Sally Beamish’s new work in the Berwaldhallen

This is a review. The author is responsible for the opinions in the text.

Sally Beamish’s new “Concertante for Viola, Double Bass and Sinfonietta” begins in the dark registers, in a slow wave movement that brings with it a repressed fear. The work is based on the Scottish folk song “Ca’ the yowes to the knowes” (“Herd the Sheep up in the Mountains”) by Robert Burns, a love song with a touch of melancholy. The focus is on the dark registers and how the deeper timbres meet and interact.

Malin Broman, concertmaster of the Radio Symphonies, played much of Beamish’s music and eventually asked for a piece of her own. The composer chose an instrument for her: the viola, which also belongs to Beamish. Broman, in turn, wanted Rick Stotijn, a former section leader in the orchestra, as a teammate. On the double bass he becomes both a counterpart and a mirror, and together they form a restrained but intense conversation in which the timbres entangle and repel one another.

Something disturbing moves through the piece. When they have a romantic relationship, it is full of doubts

The work is structured as a baroque “double”: variations based on a recurring basic material. Each episode revolves around words from Burns’ poem, which run like an undercurrent through the music. The form is chamber music and the soloists are paired with small ensembles in the ensemble – a nod to the show’s core format. A handle that significantly deepens the portrait of the instruments. Broman and Stotjin play with presence and technical clarity.

Something disturbing moves through the piece. When they have a romantic relationship, it is full of doubts. The glissando of the double bass rubs, the viola responds with ornaments reminiscent of the Scottish violin, while the sustained bass tones of the bagpipes and the birdsong of the woodwinds paint a Scottish landscape with gentle strokes.

The tension is built early on, but is deepened rather than resolved, and the relationship between the soloists remains elusive at times. Despite the carefully designed sound world, the expression remains at a certain emotional distance.

After a break it subsides. In Ravel’s “Le tombeau de Couperin,” the oboes are allowed to shimmer with feather-light elegance, a tribute to fallen friends that is borne of vitality rather than sadness. Pierre Bleuse leads with a nimble hand, and in Debussy’s dance poem “Jeux” there is an elasticity and a playful shine that brings the concert to a relieved end.

Read more concert reviews and other texts from Anna Bjermqvist.