lot of the players have been asking the questions: Where's he going? Will he come back? Who's going to do this repertoire when he's gone?

"It all just fell into place. Given the quality of work that Ilan's doing at the moment, it felt like a very natural thing to offer him a title."

Volkov himself is elated. "It's fantastic to be still part of this," he says, his explosive enthusiasm (a bit like his conducting) erupting down the phone line. "We did all this work over six or seven years, there's still work to do, a lot to do in fact; the relationship has really developed and I feel very warm to the orchestra and hugely inspired by them."

The new appointment, he reveals, also suits his temperament. "The modern way is always to move on to the next thing, the next job. But if you know you're going to vanish and move on after a few years, why did you start?"

And he admits being ambivalent about the typical scenario where a former chief conductor receives occasional invitations to return as a guest.

"It's just not the same atmosphere."

On that middle period of his chief conductorship, where things looked shaky and there was open unease and dissatisfaction within the orchestra, he is guarded.

"Relationships are always in a state of flux. I would say that in every personal relationship, things develop. It's a matter for both sides to make things work. The result in the concert is only one aspect of the life of an orchestra, which is a complex animal. In my life a lot happened, but you can't really judge that from the outside."

I put it to Gavin Reid that, rightly or wrongly, there was a perception that there had been a big dip in the relationship, with questions about the conductor's attitude and a lot of alienation and unhappiness within the orchestra.

"It does happen. These are human relationships with human frailties. There was enormous pressure on us all round. There was a huge change that happened at a particular time, in terms of physical environment with our move from a west-end studio to a city-centre concert hall. Also, people changed, management changed, orchestra personnel changed."

Clearly, the blip or dip has passed and the barometer of change lay in both the playing and the return of the old electricity, as well as in the explicit comments of the players themselves.

"At the end of the day, I can't get away from the fact that they are doing some remarkable concerts together, with all the Jonathan Harvey stuff, Mahler Nine at the Proms, Beethoven Nine at the start of this season, and all the Proms concerts this year. There are so many compelling reasons for telling the world that this is a conductor we absolutely want to be working with."

Volkov's new job in Glasgow also means that, with Runnicles, Volkov and dynamic associate guest conductor Stefan Solyom, the BBC SSO is the only orchestra in Scotland with three in-house titled conductors.

"The clever thing for me and Simon Lord to do now is to make sure that Ilan and Donald Runnicles complement each other. There are areas of repertoire where they cross over, and there are areas where there are clear differences," says Gavin Reid, dropping a heavy hint that, at the beginning of next season, Runnicles's first as chief, we might well see the two conductors back-to-back on consecutive weeks.

Meanwhile, Volkov is back in Glasgow this week, conducting Rachmaninov's Fourth Piano Concerto and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. And while it has been widely publicised that this is Volkov's first Rite with the SSO, it was revealed by Volkov in our telephone conversation that this week, in fact, will be the first time he has ever conducted Stravinsky's volcanic and epochal masterpiece.

"I've loved it since I was a kid, but I've kept it back till now. It's a life-changing piece, a historical point in music. It's almost madness to do it in the City Hall; it's going to be so visceral and strong. It always needs to be right on the edge; you can't hold back on it."

Stand by to be pinned to your seats, then blown out of them.

• Ilan Volkov conducts the BBC SSO at the City Hall, Glasgow, on Thursday at 7pm.