Music

BBC SSO/Dausgaard

City Halls, Glasgow

Keith Bruce

four stars

ALTHOUGH both are writers of some distinction and composers of considerable accomplishment, as well as being very popular virtuoso pianists, in other ways Franz Liszt and Stephen Hough would seem to have little in common. Few would accuse the refined Hough of “vulgarity”, an accusation often levelled Liszt, and while Hough performed Liszt’s Piano Concerto No 1 with polish, passion and flair, he plays down the fireworks and theatricality. If he had a mane of hair, it would remain untossed.

Conductor Thomas Dausgaard was at his attentive best over Hough’s choice of tempi in the opening sections of the work to cue the orchestral soloists, and the pair were in complete accord over the dynamic arc of the piece, building to a finale that was musically huge both from the pianist and in the orchestral response.

Nonetheless, the Liszt was the smallest work in the afternoon’s programme, sitting between Bartok’s Orchestral Suites No 1 & 2, the earlier of which, played after the interval, may have been having its first Scottish performance.

The Suite No. 2 is not only more familiar but also unmistakeably Bartok – and Hungarian – from its opening bars on harp and solo cello, with the violas following swiftly behind. The composers uses the twin harps to mimic a dulcimer or cimbalom, and as well as being orchestrated with precocious mastery, the work has some lovely solo moments. Most obviously those were for Simon Butterworth on bass clarinet at the start of the third movement, following leader Laura Samuel’s opportunity at the end of the second, but muted trumpet and cor anglais have fine moments as well.

The latter, and Samuel, also featured in the second movement of the first suite, which is much less immediately identifiable as the work of the composer, but is another astonishing piece of work from a man not yet half-way through his twenties. His Hungarian identity asserts itself in the clarinet melody of the fourth movement, before a trip around the dance-floor leads to an anthemic ending.