Classical review: SCO and Robin Ticciati

Published on Sunday 20 December 2009 22:18

CITY HALLS, GLASGOW *****

IT'S tempting to attribute the exuberance with which the SCO flitted and flew through the programme on Friday evening to the youth of their new principal conductor, Robin Ticciati.

Faur's Pellas et Mlisande Suite afforded a few opportunities to foreground whimsical fancy; in the semiquaver accompaniment that bubbled beneath La Fileuse, or in the flirtatious phrasing of the Sicilienne. But there were also points at which Ticciati commanded that a silent pause be left hanging, or in which he concentrated on the vulnerable breathiness of the flute playing in the lower register.

Whether it was Ticciati's background in opera or the addition of mezzo soprano Karen Cargill, Berlioz's Le Mort de Cloptre heralded a perceptible increase in dramatic intensity. Out of the discomforting introduction came Cargill's Cloptre; fragile, yet bearing all the marks of her turbulent past in the grain of her voice.

The wholesale success of this collaboration bodes well for the SCO's forthcoming performance of Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ, which will feature both Ticciati and Cargill. The inclusion of the brief overture The Flight into Egypt undoubtedly served as a rather convenient advert for this event, yet few could have argued with its being on the programme, given the simplistic beauty of the short fugue.

Although Haydn's Symphony No.101 had Ticciati bobbing on the balls of his feet once again, to speak only of his youthful energy would be to overlook the depth of interpretation and complexity of character that this conductor brings to the music.