Music
BBC SSO
City Hall, Glasgow
Michael Tumelty
four stars
MARTYN Brabbins’ sizzling and life-affirming performance on Thursday with the BBC SSO of Michael Tippett’s First Symphony, the launch of a two-year survey of Tippett’s symphonies, reflected every lesson I learned about this masterpiece many decades ago from a very wise man: don’t get blinkered by the historical background, don’t get dragged under the bonnet of its “modernity” and textural complexity; just let it play, open your ears, and listen – there is not an atonal squeak or a dissonant fracture in it.
All of that, and much more, suffused the intellectual lucidity and near-elemental power of the SSO’s blistering performance, magisterially controlled by Brabbins at white heat. “It’s just a great symphony, and so approachable”, enthused a first-time listener, somewhat in shock. Exactly, and that was the power of Brabbins’ interpretation. The rock-solid structure of the familiar symphonic format supported and sustained the torrent of musical life-forms and bubbling, pelting ideas that streamed through the piece. Every single thing in it was direct, immediate and brilliantly clear. Of course the complexity is mind-boggling, and you can hear that too: it must have been hell to play. But Brabbins did not permit that to impede access by new listeners. Indeed, perhaps the greatest feature of a superlative performance was that it opened the door to anyone hearing the symphony for the first time. It was as simple, and profound, as that.
The Tippett was preceded by a very compact and stylish account of Hadyn’s delightful wee Sixth Symphony, Le Matin, and a fabulous, wonderfully-liberated, high-speed and intoxicating version of Ravel’s Piano Concerto, delivered with almost wicked panache by Jean-Efflam Bavouzet.
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