The contrast was absolute, and disquieting. The two concerts from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra were easier to take, in the sense that all the pieces were straightforwardly expressive. Both were conducted by German composer Matthias Pintscher with consummate musicality, and the two pieces of his that we heard translated that fluency into deliciously glittering sounds of bowed Chinese cymbals and pianissimo clarinet burblings.
The problem for me was that Pintscher's pursuit of delicious aural confections usurped the music's original expressive purpose. The naivety of Maja Ratkje's Concerto for Voice, in which the composer herself was the wordlessly whooping soloist, was more appealing, even if the piece seemed in need of a good editor.
Dai Fujikura's Tochar y Luchar, originally composed for the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, was the piece where fastidious aural imagination and poetic intent came together best. Its closing sonority, which captured the magical sight of vast flocks of birds (the piece's guiding image) is in my ear still. But the real hero of the day was Wolfgang Rihm. His Cello Concerto Versuchung was performed by Nicolas Altstaedt with heart-stopping intensity. There's no hiding behind systems or concepts or "lovely sounds"; he risks all, with every throw of the dice.
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