Music review: SCO & Maxim Emelyanychev, City Halls, Glasgow

No sooner had the interval lull descended in the SCO’s Maxim’s Baroque Inspirations programme than the approaching rat-tat-tat of a marching drum, and the sight of the orchestra’s ebullient chief conductor-cum-Pied Piper leading a merry band of musicians into the foyer lured the curious to follow and witness an impromptu medley of hip-swinging Renaissance dances.

It was entirely on message with the idiosyncratic objective of the main programme: a diversity of musical styles, from Corelli to Glass, bound by the premise that no composer lives in a creative bubble but inevitably draws inspiration from the music they inherit.

Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis cast an instant spell, its dreamy echoes of Tallis’ Tudor sound world caressed by the later composer’s modal pastoralism and sun-kissed density.

The transition to Philip Glass’ Harpsichord Concerto was smoothed over by Emelyanychev’s first audience chat, introducing a curiosity – with him as soloist – that pitted Bachian flourishes against Glass’ gnawing, often morose minimalism. The finale chased any miseries away, Emelyanychev unleashing his inner rock star.

The charmed sensitivity of Respighi’s Airs and Dances Suite No 1, old melodies dusted clean and sparklingly recast, tamed the fire. Then a second half of Baroque jewels: the Italianate poise of Corelli’s Concerto Grosso in B-flat and Bach’s intricate Triple Concerto in D for three violins with dynamically interactive solo team of Stephanie Gonley, Marcus Barcham Stevens and Gordon Bragg, flanking the novelty of Telemann’s Concerto in D minor for two Chalumeaux (the mellow precursor of the clarinet) with Katherine Spencer and William Stafford as elegantly duelling soloists.

What could easily have been a piecemeal affair was anything but, thanks to Emelyanychev’s personable, if sometimes impetuous, showmanship.