Review: RSNO conductor Nodoka Okisawa's Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

The Herald Scotland

11-05-2025

Swedish trumpeter Hakan Hardenberger has single-handedly increased the catalogue of concertos for his instrument beyond measure with his orchestral commissions, and the RSNO built this concert around the Scottish premiere of one of the latest, by Helen Grime.
It is neither a completely new work – the LSO first played it three years ago and there have been other performances in Europe – nor an especially virtuosic one, and the RSNO's programme was a mixed success in giving it a context.
Its closest kin in the programme was Toru Takemitsu's gorgeous How Slow the Wind, but that was written for a much smaller orchestra, and first performed by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in 1991. The Japanese composer's distinctive response to nature, with the crucial addition of orchestral piano and celeste to the sonic palette, is also more compact and to the point.
Read more by Keith Bruce:
Review: A composer whose remarkable works are very much his own
RSNO Hahn review: An odd programme on paper, delivered with remarkable eloquence
Grime's Trumpet Concerto: night-sky-blue is inspired by gardens after sunset and most affecting in the muted passages for the soloist at its opening and closing. Percussion, harp, high-pitched winds and the orchestra's trumpet section provide the initial support, while vibraphone and glissando strings add crucial colours at the end.
As conductor Nodoka Okisawa appeared to appreciate, it seems to be aspiring to be more lyrical than the orchestra actually sounds during the central parts, while the music for Hardenberger himself recalls both Baroque predecessors and brass band music.
The Stokowski arrangement of Debussy's Claire de lune, which opened the second half, also featured Principal Percussionist Simon Lowdon's sparkling vibes playing, alongside the more obvious combination of Katherine Bryan's flute and Pippa Tunnell on harp.
The concert had begun on familiar ground with Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture and it ended in the darker territory of Rachmaninov's Isle of the Dead, which share some structural similarities but could have both benefitted from a less austere approach than that taken by Okisawa.
The Tchaikovsky received a very measured, almost rigid, reading, with even the big string climax far from lush, although it was redeemed by the closing bars. Her Rachmaninov was perhaps more organic, and the Dies Irae theme that haunts the composer's works beautifully realised, but the work never really felt as ominous as it should.