Music

RSNO/Varga

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Keith Bruce

four stars

A PACKED concert hall on Saturday evening was a testament to the pulling power of Brahms and Dvorak, but there was a nice nod to St David’s Day at its start with Welsh composer William Mathias’s bracing Requiescat. It packs a lot into ten minutes with its range of string techniques, telling interjections from tuned percussion and winds, and big brass. It dates from the end of the 1970s, but I doubt many listeners would be able to pinpoint that in a blind tasting – which is entirely in its favour.

The RSNO took the Brahms Violin Concerto on tour to Florida with Nicola Benedetti two years ago, and produced a crisp fresh take on the work under conductor Gilbert Varga here. He and soloist compatriot Kristof Barati were bound to revel in the vibrant Hungarian ending to the work Brahms wrote for virtuoso Joseph Joachim, but both men – and particularly Barati – imbued the work with their personality rather than mere flash. The violinist compelled attentive listening with some very quiet playing early on, as well as clarity and energy throughout – and absolute command of the demanding first movement cadenza. A crisp solo Bach encore from the Partita No 2 was the perfect dessert.

Antonin Dvorak learned a little about marketing from Brahms when his Slavonic Dances followed the model of the older composer’s Hungarian ones, and that lesson carried forward into the title of his Ninth Symphony “From the New World”. Where he found the inspiration for its melodies and especially the second movement Largo for the cor anglais is a matter of debate, but they have gone on to inspire rock and jazz musicians (as well as ad-men), with saxophonist Roland Kirk even suggesting (not entirely seriously) that “Dvorak was a black man”.

Conducting, athletically, without a score, Varga produced a beautiful balance from the RSNO strings in that slow movement and throughout the work, but it was the closing Allegro con fuoco that was especially memorable in the variation in the dynamics from timpanist Paul Philbert, the brass section and the strings.