Music

BBC SSO/Brabbins

City Halls, Glasgow

Keith Bruce

four stars

TCHAIKOVSKY’S Symphony No 1 “Winter Daydreams” is an emotional statement of intent, and Anton Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances the early calling card that made that composer’s reputation. The BBC SSO, led by Kanako Ito and under the familiar baton of Martyn Brabbins, produced a beautiful sound on both works, with the strings at their rich-sounding, sparklingly-accurate, best in the first movement of the Tchaikovsky, the horns, guest-led by the RSNO’s Chris Gough, glorious on the Adagio, a lovely wind ensemble at the start of the Scherzo and the Finale brass echoing the superb tone they had displayed in the first of the three Dvorak dances that opened the concert.

Somewhere during the interval, however, the sound equipment for this live broadcast had developed a very obvious and distracting hum, which – whether or not it was audible on BBC Radio 3 – diminished enjoyment of the performance of the symphony in the hall.

Fortunately the noise had not been apparent in the first half, which had included the main event of the evening, the Scottish premiere and first UK broadcast of James MacMillan’s Trombone Concerto with the soloist who commissioned it, Jorgen van Rijen of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam.

A work in memory of the composer’s grand-daughter Sara, it makes full use of the emotional eloquence the trombone has long displayed in jazz and big band music, but which is much rarer in orchestral music. Van Rijen is a virtuoso of startling precision, but also deep understanding of the depth of feeling in music that is surely among the most heartfelt that the prolific MacMillan has written. The keening soundworld of the opening was soon succeeded by a dialogue between the soloist and Bronte Hudnott’s flute, the first of a number of conversations he has with soloists across the orchestra, culminating in semi-improvised exchanges with Simon Johnson’s trombone section, on their feet at the back of the orchestra.

The concerto is a piece packed with memorable moments of musical poetry, told in a language that everyone can understand, with Scots inflexions in the low strings and harp at one point, and an audible ellipsis on bass clarinet. It is a profound and deeply moving work.