Classical review: BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Published on Friday 30 October 2009 18:22

CITY HALLS, GLASGOW ****

IT MAY only have been ten minutes long. But Sir Peter Maxwell Davies's Overture, St Francis of Assisi – newly commissioned by the BBC for Glasgow's Max at 75 celebrations – packed as much dynamite into its short duration as Strauss's Don Juan, Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto or Sibelius's Seventh Symphony, all of which featured in Thursday's BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (SSO) programme.

The most telling outcome of Max's new work – described as an overture for an opera on the life of St Francis, which he planned a quarter of a century ago but never wrote because Messiaen got there first – was evidence that he still has a musical voice capable of scorching the ears, despite his own visibly advancing years.

Under Ilan Volkov, the SSO spat out Max's high concentration of ideas with venomous intent, tethered by moments of aching melody that faded in and out, played with electrifying virtuosity.

To follow, Sibelius's final symphony was an inspired choice, especially in a performance as gripping as this, whose twists and turns Volkov engineered with judicious pacing and molten intensity.

Emotionally it was a world away from the ripe, colourful extravagance of Don Juan, which opened the programme but didn't always quite live up to the explosive precision of its first few bars.

The one real disappointment was Austrian pianist Stefan Vladar's undernourished reading of the Beethoven concerto. Too much of it merely scratched the surface, tonally, technically and intellectually.