BBCSSO: Tarkiainen, Capperauld and Prokofiev

City Halls, Glasgow, 17/5/26

BBCSSO, Emilia Hoving (conductor), Ryan Corbett (accordion)

The final concert in the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s afternoon series at Glasgow’s City Halls was on 17th May.  The headline work after the interval was a selection of excerpts from Prokofiev’s two orchestral suites of music from his initially failed ballet, ‘Romeo and Juliet’.  The first half comprised two very recent compositions, the UK premiere of Finnish composer Outi Tarkiainen’s 2023 symphonic poem ‘The Rapids of Life’ and Scottish composer Jay Capperauld’s 2025 ‘Galvanic Dances’ for solo accordion and orchestra, with Scottish accordionist Ryan Corbett as soloist. As a first encounter for this reviewer, the programme was conducted by Finnish guest conductor, Emilia Hoving.  The concert was recorded for future broadcast on Radio 3.  Leader of the Edinburgh Quartet 2007-2016 and principal second violin of the Scottish Ensemble, Tristan Gurney, returned as guest leader for the afternoon.  Attendance was entirely satisfactory.  I found myself seated right beside Outi Tarkiainen and just in front of Jay Capperauld.  It is a tough life, isn’t it?

‘The Rapids of Life’ is Outi Tarkiainen’s name for the Ferguson reflex, an occasional phenomenon of childbirth whereby pressure from the baby triggers the release of oxytocin, resulting in involuntary contractions so strong as to produce very rapid delivery.  The composer experienced this unforgettable magical surge during the birth of her son, a delivery which astonishingly took no longer than 2 minutes (do I imagine gasps of envious wonderment from more than a handful of my female readers?).  The music evokes the experience, both mentally and physically, of being carried involuntarily and irresistibly through a series of surges of raw visceral power.  In her informative programme notes, Outi reveals that, while composing the piece, she heard of the death of her revered colleague and compatriot, composer Kaija Saariaho, so the opening cello solo (from Matthew Higham for the Glasgow audience) incorporates a quotation from Saariaho’s cello concerto, ‘Notes on Light’, and the piece bears a dedication to her memory.  From quiet beginnings on bass instruments, especially low brass, each surge builds to a massive, intense and spine-tingling climax on full orchestra, followed by a brief afterglow.  Swirling glissandi in the strings reminded me of a passage near the end of Sibelius’ ‘Tapiola’ evoking the raw implacable power of nature in a blizzard in a desolate northern forest.  The final afterglow is the birth, a new life and a new beginning, incorporating a quotation from the tentative beginning of Sibelius’ 4th Symphony.  An intensely involving and beautifully crafted piece, it was shaped to perfection by Emilia Hoving’s precise direction and the BBCSSO on top form, scoring a hit with the Glasgow audience as the composer went to the stage to acknowledge the enthusiastic applause.  A super piece and a rare privilege to experience it in the company of the composer.

Just under a year ago, the Perth Festival featured two classical accordionists, Sofía Ros and Melia Simonot, both students of the Serbian maestro of the classical accordion, Djordje Gajic, at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.  Both play the Eastern European version of the instrument, the bayan, a chromatic button accordion.  At their concert I heard of their fellow student of Gajic, Ryan Corbett, in the context of an arrangement of a Phil Cunningham piece, as well as of the fourth member of the RCS Accordion Quartet,  Ciorstaidh Chaimbeul.  This was my first chance to hear the 2022-24 BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist live.  Jay Capperauld’s ‘Galvanic Dances’ was a National Youth Orchestra of Scotland commission and was premiered with Ryan as soloist in August 2025.  ‘Galvanic’ is a reference to the 1780 discovery by Luigi Galvani that the muscles in a dead frog’s leg twitched when a voltage was applied.  Galvani went on to do scholarly work on bio-electricity and a host of other topics, but the pseudo-scientific rumours of electric “re-animation” gained enough currency to inspire Mary Shelley’s 1818 gothic novel ‘Frankenstein’.  The piece narrates the story of the re-animated monster, but with horror that is more comic than gothic.  The macabre is present sure enough but, unlike the fascinating but grisly ‘Death in a Nutshell’ of 2021, the gallows humour is more akin to Terry Gilliam’s Monty Python animations, evoking the nightmarish image of a chorus-line of dancing dead frog’s legs.  The accordion part is jolted into twitching zombie ‘life’ by a few jolting shocks from the orchestra and sets off on a grimly driven monstrous march.  I was expecting a quote from Saint-Saëns’ ‘Danse macabre’ (and I think one flew by later) but was surprised and delighted to catch instead the first theme of the Allegro moderato in the first movement of the Symphony No.3 “Organ”.  The accordion part is rhythmic and immensely virtuosic.  A series of dance forms are visited, including a slow, limping zombie waltz and a jerky tango of irregular metre.  John Dowland’s ‘The Frog Galliard’ is quoted for each reappearance of the frogs’ chorus line.  The ‘Dies Irae’ Gregorian chant becomes more insistently woven into the later dances and dominates the frantic virtuosic cadenza.  Jazz/Romantic chords herald the decay of the life force.  The opening twitches return on the accordion but die out.  The ‘Galvanic Dances’ form an immensely enjoyable concerto and they received a compelling and persuasive performance from Ryan, with committed and sensitive playing from the orchestra and skilful shaping from Emilia, very well received by the Glasgow audience.  Excellent.

I first came across Prokofiev’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ ballet music in the early 1970s from my father’s copy of the 1963 LP selection from the two suites by Karel Ančerl with the Czech Philharmonic.  Both concert performances and recordings inevitably are individual selections and they differ, with certain popular iconic numbers tending to make every cut.   Emilia Hoving’s selection of 9 numbers, compared with Ančerl’s 10, included 5 from the First Suite, compared with only 3 in Ančerl’s.  Nonetheless, only 3 of Emilia’s selection were absent from the Ančerl recording.  Don’t worry – the reader will not be asked to produce a Venn diagram.  Emilia started, as most selections do, with ‘Montagues and Capulets’ from the beginning of Suite No.2, its outer parts also known as the bold, striding, macho ‘Dance of the Knights’ that is popular as the signature for the TV “reality” show ‘Apprentice’, and it was a thrill, followed by the next number from the same Suite, ‘Juliet as a Young Girl’, scampering playful skittishness alternating with tender gentle thoughtfulness.  Unmissable.  There followed 5 excerpts from Suite No.1.  ‘Folk Dance’, a number from the ball at the Capulet residence, is jig-like and full of playful character, often omitted as being rather lightweight, but it is charming.  ‘Madrigal’ is a gorgeous lyrical melody with episodic variations.  Emilia’s shaping of phrasing, tenuto and rubato drew exquisite playing from the orchestra.  ‘Menuet’, another dance from the ball, was stately and majestic (and a tad pompous) at first and in its ritornelli, but the episodes had lovely intimate moments, including a delicious trumpet solo from Hedley Benson.  ‘Masks’, a march with an underlying prancing rhythm, also a ball excerpt, had an infectiously jolly melody with lovely solos for trumpet, clarinet and oboe.  ‘The Death of Tybalt’, a dramatic number including an intense and rapid fencing duel, horrific death throes, and a cortège, is a guaranteed inclusion in any curated selection and it was superb.  Phenomenal playing with dramatic tension sustained to the end.  We were back to the last two numbers in Suite No.2, the usual conclusion of a selection.  ‘Romeo and Juliet before parting’ starts as a nocturne with muted strings and an exquisite flute solo, joined by celesta, with gentleness and tenderness.  The music alternates between this mood and more impassioned declarations of devotion, with some lovely writing for the front desks for the violins, solo viola and clarinet in the quieter parts.  In the final section, flute and quiet pizzicato strings hint at the ticking of a clock, while a wistful oboe foreshadows what will be Juliet’s cortège.  The concluding number, ‘Romeo at Juliet’s grave’, is tragic and heart-rending, elegiac and poignant with unrelenting grief.  Wistful memories are swept aside by stabs of heartache.  After a final sigh, ghostly stillness high on the violins subsides to a final morendo chord.  I cannot imagine a more moving conclusion.  Emilia Hoving’s craft gels perfectly with this wonderful orchestra and she certainly has the measure of Prokofiev in emotional roller-coaster mode.  Pretty well perfect.