At 136 years old, Nordic Music Days must surely qualify as one of the longest-running contemporary music festivals in the western world. This weekend’s festival, however, is only the third time in its long history that the festival has taken place outside the Nordic countries, and it’s the first time it has taken place in Scotland. Glasgow is hosting most of the events, which is quite a feather in the city’s cultural cap, but Edinburgh got its slice of the pie with this Scottish Chamber Orchestra concert which admirably paired contemporary Swedish composers with contemporary Scottish ones.
The pearl of the programme was the Scottish premiere of Anders Hillborg’s Viola Concerto, performed by two musicians who have been involved with it from the start: Andrew Manze, who conducted the 2021 premiere in Liverpool; and viola player Lawrence Power, who commissioned it. Hence their interpretation carried with it an unmistakeable mark of authority, not that Hillborg’s music needed much help. The composer’s objective was to create a heroic work for the viola, one that would step away from the instrument’s reputation for introspection and melancholy, and he delivers the goods mightily with an opening that isn’t so much heroic as manic, the soloist furiously striking sparks off the strings, generating flickering lightning bolts of sound while the orchestral strings respond with powerful percussive thwacks.
There are episodes of reflective stillness, and even lyrical beauty, not least in the cadenza, where the oaky beauty of Power’s instrument seemed to become a performer in and of itself. However, the piece moved ineluctably towards the blazing energy of its conclusion where all the elements seemed to coalesce, coming into thrilling focus in the final pages. What a shame Hillborg undermines that musical power by getting the orchestral players to scream (literally!) through the final seconds. I’m not sure what he was aiming for, but the effect is reductive and distracting.
Madeleine Isaksson’s Flows (Tornio) is an altogether gentler piece, inspired by an icy river that divides Sweden and Finland. It is rich with energetic effects, with chilly percussion, jingling xylophone and string glissandi all speaking of gently moving ice floes. Sir James MacMillan’s Symphony no. 2 felt like an odd companion for it in the second half, not least because of the symphony’s almost unremittingly dark tone. Sometimes the gloom was eerie and sinister, sometimes militaristic and brash. It certainly served as a workout for the SCO players and for Manze, who directed them with focus and, you sensed, belief in the work.
But the most ghoulish piece on the programme was Jay Capperauld’s Death in a Nutshell, a piece that the SCO premiered in 2021. Proof that artistic inspiration can come from anywhere, Capperauld’s suite consists of six movements that respond to models created by Frances Glessner Lee. These doll’s houses from Hell all recreate real life crime scenes in miniature, mostly gruesome murders, and Capperauld uses them as an opportunity to romp through the orchestral goodie bag with gay abandon, creating some scenes of whirling energy and others of dark suggestion. His special effects ranged from macabre squeaks and eerie swooshes through to a sleazy saxophone and even a suspiciously twee string melody. Often the overall effect is like the soundtrack for an edgy police drama or even a horror film; but I guess that’s appropriate enough considering the SCO performed it on Hallowe’en.
