Royal Scottish National Orchestra Usher Hall, Edinburgh JJJJ

After the emotional intensity of Mahler in last week’s season opener, conductor Thomas Søndergård and the RSNO turned to more reflective and ravishing music in this eastwardgazing programme.

Reordering the movements of Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suites 1&2 gave a stronger musical narrative to Peer’s desert adventures so that it ended with the stomping giddiness of In the Hall of the Mountain King. The strings, including harp, were soft and stirring in the beautifully polished Solveig’s Song. But there was potential to bring out more of the exotic colour and rhythms that drive the two Arabian dance movements, played too by the book.

There was more tonal richness in Ravel’s Shéhérazade, set to Tristan Klingsor’s poem of the same name. Catriona Morison’s beguiling mezzo-soprano voice was at the core of this dream-like fantasy. Søndergård and the orchestra wrapped her warm, mellow tones in a rapturous full-bodied orchestral sonority, edged with haunting flute melodies and a keening solo violin.

The dynamic brilliance of Rachmaninov’s Symphony No.1 was a complete contrast to the impressionistic first half. After the bold opening statement, the orchestra showed plenty of bite in the allegro with the chirpy piccolo leading the charge. In the larghetto, the string sound was rich and vibrant but throughout the whole symphony it was Maura Marinucci’s beautifully articulated clarinet passages that caught the ear. The orchestra were firing on all cylinders for the trumpetled finale, with militaristic drums set against the syncopated string rhythms evoking a regiment of horses galloping across the Steppes.

SUSAN NICKALLS