Classical review: Scottish Chamber Orchestra

Published on Sunday 10 May 2009 23:15

**** CITY HALLS, GLASGOW

HAFLII Hallgrmsson's new concerto, Sonnambulo, for double bass and chamber orchestra, lives up to its name. Commissioned jointly by the Scottish and Swedish Chamber Orchestras, it presents the protagonist – in this case the SCO's principal bassist, Nicholas Bailey – as a sleepy, laissez-faire figure, happy with his lot.

It's a concerto void of bullish egocentricity. The soloist, it seems, is just out for a quiet night with his friends.

Bayley himself is as laid back as they come, seemingly indifferent to the limelight – contrast his awkwardness at receiving the applause to the dazzling refinement of his performance – and adopting his unconventional technique of playing the instrument seated at chair level rather than on the typical high bass stool.

It's a character that suits Hallgrmsson's passive music. At almost every point in the concerto's single movement sweep, the bass is shadowed by other instruments of the small orchestra, creating a strangely muted, woozy pallor. There is even something quite old-fashioned in its mix of icy harmonies and gently astringent melodies.

Yet this performance, under the hot baton of Baldur Brnnimann, and coloured by Bayley's cool virtuosity, elicited elusive warmth and strands of sinuous beauty that lifted the permeating lugubrious undertones of the music.

And it sat perfectly alongside Kodly's Dances of Galanta and Bartk's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste, both of which have enough delirious energy to wash away the deepest blues.

Brnnimann let the Kodly dances state their own riveting case, right up to the point where they release their ultimate euphoria. And in the Bartk, the long, unfolding inevitability of opening fugue gave way to a superbly balanced display of molten tranquillity and dizzy excitement.