The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra already has enormous faith in its new chief conductor, the young Israeli-born maestro, Ilan Volkov. His concerts with the orchestra are billed as "Ilan Volkov conducts", and his glamorous looks and energetic style have already made him a pin-up among young conductors. If any piece could prove whether he is equal to the hype, it was Mahler's Sixth Symphony, the climax of his inaugural concert with the orchestra.
Volkov has a lot to live up to. The last holder of the post was Osmo Vanska, whose inspirational interpretations of Nielsen and Sibelius secured the orchestra an international reputation. Mahler's music places different demands upon conductor and orchestra, but Volkov's performance of the Sixth was technically assured and musically mature, and made a bold statement of his ambitions for the orchestra.
He began the first movement as a grim, ominous march, but he also captured the variety and complexity of Mahler's emotional world. The second theme, a tender musical portrait of Alma, Mahler's wife, was lyrical and voluptuous. Even more impressive was the way he integrated the long central section - with its off-stage cowbells and visions of pastoral bliss - into the structure of the whole movement. The reappearance of the gloomy tread of the opening theme was a shattering return to darkness.
His sculpting of Mahler's vast musical forms was equally convincing in the final movement. He drew intense and impassioned playing from the BBCSSO in the long passages of energetic drama and high tragedy. Yet the occasional moments of repose, when the mists clear, were less successful. Volkov and the orchestra did not characterise the vertiginous extremes of Mahler's musical world. The intimate love song of the slow movement faltered where it should have flowed, and the orchestra was exposed by the music's delicate melodic lines. The same problem affected their accompaniment to Monica Groop's performance of Mahler's Lieder eines Fahrenden Gesellen, despite her expressive, luxurious singing.
The orchestra's most complete performance was of Ligeti's San Francisco Polyphony. Volkov gave himself as completely to this music as he did to the Mahler, and the result was a gripping and glittering orchestral showcase. He dramatised Ligeti's world of sonic extremes, from double-bass crunches to percussive assaults, with absolute conviction. The final climax, as the orchestra was overtaken by a swirl of scurrying lines, ended in a dramatic freeze for orchestra and conductor. Volkov held his players and his audience in this musical limbo for what seemed like minutes: testament to the strength of his relationship with the orchestra, and his natural, unaffected charisma.
