Music
BBC SSO/Chauhan
City Halls, Glasgow
Keith Bruce
five stars
ALTHOUGH their backgrounds could hardly be more different, British conductor Alpesh Chauhan and Spanish cellist Pablo Ferrandez are of the same generation and have an established musical relationship at the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini in Parma where Chauhan is Principal Conductor. The soloist had that advantage for his debut with the BBC Scottish, as well as the choice of Dvorak’s perennially popular concerto to play, which was the likely explanation for a full house for Thursday afternoon’s performance, broadcast live on Radio 3. Ferrandez produced a very classy take on the work too, full of attack at the start but with a gentler tone on the baroque sound of the second movement and bringing real passion to the duet with leader Laura Samuel in the finale. A hymn-like encore from the repertoire of his namesake and countryman Pablo Casals followed.
Chauhan is a cellist himself, and his affinity with the piece was as evident, with a lovely blend of the winds at the start and beautifully balanced horns and low strings later.
The Second Symphony of Jean Sibelius is spiritual music of profound depth, and has the cello section at its heart throughout. The SSO’s was on fine form here, and Chauhan’s reading was alive to the drama of the work, as at the Vivacissimo start of the third movement, but at its finest on the slower sections, like the majestic beginning of the second movement. The SSO’s string sound was sumptuous and again the winds were on top form, with first trumpet Mark O’Keeffe also making a beautifully poised contribution.
The programme began with one of the most successful commissions by the BBC Proms of recent years, Anna Clyne’s Masquerade, conducted on the Last Night of the 2013 season by Marin Alsop, whose style on the podium Chauhan’s sometimes resembles. A vibrant and colourful evocation of the experience of the Proms themselves, it is - naturally - a showcase for what the machine that is an orchestra can do.
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