Music

The John Wilson Orchestra

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Keith Bruce

four stars

THERE is a peculiar skill to talking from the podium and every conductor who is good at it has their own individual style. John Wilson’s plain North East England way of speaking combines informed authority with a camp wit that speaks to generations of movie devotees. Although we hear less of that at the City Halls, we are fortunate to see him at work regularly as Associate Guest Conductor with the BBC SSO, but his own orchestra is something else again on the soundtrack music that reliably fills our concert halls.

The SSO has its own Christmas concert of movie music at the City Halls in ten days’ time, and the links between the two included principal flute Charlotte Ashton filling that position in this edition of the JW band. It is a studio-ready outfit of pin-sharp players with a star first trumpet in Mike Lovatt, even if the rest of the big band brass did not have enough of the spotlight in this programme.

It did however tick a few of the boxes that were conspicuously left untouched in the RSNO’s recent Varese-Sarabande label celebration, with glorious early scores like Franz Waxman’s for The Philadelphia Story, Arthur Schwartz’s Girl Hunt Ballet from The Band Wagon, and a suite of Max Steiner’s music for Now Voyager. The latter was introduced with a typical Wilson line about the sexual mores of 1942, which would be around the date of conception of many in the audience.

Sole vocalist on this tour is London-domiciled American Kim Criswell, somewhat unflatteringly introduced for her range of impressions. While undoubtedly adaptable, she is most convincing at the Judy Garland end of the spectrum. Her voice was most peculiarly amplified here, however, especially at the start of the night, with more added reverberation than necessary for the hall. Her take on Funny Girl’s Don’t Rain On My Parade was nonetheless the evening’s reliable showstopper.