Music review: RSNO & Lise de la Salle, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

As part of an evening of Beethoven and Strauss, the RSNO and French pianist Lise de la Salle also captured the picturesque magic of music by little-known 20th century English composer Dorothy Howell, writes Ken Walton

RSNO & Lise de la Salle, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall *****

“There’s never been a more challenging funding culture for the arts,” warned RSNO chief executive Alistair Mackie as he introduced his orchestra’s season opener. It was a programme distinguished by spiritual opulence, musical discovery and artistic excellence, and the news that it would be repeated in Austria as part of the RSNO’s forthcoming three-night residency at Salzburg’s Grosses Festspielhaus. How we undervalue our most precious exports.

The Salzburgers will surely delight in Richard Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben, especially a version as insightful and forensic as music director Thomas Søndergård’s. It was remarkable for its textural precision, the fine-tuning of its internal conversations, the monumentalism of its mountainous Romantic sweep, but more than anything its colourful, storytelling impact. The interplay of sensuous, often mischievous intimacy (leader Maya Iwabuchi’s agile solo presence) with the wild cacophony of the battle scene, Strauss’ grotesque caricatures of his critics against the ultimate glow of self-satisfaction with which this self-portrait ends, was all-consuming.

The RSNO and Thomas Søndergård PIC: Sally Jubb

The opening half was no less compelling, featuring a tone poem Lamia (after Keats’ poem) by the little-known 20th century English composer Dorothy Howell, and an instantly arresting performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 3 by the French pianist Lise de la Salle.

How Howell’s music has remained so obscure is astonishing. Sumptuously scored, its fluid narrative owes much to Straussian models, yet generates its own distinctiveness through exotic, whole-tone allusions to Debussy. Søndergård captured its picturesque magic.

The mood changed abruptly with de la Salle’s assertive Beethoven. The opening Allegro combined electrifying finger work with warm poetic empathy. Her Largo was a slow burner, expansive but with a clear destination, that reverie dispelled immediately by a wild and exhilarating finale.