Concert review: Timothy Ridout (viola) Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester/Robin Ticciati

Mark Simpson’s viola concerto (The Strad’s Premiere of the Month for December 2024) has an unusually colourful title: Hold Your Heart in Your Teeth, which is a Romanian idiom meaning ‘to go forwards in life with courage and faith, despite fear and trepidation’; an invaluable piece of advice indeed for any concerto soloist! Timothy Ridout brought his considerable technical prowess and expressive attributes to an overwhelming reading, fully seconded by the DSO and its outgoing music director Robin Ticciati.

Simpson’s score starts with a (very loud) bang and ends 30 minutes later in a whisper. Mahlerian chords in harp and percussion punctuate the viola’s first solo and its reprise towards the end. Percussion is excitingly employed throughout, with some hyperactive bongos and a prolonged marimba tremolo that underscores the viola’s cadenza, its Romani band sounds perhaps suggested by the piece’s title.

Ridout sailed triumphantly through some unconventionally laid-out double stopping and arpeggio passages, drawing from his Peregrino di Zanetto viola beautiful sounds throughout the piece’s huge range. Simpson’s writing occasionally reminded me of the viola concertos by Walton (fast détaché passagework) and Bartók (whirling triplets against open-string pedals), while the part marked ‘Berio tremolo’ references that composer’s Sequenza VI. This most exciting addition to the viola’s ever-growing repertoire deserves to be widely taken up.

After the interval, Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ was given a period-conscious, balletic reading, the whole concert forcefully realising the postulate that ‘old music should sound as if it were new, and new music should sound like a classic’.

CARLOS MARÍA SOLARE