The National Youth Orchestra of Scotland’s Sunday afternoon Prom with Ilan Volkov opened with the world premiere of Helen Grime’s Two Eardley Pictures – 2: Snow, the second of a pair of works inspired by the painter Joan Eardley, and in particular her landscapes of north-east Scotland, where Grime was also brought up. It takes as its starting point The Scranky Black Farmer, a traditional song from the same region, heard at the outset on the clarinets, then shuttled from instrument to instrument in a series of variations, which in turn form the effective landscape across which scurrying figurations and slowly shifting string chords suggest the flurries and drifts of snow. It’s attractively scored, allowing the NYOS woodwind to shine and bringing out the poised clarity of the strings.
The concert also formed part of a series that juxtaposes Tchaikovsky’s concertos with Stravinsky’s early ballets: Firebird and Tchaikovsky’s Second Piano Concerto formed the rest of the programme. Pavel Kolesnikov was the soloist in the latter, wonderfully assured in his virtuosity, yet teasing out the emotional complexities beneath the work’s rather grandiose surface. The central andante, in which the pianist is joined by solo violin and cello, was notably beautiful, while the outer movements had formidable dexterity and panache. Volkov’s Firebird, though, was on the cool side, with a dip in momentum in the lengthy scene between Ivan and the Princesses. But the playing was admirably refined, the textures detailed yet sensuous, the clarity and focus often exceptional.
The evening concert, given by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Thomas Dausgaard, was structured along similar lines, with Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto flanked by The Rite of Spring and Prokofiev’s Scythian Suite. The latter started out as a ballet, originally commissioned by Diaghilev – he rejected the score before it was finished – and like Stravinsky’s masterpiece is at once self-consciously primitivist and cataclysmic.
Hearing both works in a single sitting is emotionally wearing, but you notice the differences rather than the similarities. Stravinsky trades in rhythmic dislocation, while Prokofiev builds cumulatively over steady ostinatos. Despite Prokofiev’s enfant terrible reputation, Scythian Suite sounds exoticist and post-Romantic when placed beside The Rite’s abrasion.
Both performances were superbly judged: Dausgaard’s Rite, controlled yet violent, and played with an at times almost queasy sensuality, can only be described as outstanding.
The soloist in the concerto, meanwhile, was Kirill Gerstein, who gave us Tchaikovsky’s second version of the work, dating from 1879, as opposed to the now standard score, published posthumously in 1894. The differences are substantial from the outset. The opening chords, so often thundered out, are softened by arpeggiation. We’re less conscious of bravura, more aware of the vein of melancholy that threads its way through the work. Whether it will ever replace the more familiar edition is questionable, but there’s no doubting Gerstein’s commitment to it or the intensity of his performance – sensitive yet driven, and displaying his pianism at its finest throughout.
• The Proms run until 10 September.
