Music review: BBC SSO, City Halls, Glasgow

Sanderling remained sure-footed in a concert ranging from a boyishly flirtatious Mozart to a heavy-duty curiosity, writes Kenneth Walton

BBC SSO, City Halls, Glasgow ****

The conductor Michael Sanderling gets straight to the point. There was no equivocation whatsoever in an opening Mozart symphony with the BBC SSO on Thursday that cut instantly to the chase.

Written when the composer was a mere teenager, the mood of the Symphony No 13 is irrepressibly crisp, even boyishly flirtatious. Sanderling’s capturing of that was a contagious sensation, in the ripeness of the SSO’s rosy response, and the immediate warmth it imparted on the listener.

Isata Kanneh-Mason is noted for her delicate precision

Where the opening movement played like quick-fire drama, the Andante’s lyrical charm offered poetic respite. The succinct Menuetto - its central trio served up like a breath of fresh air by solo string quartet - prepared the ground for the finale’s light-footed virtuosity, especially the horns, parping with blinding precision.

That clean-cut delivery transferred immediately to Prokofiev’s scurrying Piano Concerto No 3, and a performance that saw the return to the SSO of pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason. She’s a musician noted for her delicate, precise facility, which served her well in generating the ceaseless impetus that drives the main allegro, after the wistful opening wheeze, of the first movement.

The central Theme and Variations gave Kanneh-Mason and Sanderling scope to explore wider expressive possibilities, from gutsy Prokofiev brutalism to gorgeously dreamy, gossamer chords reminiscent of early Messiaen. The finale, while excitingly obsessive and colourfully portrayed, did reveal one weakness in this pianist’s toolbox, a slight lack of physical power in attack.

Sanderling, still eliciting alert and resonant reciprocation from the orchestra, ended with a heavy-duty curiosity, Max Reger’s Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Mozart (from his A major Sonata, K331). Where the music shifts slightly cumbersomely in style, between Brahms and Wagner, this performance made the most of its ingenious harmonies and the somewhat convoluted closing fugue.