Music

RSNO/Chan

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Keith Bruce

***

NOT so very long ago the RSNO’s celebration of St Valentine sat outside the concert season and was an evening of classical pops. Incorporating it into the regular weekly programme, under the baton of recently appointed principal guest conductor Elim Chan, will prove to be a very astute move if only a few of the packed house on Saturday evening decide to make concert-going a more regular habit.

The programme suited the occasion perfectly, without limiting itself to lollipops. The responses to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet from Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev bracketed the Piano Concerto No.2 by Rachmaninov, whose music is as romantic as it gets, with its slow movement featuring one of the best known melodies in classical music.

Soloist Lukas Vondracek played it exquisitely too, setting the intensity barometer high in those first bars and largely going his own way regardless of what was happening around him. That wasn’t always what one might have wished, with the guest first clarinet lacking the breadth of tone the Adagio really requires, for example. The orchestra’s winds lack permanent leadership both in that position and at first flute at present and it showed throughout the evening, with some hesitancy from the section in Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture as well, and the building blocks of the Prokofiev selection from his Romeo and Juliet Suites rather too obvious instead of being integrated into a harmonious whole.

Fortunately, the strings were at the top of their game all night, as were Chris Gough’s horns, the leader as reliably precise as always. With harpist Pippa Tunnell and timpanist Paul Philbert also having particularly memorable evenings, there was a great deal to enjoy even if the conductor has given us more completely successful evenings - and will surely do so again.