Classical review: BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Perth Concert Hall ****

AS WELL as providing the opening concert to Perth Concert Hall’s weekend-long Schubertiade, Friday’s lengthy programme by the BBC SSO, under the diminutive Chinese-born conductor Xian Zhang, represented the first appearance by the young Russian pianist Denis Kozhukhin in a series that will eventually see him perform all five of Prokofiev’s Piano Concertos. On the basis of this performance of the Third Concerto, a thrilling journey is on the cards, for it was the Prokofiev that towered above anything else in this programme.

Zhang, for all that she is a highly efficient practitioner has a tendency to set slow tempi. Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony took an inordinate time to finish, both movements – one marked Allegro moderato, the other Andante con moto – were somehow taken at the same speed, unfortunately the slower one.

That wasn’t so critical a factor in Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No 4, where there is scope to linger and enjoy its verdant textures. Where it mattered – the effervescently plucked scherzo and blazing finale – Zhang upped the pace, and zapped up the heat.

Where the Prokofiev was concerned, Kozhukhin’s fiery, firm-handed presence was the defining factor in shaping a performance of extraordinary power and drive. There was subtlety in the shading of its bittersweet lyricism, and lustre in its flamboyant hard-bitten irony.

Kozhokhin’s BBC series looks set to be unmissable.