Review: BBC SSO: A Sporting Fanfare, Glasgow SECC

THIS was never an event to be judged solely on its musical merit – more as a glitzy collaboration between classical music and sport, in which youth, dedication and achievement were the themes.

Pulling it all together were the winning doubles team of Rory Bremner and Kirsty Wark, who introduced past Scots Olympic champions from Angus Carmichael to Liz McColgan. Bremner filled gaps with his impressions of others, and a quip that Eric Joyce was representing Scotland at boxing in the “Paralytic Games”.

Musically, it was variety-style aimed at the widest possible audience. Joining the amplified BBC SSO were youngsters from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland, the National Youth Choir of Scotland, and for a finale of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, the cute string-playing tots of Stirling’s Big Noise project.

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The highly-personable Stephen Bell replaced an indisposed Donald Runnicles, conducting music ranging from Carmina Burana extracts to John Williams Hollywood-style Olympic Fanfare and Vangelis’s Chariots of Fire. James MacMillan’s specially commissioned Fanfare upon One Note was highly-effective – a blaze of molten brass nagged by a belligerent vuvuzela-style monotone rhythm like a pugnacious football chant on the trombones.

Nicola Benedetti and traditional fiddler Kristan Harvey were there too. Benedetti was a smiling presence, though her amplified Bruch Violin Concerto wasn’t flawless; she was more at ease in a lilting Scots duet with the laid-back Harvey.

Rating: ****

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