Page 216 - FINAL_The Sixteen Coverage Book 40th Anniversary Year
P. 216
30 December 2019
Arts review of 2019: Ken Walton on the year
in classical music
KEN WALTON
Scotland’s foremost composer marked his 60th with an epic Fifth; opera-goers
got heated over a cracking new opera set in the icy wastes of the Arctic; Mr
Reliable saved the day for two festivals facing last minute call-offs; and a
Russian whippersnapper made idiosyncratic waves as the new kid on the
conducting block. These are just some of the classical music highlights of the
last 12 months...
MacMillan at 60 Months before his actual 60th birthday in July, Scotland’s orchestras and
ensembles were already celebrating a significant year for Sir James MacMillan. But the most
anticipated event was the premiere in August of his new Fifth Symphony, performed at the
Usher Hall by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, The Sixteen and its director Harry
Christophers. Epic in scale, and subtitled “Le grand Inconnu” (the Great Unknown),
MacMillan’s latest symphony was of pivotal significance, its musical signature drawing on the
wealth of combustible resources from MacMillan’s musical past, yet simultaneously
representative of the freer-flowing abstraction that is increasingly defining his outpouring of
new work. Though strangely overwrought in sections, this symphony proved a powerful and
appetising pointer to where his music is heading next.
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