Concertos, like composers, need their champions, and in the American virtuoso Kurt Nikkanen the concerto for violin by Thomas Wilson seems to have found one. It requires a leap of faith for an instrumentalist to revive a little-known work by a dead composer, but Nikkanen’s belief in the Wilson concerto was emblazoned over his performance at the weekend with the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland.
Wilson (1927-2001), a leading light in the Scottish musical renaissance of the 1960s and 1970s, was always a composer first and a Scottish one second. That impression is borne out by the Violin Concerto, a 25-minute work in one movement that combines Bartokian astringency with Nordic compression, while inhabiting a world of its own. It was commissioned by the NYOS for its 1993 tour with Ernst Kovacic (preserved on CD), and I first fell under its spell 10 years ago at a performance by Edwin Paling and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. It really deserves to be more widely known. The 80th anniversary of Wilson’s birth has provided a welcome opportunity to revisit it and the Fifth Symphony, another late work, which the Scottish Chamber Orchestra plays next week.
What’s so wonderful about the Violin Concerto is its balancing of head and heart. In that sense it is on a par with the Berg concerto, the lyricism shining through the romantic expressionism. After a dark, elegiac introduction, the solo part negotiates a series of faster cadenza-like passages, whose soulfulness is belied by the assertiveness of the orchestral writing. There’s none of the dryness that occasionally invades Wilson’s other music, and the concerto ends on a 24-carat motif that is mesmerising.
Nikkanen’s reading was all the more powerful for his refusal to indulge in display for its own sake: this was a thoughtful, introspective performance that allowed the music to speak for itself. If some of its mercurial wit was lost in the accompaniments – like all youth orchestras, the NYOS packs as many players on stage as possible – there was no lack of commitment or expertise in Howard Williams’ conducting. Walton’s Portsmouth Point and Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances completed a programme that allowed all sections to shine.
Tel +44 0141 332 8311
