New boy on the block

Lynne Walker is impressed by Ilan Volkov, the 26-year-old who has taken charge of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Ask any orchestral player what they want from a conductor, and the answers are likely to vary from imagination, intelligence and sound judgment, to a clear beat, an inner ear and the authority to put his or her stamp on a performance. So, in choosing the Israeli-born Ilan Volkov as their new chief conductor, members of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra must have sensed that his instinctive musicianship would probably colour the intellectual qualities that at present rather dominate his musical personality. Though engaged initially on a three-year contract, you get the feeling that he's going to be around for long enough to make his mark.

Under Osmo Vanska, the profile and reputation of the BBC Scottish has soared. His personal take on cycles of symphonies of Sibelius, Beethoven, Nielsen and Rakhmaninov helped to create a distinctive sound and focus. He and the BBC SSO's associate principal conductor, Martyn Brabbins, have given the musicians a new confidence that comes across in every aspect of their playing. In fact, the BBC Scottish has given me some of my best recent Edinburgh Festival experiences, with wildly contrasted pieces such as Berlioz's Trojans and Peter Eotvos's Three Sisters in 2001, and Heiner Goebbels's Surrogate Cities and a shattering performance of Enescu's Oedipe last year. Its championing of new music, whether it be Per Norgard at last year's Huddersfield Festival, or Scotland's hottest young composing talent, Stuart Macrae, at the Proms, has also won it new admirers.

Looking younger than his 26 years, but with the air of someone a lot older, Volkov is the youngest-ever conductor appointed to a BBC orchestra. The controller of Radio 3, Roger Wright, sees his youth as a positive advantage. "He wants to learn, he wants to explore every aspect of the repertoire, and he has an ambition not for himself but for the music and the players. What's more, he is a wonderful musician, incredibly serious, but personable, too. Frankly, I think there's more of a risk in appointing someone in their fifties who's been there, done it all, and hasn't got that edge-sharpening hunger."

Hugh Macdonald, the orchestra's director, agrees. "The chief conductor doesn't have to be all things to all players, but the BBC Scottish, whose musicians' own determination and ability to focus is largely what distinguishes it, needed someone with a keen interest in contemporary music who could also rise to the challenge of the classics. It's not an easy mixture to find.

"The sound of the orchestra changes when he works with us. The string sound is warm and relaxed and beautiful, and Ilan gets the wind section absolutely together without apparently trying. He's not a flashy conductor, it's more to do with timing and his gestures, which are very expressive."

In his first Glasgow concert in his new role, broadcast live on Radio 3, the all-important chemistry seemed to be attracting all the right reactions from his new band in Ligeti's San Francisco Polyphony. Without overdoing it in terms of shaping and detailed expression, the players handled the rhythmic and textural complexities of the piece with a sure feeling for its style and character, displaying the clarity of line and attention to minute changes of colour that make up this most intriguing of all Ligeti's scores.

I was less sure about Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, in which the orchestra was joined by Monica Groop. While Volkov proved himself an adapt accompanist, each aspect of the Wayfarer's reminiscences stylishly and sensitively articulated by the orchestra, Groop was guilty of under-characterisation. Faultless in the technical accomplishment of her singing, never over-dramatic, never sentimental, she didn't share any interpretative insights with us.

It's a brave man who takes on Mahler's Sixth Symphony for his debut concert. The good news is Volkov's technical assurance, his unflagging stamina, and his balancing of the many notes and extra forces was clear to see. If he has yet to develop more of a flair for presentation, more of the flexibility that makes the tensions of a live performance thrilling, that will undoubtedly come in time.

The opening, grinding march somehow lacked gritty fierceness, the lyrical slow movement never quite relaxed and, despite the finale's thundering hammer blows (only two), the swivelling from major to minor key in the finale didn't drive home the tragedy of the hero's ultimate defeat by fate. Not that the orchestra gave anything less than its all for its new conductor, with beguiling woodwind and penetrating brass matched by sonorous strings. But there are times when even commitment isn't enough to carry off a symphony as dark and intense as the Sixth.

With its own studio, a brand-new home planned in Glasgow's City Hall and a second tour of China later this year, the dark days look like ancient history. Wright, whose attitude is one of celebration not cessation of the BBC's five house orchestras, sees its role as an ambassador not just for Scotland but for the BBC, too, with regular concerts also in Aberdeen, Inverness, Perth and at the Edinburgh Festival.

And, as a broadcasting orchestra whose every note played is recorded or transmitted live, its ethos accords well with Volkov's belief that music and the arts are not a luxury, but a birthright, "We need to push for bigger audiences and better education, and every musician has a responsibility to help people to feel that the arts are there for them."

Ilan Volkov conducts the BBC SSO playing Stravinsky on 13 March, and Messiaen and Debussy on 10 April at the Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow (0141-353 8000)