Fiona Maddocks 

James MacMillan: Work for Chamber Orchestra With Soloists review – piercing portraits and Scottish concerns

The composer addresses Scotland and six giants from the past on his impressive third set with a now defunct Dutch orchestra, writes Fiona Maddocks
  
  


These varied chamber works by James MacMillan are keenly concerned with Scottish identity, whether in the two-part From Ayrshire, written for violinist Nicola Benedetti and here played by Linus Roth, or in Tuireadh, a lament for victims of the Piper Alpha oil-rig disaster. The six-part …as others see us… includes incisive musical portraits of Henry VIII, the Earl of Rochester, TS Eliot (complete with foxtrot) and, most touching of all, the scientist Dorothy Hodgkin. Last July, the excellent Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic gave its last concert, forced to disband because of arts cuts by the Dutch government. At once a warning to our own musical life and a tribute to this fine band, it makes this CD – the ensemble's third with MacMillan – all the more covetable.

 

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