Classical review: Scottish Ensemble

Published on Friday 19 December 2008 19:06

SCOTTISH ENSEMBLE CITY HALLS, GLASGOW

LIKE the proverbial bus, performances of Thea Musgrave's music are absent for long periods, then a whole glut of them appears at once.

However, this performance of a new work written for, and performed this week by, the Scottish Ensemble will no doubt be the final birthday present for the Scots composer, who is enjoying the relative razzmatazz of her 80th year.

Green is typical of her teasing musical style – a tendency to pepper a predominantly traditional harmonic language with spiced moments of shock and awe. The luxuriant opening, with its calm and sleepy vista, lulls the listener into a false sense of security.

This piece has hidden menace, forcibly announced at the sudden moment the double bass adopts a mischievous persona, to which the whole ensemble reacts with a mix of mild panic and corporate aggression. Ultimately, though, they reassert their unity.

Thursday's performance captured the work's impressive combination of grace, dynamism and intrigue (did I hear a deliberate reference to Shostakovich's DSCH musical signature?). Musgrave herself revealed the energy of a spring chicken as she bounded forward at the end for a bow.

The rest of the Ensemble's programme was strange. A heavy dose of minimalism – John Adams' hypnotic Shaker Loops and Steve Reich's well-worn Clapping (it is, of course, literally that for which the musicians threw aside their instruments) – induced the feeling of waking from a deep sleep, only to find you were still dreaming. But who was the culprit in the audience who nearly sabotaged the Reich by stamping all the way through?

Copland's Appalachian Spring, in its original instrumentation, gave the concert a luminous ending, delicately delivered, a little shaky at times, but ultimately bringing warmth to a wet and windy evening.