Music

BBC SSO/Volkov

City Halls, Glasgow

Keith Bruce

five stars

AT the interval of Thursday evening’s concert I was asked – by someone I guess was attracted to the City Hall by the name “Frank Zappa” amongst the composers – about the number of musicians on stage. Both Julian Anderson, who was in the hall to hear Steven Osborne play his piano concerto, and 20th century American maverick Charles Ives require many more players than the work Zappa wrote for Pierre Boulez’s Ensemble Intercontemporain, and that spectacle alone may be enough to lure this listener back to another orchestral event.

Here, once again, and as exemplified every year by the Tectonics weekend conductor Ilan Volkov co-curates, was evidence of an enthusiastic audience for contemporary music. Broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, this concert was light years away from regular “safe” classical fare, and a riveting two hours of superbly performed music.

The Zappa fan might even agree that the rock guitarist’s piece, The Perfect Stranger, turned out to be the least of the three, although still well worth hearing from this team. Volkov is brilliant at realising all the colour, dynamics and vitality of music that might come across as abstract and opaque in other hands. Using a chamber band arranged in two mirrored groups with leader Laura Samuel, harpist Helen Thomson and guest principal bass Tom Berry in the middle, the score begins with a door bell announcing the arrival of the disruptive guest. Thereafter Zappa’s music is a little derivative of his influences and far from narratively clear, but it is great fun.

It hardly measures up to the pictorial spectacle of the Holidays Symphony of Charles Ives, however. Ives also borrows widely to achieve his aims, and here was the composer at his theatrical best, heard to best advantage by these forces in this space. It is not so much the snatches of familiar tunes as the rhythmic changes of gear that make the work such fun to listen to, and a challenge to perform.

Between the two came the first Scottish performance of Anderson’s The Imaginary Museum, which Osborne and the SSO premiered at the Proms last year. It is full of wonderfully idiosyncratic piano writing as well as special moments of dialogue with brass, clarinet and synthsiser.