Proms 2010: Rich tapestry given the tartan touch with Brabbins

The one change was to replace a piece by Thea Musgrave with a new work by another Scot, James Dillon. The title of the latter, La Navette, meaning "shuttle", refers to the Ovid story of Philomena, who is raped by her brother-in-law and has her tongue cut out to prevent her revealing the truth. She manages to do just that, however, by the ingenious method of weaving a cloth that tells her story.

Dillon’s large orchestra suggests not so much a cloth as a wall-size tapestry, full of knots and splashes of colour. The chug of the shuttle is audible in the motivic repetitions, which also skilfully generate and sustain a sense of menace.

Liszt’s First Piano Concerto is a problematic work even for card-carrying Lisztians such as myself. For all the compositional virtuosity, it’s difficult to take seriously the macho heroic gestures of the opening, the interspersions of the triangle, as irritating as a jammed doorbell, not to mention the madcap finale. The best one can hope for is a soloist who can do justice to the poetic episodes of Chopinesque filigree, which Boris Giltburg certainly was.

There’s no shortage of repetition either in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sheherazade. The world of whirling dervishes and tempest-tossed sailors was evoked faithfully and leader Janice Graham, portraying the spellbinding storyteller herself, contributed winsome, alluring solos. The BBC Scottish played their tartan socks off for Martyn Brabbins.  

Repeat R3 August 27, also available on BBC i-Player. Information: 0845 4015040, bbc.co.uk/proms

Prom 48: BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Royal Albert Hall
Kensington Gore, SW7 2AP