Music review: RSNO & Randall Goosby, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Randall Goosby’s exhilarating performance with the RSNO had the audience jumping to its feet, writes Ken Walton

RSNO & Randall Goosby, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall *****

If you haven’t heard of Randall Goosby, you absolutely will. He’s a 27-year-old black American violinist with a naturally dazzling technique and magnetic musicality, whose rise to fame essentially took flight over Covid, notably in 2020 with an exclusive signing to Decca Classics.

But here he was, live with the RSNO, his breathtaking delivery – perfection meets panache – giving Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto a fresh, exhilarating lick of paint.

Randall Goosby PIC: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Speaking of refurbishment, this was also the RSNO’s first return to its Glasgow home venue since the hall replaced its well-worn, all-fabric seats with wooden-backed ones, the hope being that this might brighten the acoustic. There was certainly something in Saturday’s string sound, a wholesome and luxurious warmth, that suggested it has worked.

That molten radiance, instantly captured in the orchestral introduction to the Tchaikovsky, was a warming invitation to the visibly relaxed Goosby. He responded with spellbinding intent, playing that was electrifyingly articulate, every fleeting note accurately purposed, yet forever mindful of the music’s generous melodic contours.

His slow movement was the perfect synthesis of simplicity and nuance, the rustic zest of the finale heightened by hi-octane physicality and the teasing playfulness he infectiously injected. French conductor Lionel Bringuier – a last-minute replacement for Tabita Berglund – had the measure of him, quick to respond and garnering the same incisiveness from the RSNO. If Goosby’s concerto performance had the audience jumping to its feet, his hip-swinging encore of Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s Louisiana Blues Strut satisfied the call for more.

Bringuier had already made his mark in Norwegian composer David Monrad Johansen’s 1930s symphonic study Pan, a fusion of Scandinavian transparency and French Impressionism portrayed with touching poeticism. He ended with Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathétique’ Symphony, a performance heaving with emotional turmoil, grippingly animated and exhaustively fulfilling.