Prom 46: BBC SC/BBC SSO/Volkov, Royal Albert Hall, review: 'Superb Prom'

Spectralism was the label given to French composers who reacted to Serialism with natural acoustic sound, and Gérard Grisey was their leader. It has taken 40 years for his key work Dérives to get its British premiere

Ilan Volkov conducts the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra at the BBC Proms (BBC/Chris Christodoulou)

"Spectralism" was the label pinned on those French composers whose reaction to the aridity of Serialism took the form of an art which revelled in the natural acoustic properties of sound, and Gérard Grisey was their leader. And it has taken 40 years for his key work Dérives to get its British premiere. The word means "driftings", and it's exact: listening to it is like walking round a sculpture, whose subtle lineaments reveal themselves with glacial slowness.

It requires two orchestras, one symphonic, the other an amplified chamber ensemble, between which the music’s sequences are gently passed; the amplification of the ensemble is designed to magnify the smallest details of the individual instrumental sounds. The harmonies drift from the home chord to remote chords, the sound ebbs and flows seductively, mostly gentle but at times suddenly and tearingly raucous. Ilan Volkov and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra delivered this work with such finesse that, with hints of Boulez and Xenakis lurking in the background, its 30 minutes drifted very pleasurably past.

The rest of this superb Prom consisted of Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder and Mozart’s Mass in C minor. In the former, mezzo-soprano Tanja Ariane Baumgartner was the soloist, and one couldn’t have wished for a more gracefully accomplished exponent. The Mozart, with the BBC Symphony Chorus in coruscating form, was simply wonderful, as sopranos Louise Alder and Carolyn Sampson shared the roles so close to the composer’s heart.