Music

Scottish Chamber Orchestra

City Halls, Glasgow

Keith Bruce, four stars

I HAVE only seen the aurora borealis once, driving north on the M80 at Castlecary on the same evening that it was witnessed by night owls even on the south side of Glasgow, but it came instantly to mind listening to John McLeod’s new viola concerto for the SCO and its section principal Jane Atkins.

The soloist’s part both shimmers and sparkles, but the actual title of the piece, Nordic Fire, is the best indication of how full of energy it is, and how much vigour Atkins brought to its performance. It begins with a fiery cadenza and concludes with a longer one, full of glissandi and pizzicato notes, but there is also a great deal for the orchestra to be doing as well, with the winds in particular treated to some taxing stuff easily as ear-catching as the work of the soloist. While the two percussionists were kept plenty busy, the score also calls for percussive effects from other instruments as well. At the same time, the work has its more lyrical moments, with conversations between the viola and the harp as well as with the winds. Although many composers played the instrument, the viola’s mid-range position in the orchestra is the likely reason it rarely has the solo role; with this work McLeod treats that apparent limitation as the viola’s greatest attribute.

It was presented in a strange context here, however, between two string ensemble pieces. Grieg’s Holberg Suite is always lovelier and less of a pastiche than you remember, and the slower sections were particularly beautifully played on Friday evening. Conductor Joseph Swensen’s arrangement of Beethoven’s C-sharp minor String Quartet No14, Opus 131, on the other hand, seemed a fairly pointless exercise. The fuller scoring dulled the edges of the work from the start, and made it seem overly lush and just too darned pretty in places. There was a certain grandeur to the finale, but really McLeod’s premiere could have used more bracing company.