Classical review: BBC SSO, City Halls, Glasgow

THE only time to be scared of the music of the Second Viennese School – classical music’s early 20th century brat-pack, namely Schoenberg, Berg and Webern – is when it is played badly. No danger of that last night in the first of two New Century concerts by the BBC SSO under Ilan Volkov, which focused on one of music’s most radical modernist movements.

As the writer Stephen Johnson reminded us in his introductory remarks, this music is as innovative and challenging now as it was when written 100 years ago, and certainly not an arid coda to late Romanticism, nor sterile prototype to the freer modernism that was to follow.

Nothing proved that more than Ilya Gringolts’ exuberant performance of Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto, which showed this seldom-played work to be the thrilling and lyrical tour de force it is. From its elemental opening, and a first movement glistening with super-sensitive textures and breezy solo line, to the lilting Ländler character of its rhythms and the gloriously affirmative thrills of the finale, there was never a dull moment.

Moreover, there was something about every aspect of this programme that evoked the infectious Viennese spirit of dance, whether in Webern’s delicately spiced orchestrations of Schubert’s Deutsche Tänz or simply as an underpinning characteristic of Berg’s arrangement for string orchestra of three movements from his Lyric Suite, and Schoenberg’s 5 Pieces for Orchestra.

But it was Volkov’s perceptiveness that captured the fizzing passion of the Berg, with its magical will o’ the wisp andante grazioso, and the hothouse intensity and explorative ingenuity of the Schoenberg orchestral pieces. In the right hands, this music really comes alive. Here was all the proof we needed. More tonight.

Rating: ****