Music

RCS Symphony Orchestra/Walker

City Halls, Glasgow

Keith Bruce

four stars

WITH a further Scottish performance of Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and a Brahms symphony after the interval, conductor Garry Walker’s programme with the orchestra from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland was startlingly similar to the one played in the same hall by the BBC SSO only ten days previously. It began in very different style, however, with Sally Beamish’s A Cage of Doves, her dedication to mentor Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and evocation of the Orcadian environment and history where she studied with the older composer.

“Evocative” is the right word for this music, which begins arrestingly on the low strings and brass with muted timpani rolls and deploys the lowest notes on tuba and contrabassoon elsewhere, pitted against sparkling suggestions of shafts of sunlight. As seemed apparent throughout the concert, Walker had surely been working with these young musicians on the discipline of quiet playing, and the precision they brought to the final page fade on this piece was notable for that.

Pianist Daniel Hart also has a very fine touch on the keyboard, and this performance of the Paganini variations was entirely without the sort of bombast that Rachmaninov often inspires in soloists. Walker paid close attention to his soloist’s pacing of the work in a reading that was notable for its approach to the slower, quieter passages and brought out details of the orchestration – in the horns for example – that had been less apparent in recent performance by our professional orchestras. It was the gentle musicality of the young Cuban soloist, however, that made this a very singular rendition of the work.

There were some rough edges in the orchestra’s performance of Brahms’ Second Symphony, but they were outweighed by the strengths of the ensemble playing in the strings, particularly the cellos, whose precise pizzicato accompaniment to the bright and lively playing of the winds in the third movement made that section a particular highlight. Once again, it was in the moments of quietness, as before the main theme kicks in on the cellos at the start of the work, that the young players showed particularly impressive control.

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