‘Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Emelyanychev & Currie’

“All tumult, all yearning and storming of the heart, become here the blissful insolence of joy.” This was Wagner’s apt description of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, “the apotheosis of the dance.” Indeed, the piece is bursting with rhythms that always seem on the brink of breaking out into dance. But maybe this description is even more appropriate for The Creatures of Prometheus, Beethoven’s only ballet. Eminent conductor Maxim Emelyanychev and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra take on this seldom performed piece and reveal how Beethoven stole a little divine fire as well. In turn, the Scottish composer James MacMillan expanded the advent hymn Veni, Veni, Emmanuel into an astonishingly virtuoso concerto. The piece might have been written especially for the percussionist Colin Currie, whom Steve Reich has called “one of the greatest musicians of today”.