MacMillan’s ‘Concerto for Orchestra’
City Halls, Glasgow 20/2/25
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Sir James MacMillan conductor, Scott Lygate contrabass clarinet
The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s Thursday night series at the City Halls in Glasgow resumed on 20th February with a programme of works by modern Scottish composers, conducted by Sir James MacMillan. The headline piece which concluded the programme was the Scottish premiere of MacMillan’s own 2024 ‘Concerto For Orchestra', subtitled ‘Ghosts’. All the other young composers on the programme have benefitted from Sir James’ mentorship through his East Ayrshire festival of music-making, ‘The Cumnock Tryst’. The world premiere of Scott Lygate’s ‘Engines and Men, Concerto for Contrabass Clarinet and Orchestra’, with the composer as soloist, which concluded the first half, was preceded by the Scottish premiere of of Jay Capperauld’s ‘Inertia of a Bona Fide Psychopath’. Pieces by Matthew Grouse, Michael Murray, Electra Perivolaris and Gillian Walker also featured. The concert was recorded for broadcast at a later date. Attendance was modest but not embarrassing. After the first piece, Sir James spoke about it before introducing the rest of the concert.
Yorkshireman Matthew Grouse’s ‘Solos and Tuttis’, subtitled ‘a vestige of an unheard season’, was originally an SCO 2020 commission whose premiere was postponed indefinitely due to the pandemic. As online content from musicians and ‘ensembles’ of individual performers combined electronically started to emerge during lockdown, Matthew (the only one of the evening’s composers not from Ayrshire) mused on the peculiarities of such music, such as dynamic compression, imperfect syncing and the absence of true expressive chamber ‘dialogue’. He recrafted the piece to present an aural caricature of this music. The result is hilariously fractured and disjointed. Occasional solo misquotations from repertoire pieces appear in the mix, interrupted by sforzandi and non-functional chords from sections of the orchestra. One such, from Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘Scheherazade’, is taken up obsessively by the cellos and then the rest of the orchestra, but not without interruptions. A whimsical piece and an excellent concert-opener. As with all pieces except the Capperauld, the composer was present in the auditorium and came to the stage to acknowledge the applause.
Michael Murray’s ‘Visions of the A- Frame’ is a short elegiac character piece from 2023. The Barony A-frame near Auchinleck is a pithead listed structure of the former Barony Colliery in East Ayrshire, now regarded as a memorial to four miners who lost their lives in a shaft collapse disaster in 1962. The music too spoke of a sense of loss, loneliness and isolation. The Irish word ‘uaigneas’, usually translated as ‘loneliness’, but carrying associations with the word ‘uaigh’, a burial chamber, came to my mind. But there were also hints of the beauty of nature recolonising a post-industrial landscape. I found this piece very moving.
Electra Perivolaris’ ‘A Wave Breaking’ and ‘A Forest Reawakens’ are also short character pieces, with a focus on aspects of the beauty and resilience of nature in the wild places of the Isle of Arran, where the composer lives, evoking a different kind of uaigneas, akin to that of Sibelius, Rautavaara and even Britten, but with an individual voice. Both pieces suggest growth, building in energy, structure and definition, whether that of a wave travelling from far out at sea towards the beach, or the trees re-establishing the woodland in the spaces between the stumps of those felled. The timbral variety in the orchestration, with such features as a dialogue between James Horan’s cor anglais and Kanako Ito’s violin, sul ponticello strings, tam-tam crescendi, xylophone and tubular bell, muted brass and three horns in chorale, was wonderfully atmospheric. I found these two pieces captivating and very satisfying. They were very well-received by the Glasgow audience.
As Associate Composer of the SCO, as well as a regular collaborator with Scotland’s other ensembles, Scottish audiences are never starved of Jay Capperauld’s music. Although his music regularly tackles profound and serious themes, there always seem to be a certain optimism and not a little wit in his unpretentious treatment of them. In his 2014 ‘Inertia of a Bona Fide Psychopath’, he deals with the awkwardness of the impulse to levity when imparting or receiving bad news. The decorum of such musical chestnuts as a late Renaissance motet for winds, a Bach-like chorale, and a Purcell-like chaconne for Rudi De Groote’s cello, is subverted by a chaotic irreverent harpsichord, magnificently played by Andrew Forbes, with various covert accomplices dotted through the ensemble. I don’t think I shall ever tire of Capperauld’s music. This was another gem and Glasgow concurred.
Scotland’s post-industrial landscape featured again as the inspiration behind Scott Lygate’s 2024 ‘Engines and Men, Concerto for Contrabass Clarinet and Orchestra’, specifically the huge abandoned complex of Dalmellington Ironworks. Coal and iron ore mining, a brickworks and an extensive private railway system occupied the sprawling site, worked by literally thousands of men. Museum-pieces of metal hardware borrowed from the site are used in the percussion section of the piece, including flat plates bowed to produce an eerie sound and an array of pieces struck in a rhythm that had me recalling Wagner’s music for Alberich’s mines. Scott Lygate’s solo contrabass clarinet is a large instrument, delivering a deep sepulchral tone for much of the piece, which suggested someone wandering through the site and seeing the ghosts of those who worked it, still labouring as if it were still active. I was surprised, though, that the instrument is also capable of singing lyrically in an upper register. A fascinating and evocative piece, performed with great virtuosity by soloist and orchestra, with Sir James’ direction affording it the maximum advocacy.
After the interval, Gillian Walker’s 2022 ‘Saat i de Blöd’ and 2023 ‘Jean Redpath's Skippin' Barfit Thro' the Heather’ are meditations on the power of language and dialect (such as Shaetlan’) to encapsulate culture, identity and sense of belonging to place, and the similar characteristics of individual interpretations of folk music and the cherished earworms that they engender, respectively. The first (‘Salt in the Blood’ in Shetland dialect) is very atmospheric with unusual timbres on low winds, before a pulse is established on timpani, and muted brass and atmospheric strings become more assertive before a quieter conclusion. The second, based on a particular recording of a folksong, is notated in a way in which the musicians react and respond to each other’s variations of chords derived from the original. It was equally atmospheric and timbrally explorative. Both pieces had relatively slow tempi – there was nothing I would describe as ‘skipping’.
A surprise awaited the Glasgow audience before the performance of the ‘Concerto for Orchestra’. The composer/conductor came to the stage accompanied by James Murphy and Angela Dixon (Chief Executive and Chair respectively of the Royal Philharmonic Society) After James Murphy spoke about the history and work of the Society, Angela Dixon read a citation praising Sir James MacMillan’s work and awarding him Honorary Membership of the Society. Previous recipients have included Weber, Mendelssohn, Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner, Brahms, Dvořák, Clara Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Ravel, Stravinsky, Yehudi Menuhin, Fanny Waterman, Evelyn Glennie, Marin Alsop, Humphrey Burton, Graham Vick, David Pountney, Thea Musgrave, Stephen Sondheim, and Judith Weir. Congratulations, Sir James. Richly deserved.
Familiarity with and fondness for Bartók’s ‘Concerto for Orchestra’ would inevitably lead me to expect a piece in which the characters of the sections of the orchestra are allowed to shine virtuosically and expressively and, in this respect and indeed all others, MacMillan’s work did not disappoint, with the added dimension of some cameo episodes for chamber groupings. Although the subtitle ‘Ghosts’ is supposedly a reference to Beethoven’s ‘Geistertrio’, which is quoted, there are definitely other ghosts in the mix, the ghosts of other genres, forms and composers, haunting the music. Rather than Bartók’s 5 movements, there are four main sections, played without a break and overlapping somewhat. The first, third and fourth sections are mostly rapid, rhythmic, syncopated and jazzy, thrilling and exciting. Pure MacMillan of course, but if there is a ghost haunting here, especially in the finale, it is Bernstein’s. In the slow second section, there is melancholy but also tenderness. I caught glimpses of the ghosts of Vaughan Williams, Debussy and Shostakovich (especially in the string quartet passages), as well as folk music. Some of the calmer chamber episodes in the third scherzo-like section were also oases of tenderness. One, a trio for cor anglais, bass clarinet and vibraphone, was touchingly unforgettable. The coda of the finale too is an oasis of tranquility. The ‘Concerto for Orchestra’ is a masterpiece. I shall be watching out for its broadcast and highly recommend catching it then or as a podcast on BBC Sounds.