BBC Proms 2015: BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra / Runnicles review

With the BBC’s funding under constant scrutiny, questions will be asked, yet again, about whether it can afford its five orchestras. The Proms remind us what a rich resource they are, and not just to the region in which they’re located. Certainly the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra can hold its own against the best that London has to offer.

Last night’s concert opened with the premiere of James MacMillan’s Fourth Symphony, dedicated to Donald Runnicles, the orchestra’s chief conductor, who led a performance of calm authority. MacMillan manipulated tempo and texture with exquisite refinement, constantly clearing space within the large orchestra for solo instruments.

At one point, the strains of a renaissance viol consort unexpectedly emerged from within the string section, a moment of musical time travel that embodied MacMillan’s particular synthesis of past and present.

MacMillan’s Fourth made a fitting complement to Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. Runnicles’s approach was steady but never ponderous, achieving deep focus on fleeting moments while allowing the wild eruptions of brass and percussion their full impact. Tempos flowed naturally, so that the final gallop for the finishing line created a feeling of elated exhaustion.