Music
SCO
City Hall, Glasgow
Michael Tumelty
Four stars
THERE are several things to be observed about the SCO’s concert in Glasgow on Friday night, so let’s just get them said. Above all, it was good to see the return to the platform of conductor Robin Ticciati. He seemed in good nick, in no apparent discomfort with his on-going back problem, and unrestricted in the cool expressivity of his direction of the orchestra. He was never a man for overt theatricality or exaggeration on the podium, and that can perhaps help.
Second, it is highly unlikely, with no offence to Scotland’s other fine musicians, that we will hear anything else in the season remotely like the sheer class, sophistication and refinement produced on Friday by the wind soloists of the SCO, with bassoonist Peter Whelan and clarinettist Maximiliano Martin engaged in the quite beautiful exchanges with which they characterised Strauss’s late Duet Concertino, while principal horn Alec-Frank Gemmill poured out the molten magic of Strauss’s Second Horn Concerto as if the player’s golden sound was going to be rationed and he’d better not stint on his generosity. Did the guy stop to breathe? I was spellbound and mesmerised. Is there a more seductive sound than the warm breath of a French horn in full bloom?
Third, I’m not sure why Anna Meredith’s Fringeflower was there. It’s a tiny wee piece, with here and there a petal opening, but it didn’t feel it had adequate space to stretch the limb of an idea, far less extend one. And fourth: after Friday’s cracking outing for Schubert’s wee First Symphony, shouldn’t we be investigating more, in concert performances, these early, invigorating compositions?
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