Scotland – Mendelssohn: ‘Scottish’ Symphony; Helen Grime: Elegiac Inflections; Maxwell Davies: Strathclyde Concerto No. 10
Västerås Sinfonietta/Simon Crawford-Phillips
dbProductions dbCD210 78:16 mins
Listening to this album fresh from my gloriously sunny week in the Highlands rather brought home the matter of climate change. Mendelssohn’s experience of Scotland was altogether stormier, and in this vivid recording of his ‘Scottish’ Symphony from the Västerås Sinfonietta and Simon Crawford-Phillips, you can almost feel the wind shivering across the lochs, or ghosts in the ruined chapel at Holyrood. It’s neither the most polished account to be found, nor the best balanced – the small violin section is too easily overwhelmed by the woodwind and brass in the louder sections – but it is a vigorous and extrovert interpretation.
The recording matches the symphony with two contemporary takes on the Scottish landscape. Helen Grime is the only one of the three composers who is actually Scottish. Her two-part Elegiac Inflections includes the filtering of Scottish folk ideas through a personal sieve, transforming them into abstract ideas; the Västerås Sinfonietta gives a pretty good account of her challenging, Knussen-influenced score.
Finally there’s Peter Maxwell Davies, who spent the later decades of his life living on Orkney (which has helped make the place a magnet for British musicians). Since his death in 2016, his music has perhaps inevitably begun to recede from view, but his Strathclyde Concerto is among his most immediate responses to the harsh-yet-beautiful landscapes that surrounded him. The ensemble and Crawford-Phillips create within it a range of strong atmospheres, carefully spotlighting the instrumental solos and generally making a persuasive case for keeping the work in the repertoire. The recorded sound quality is strong and suitably cool. Jessica Duchen