By Garry Fraser

Although there was a distinct contrast between the works in the Royal Scottish National Orchestra’s programme in the Caird Hall, Dundee, on Friday night, one thing was uniform about the performance—the undeviating excellence we have come to take for granted from it.

This concert concluded the season and it had a sort of upside-down feel to it.

It didn’t finish with the customary symphony but with a work of intense drama that brought the curtain down on the season in the most thrilling way.

Macmillan’s Confession Of Isobel Gowdie is a work of violent dynamics and resonant textures that had enthralled me at a previous RSNO performance.

This was even better the second time around.

Immediately prior to this was a composition from the other side of the musical spectrum: Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto.

This is standard fare but in the hands of a soloist like Alison Balsom it was given added sheen and lustre.

Balsom’s encore of Debussy’s Syrynx was even more stunning.

Mendelssohn’s Third Symphony had opened the concert and although I thought the orchestra were slightly slow in getting out of the blocks, Carlos Kalmar’s direction soon had them in top form.

If the adagio was good, the final allegro was better, with the ups and downs of Mendelssohn’s mood magnificently conveyed.

Normally this would have ended the concert and good though the performance was, it must take second place to a work dedicated to one Isobel Gowdie—a 17th century witch—and to the spell- binding performance of the modern-day musical phenomenon that is Alison Balsom.