The Endymion ensemble's portrait concert of Steve Martland's music was billed as "unforgiving, unrelenting, unforgettable" - not exactly designed to get the punters in, and sure enough, only a select handful braved a sweaty Purcell Room to see the gig. But this bizarre piece of marketing reflects Martland's persona: even though he's now in his late 40s, he's still thought of as one of contemporary music's outsiders, whose loud, brash music is a bold two fingers to the classical establishment.
Endymion's concert gave the lie to all this. Conducted by Martland himself, the programme revealed music of joyful, unpretentious energy, enhanced by the charming, self-deprecating way that Martland introduced each of the pieces. Kick, written in 1996 to celebrate the European Championships, sounded thrillingly vivid in its scoring for 11 players, a pop-inspired lineup of saxophones, brass, marimba and piano, accompanying Chris Tombling's solo violin. A hurtling set of variations on a 17th-century English fiddle tune, Kick drove inexorably to its final climax.
However, it was the two bigger pieces on the programme, Beat the Retreat and Eternal Delight, that impressed the most. Beat the Retreat was written as a protest against John Major's criminal justice bill, and its crackdown on "repetitive music", so Martland's piece was cleverly repetitious, using a Purcell bass line to create a thumping rhythmic energy. In the midst of all the excitement, there were glimpses of lyricism in a melancholy trumpet tune.
Eternal Delight was another instrumental work-out, with ferocious solos from pianist Sarah Nicolls and marimba player Sam Walton, adding up to a noisy, colourful showpiece. In a post-concert discussion with Jude Kelly, artistic director of the South Bank, Martland vented his controversial views on musical culture, talking about the corruption of the Arts Council, describing the Purcell Room as "a tomb", and musing on writing an opera about Saddam Hussein. Yet even all this bad-boy bluster could not efface the directness and power of his music.
