In the past few days, Nicola Benedetti has been clapping Kodály rhythms with 250 children in East Ayrshire, inspiring pupils at a local primary school and, after this performance, coaching senior players at St Mary’s Music School. She puts down her precious violin to speak out publically when music education is threatened, and is a hands-on ambassador for the Big Noise project, Scotland’s version of El Sistema, now attracting chunky public funding and launching its fourth orchestra. We have to be reminded that she is wonderfully talented international soloist and it is understandable that her appearances with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in Glasgow and Edinburgh were sell-outs. There were two other reasons to make this evening special: Berlioz’s dramatic Symphonie fantastique, and the Scottish première of James MacMillan’s Little Mass, co-commissioned for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic celebrating 175 years and the RSNO its younger sister at a mere 125.
Over 120 Junior Chorus members packed the organ gallery in their smart black RSNO shirts for the Little Mass, a substantial setting of the Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus Dei with generous room for MacMillan’s trademark piquant orchestral flavourings. Beginning quietly in the lower strings, the Kyrie was an unsettling palette of muted trumpet, the fluttering woodwind ripples a background for soaring children’s voices in subtly changing harmonies, an impressionistic wash of music rising to a climax before rediscovering initial calm. The Sanctus was terrifying, a thundersheet creating a real storm with a frenzied trumpet fanfare and a mad dance with brass, bells and piercing whistle of piccolo underpinned with bass clarinet. It is an uncompromising work for the singers, and the Junior Chorus under Christopher Bell managed their difficult entries splendidly with flowing choral lines and perfect diction, as well as surprising us with otherworldly unpitched whispering. A softer lyrical Benedictus provided some respite before a noisy playful march finished the movement with final high Hosanna with deep orchestral rumbles. Passionate strings in the Agnus Dei began quietly with a simple sung theme, but excitement grew with brass chorale, cheeky woodwind and bell-like scales in the percussion. The final quiet chord almost but never quite resolved as it faded and we reached an uneasy peace, MacMillan keeping the questions going. The challenging music for children to sing suggested a ghost of Britten, but it was the loss this week of another voice, Peter Maxwell Davies – whom MacMillan met and so much admired – which struck me as the composer came to the stage, beaming at the youngsters at the end of this beautiful restless work.