BBCSSO: Bruckner and Wigglesworth

City Halls, Glasgow, 26/3/26 

BBCSSO, BBC Singers, Ryan Wigglesworth (conductor), Sophie Bevan (soprano) 

Closing night of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s 2025-26 (90th year) celebratory season was on 21st May in Glasgow’s City Halls. Chief conductor Ryan Wigglesworth returned as both conductor and composer of the principal work in the first half, his 2022 ‘Magnificat’ for solo soprano, chorus and orchestra, with his wife and dedicatee of the piece, Sophie Bevan, as soloist, and the BBC Singers as the chorus.  The concert opened with the chorus a cappella in Bruckner’s 1861 bijou motet setting of the ‘Ave Maria’ prayer.  After the interval, Bruckner’s aptly-nicknamed ‘Romantic’ Symphony’ No.4 brought the season to an epic close. Turkish virtuoso and former pupil of Pinchas Zukerman, Emre Engin, returned with his Gigli instrument as guest leader for the evening; he last guested in February in an all-goodies concert that included Rachmaninov’s First Symphony.  Kate Molleson introduced the programme for both audience and the recording, which is due for broadcast on 11th June, after which it will be available as a podcast on BBC Sounds for 30 days.  Attendance, while not exactly “sparse”, was quite modest. 

I am fairly sure that this was a first hearing for me of this particular Bruckner motet, and my very first impression had me wondering whether it was the secondary inspiration for Henryk Górecki’s 1987 ‘Totus Tuus’.  I like the homophonic Górecki but, at less than half the duration and with an appealing arch-like structure, the polyphonic Bruckner is miles better, to my taste, and the Romantic harmonies are gorgeous.  A super-satisfying and rather apt concert opener, introducing Bruckner, the Latin language and sacred text in one short palate-cleansing piece.  However, I must issue a dual ‘grump’ alert and the reader may wish to skip to the next paragraph.  Firstly, and inexplicably in the context of a far-from-full house, the incidence of unmuffled coughing was truly dire.  I acknowledge that the cough reflex is hard to foresee or suppress, but there are mitigative actions to reduce the impact of the detonation, unfollowed by at least three audience members during the delicate Bruckner. My second beef is with issues of Latin pronunciation. The residual effects of centuries of Italianised church Latin are probably unavoidable, but there are some pronunciations that are just plain wrong, none more so than ‘-is’ at the end of a word.  Sometimes it should be pronounced with a long vowel, sometimes short, depending on the grammatical case. In the ablative plural, like in ‘mortuis’ (meaning “by/with those who have died”), it is long and pronounced “mor-too-eece”, rhyming with “fleece”.  But in the genitive singular, it is short, like in ‘mortis’ (meaning “of death”), sounding exactly like the English word “mortice”.  It should never be pronounced “mor-teece”, shifting the stress to the second syllable where it does not belong grammatically (whatever about musically).  Rant over. 

The ‘Ave Maria’ segued directly into the start of Wigglesworth’s ‘Magnificat’, a joint commission by the Hallé and the Bergen Philharmonic, premiered in 2022.  The composer acknowledges the influence of Monteverdi’s ‘Vespers of the Blessed Virgin’ and Bach’s ‘Magnificat’ in the broad structure of the choral and orchestral writing, whilst the soprano represents the voice of Mary herself. I last heard Sophie Bevan as a compelling Mélisande, innocent yet secretive, vulnerable yet resolute, in the BBCSSO’s concert performance of Debussy’s ‘Pelléas et Mélisande’ 8 weeks ago, which was also conducted by her husband. The piece is organised into 5 movements (compared with Bach’s dozen), with the second movement leading without a break into the third.  It uses a large orchestra, with (for instance) 6 + 1 horns, 4 flutes and 5 percussionists in addition to the timpanist.  The horns, muted high in their register, introduce the first movement, the soprano intoning the first word of the phrase “magnificat anima mea Dominum” (my soul magnifies the Lord) in a sense of awe. Choir and orchestra build to a magnificent climax, where brass chorale writing evokes the wonders of 16th and 17th century Venetian masters Gabrieli and Monteverdi but leading into polyrhythms and cross-rhythms that reminded me more of 20th-century visionary Messiaen. The arch-like movement concludes calmly. The second movement ‘Et exsultavit’ is bristling with rhythmic excitement at first, with groups of instruments echoing the soprano’s joy.  A horn solo over spooky strings leads to a more contemplative mood, the sense of awe returning with an ancient, medieval feel, low monastic choral voices answering the soloist.  A note of menace in the brass bridges to the next movement, ‘Fecit potentiam’.  Male choral voices’ hocketing perpetuates the medieval feel, while the soprano’s anxious responses build the tension.  The rapid scurrying of xylophone and piccolo, and some low brass chording, bridge to an eerie concluding passage where women’s voices and the soloist evoke an otherworldly solitude (the Irish word “uaigneas” is the mot juste).  The 4th movement (‘Suscepit Israel’) begins with an extended instrumental introduction with flutes, oboes and harp, followed by strings, initially tender but becoming more anxious and supplicatory, with moments of quite Sibelian desolateness, flanking a central soprano aria, which is more consolatory, with all 4 flutes, oboe and harp in the pastoral mix.  Celesta, bells and double basses in the calm coda release the tension  The finale, (‘Sicut locutus est’) starts with scampering fugal bassoons, setting up a triplet rhythm that drives the choral momentum, even when the metre becomes irregular, culminating in a huge tutti with tubular bells and all the brass in the mix – quite thrilling – and amazingly the soloist is heard declaiming over this rush.  In the afterglow of the closing bars, celesta, harp and glockenspiel seem to surround the soloist in a glowing halo, like a Renaissance painting of Regina caeli.  What an absolutely super piece.  We have seen Wigglesworth as composer before in the City Halls, notably his characterful Piano Concerto played by Steven Osborne back in September 2023, but this was next-level.  And how often will you see a conductor kiss the soloist on the lips and know there is no danger of a scandal?  Fabulous. Very well received by the Glasgow audience. 

I am never “not in the mood” for a Bruckner symphony, but the Fourth, in its most common (and most popular) revision “completed” 1880, remains a particular pleasure.  Ryan Wigglesworth brings the same appreciation of large-scale expansive episodic (but interconnected) narrative to Bruckner as he brings to Mahler, but with sensitivity to the Brucknerian landscape, which can be as validly interpreted as architectural, of nature or of the mind (or any combination of these).  The Fourth, I feel, tends more to the world of nature, in particular forests, mountains and rivers, rather like the romanticised landscape of ‘Parsifal’, especially in the first movement (there is even an epiphanic vision, like that of ‘the Holy Grail’).  Murphy’s Law, in cahoots with the gremlins of the French horn, sadly conspired to mar the pitching of the atmospheric horn call that opens the symphony over tremolo strings, a rare occurrence for the BBCSSO, but that is the way of gremlins. There were no other mishaps. The ‘Bruckner rhythm’ (two crotchets followed by a crotchet triplet) makes its first celebrity appearance as the first theme; the second theme is more playful and suggestive of a babbling brook.  The journey through this majestic imaginary landscape adheres mostly to conventional sonata form with fairly minimal use of the Bruckner “meanwhile”.  I often wonder whether it influenced the first part of Richard Strauss’ ‘Alpine Symphony’.  The second movement, if it were Mahler, would be labelled a funeral march.  Certainly, there is a lot of stoically putting one foot in front of the other in a minor key. But with Bruckner, it’s more like a pilgrim’s march, putting us in ‘Tannhäuser’ territory.  Hymns on cellos and violas sound more devotional than funereal. Whatever Ryan Wigglesworth’s vision, that was the reading I heard and it made complete sense.  Where Mahler would wallow in Judaeo-Christian angst and elegiac grief, Bruckner’s climax is in the major, a moment of revelation, before the reality of the long road ahead reasserts itself, so on he trudges.  As Robert Frost put it, “miles to go before I sleep”.  The third movement, a genial Scherzo and Trio with rustic pleasures, starts with a cross-country hunt, with horn calls and a galloping rhythm.  A middle section is more relaxed and contemplative before remounting and rejoining the pack.  The Trio is a leisurely charming Ländler more like a folksong than a dance, before the hunt Scherzo reprises.  The mostly anxious Finale is the most episodic of the 4 movements.  Among the elements repeatedly revisited for development by Brucknerian “meanwhiles” are a declarative brass chorale, a pastoral string and wind interlude, and a pilgrim march, as well as a number of climactic and bridge passages.  When, out of this uncertainty, the coda emerges and gels, it builds to an overwhelming and triumphant radiant transfiguration, the ultimate affirmation from the man for whom composition was worship.  Bruckner: the ultimate legal high.   Ryan Wigglesworth took us there.  Excellent.