Music review: The SCO, with Clemens Schuldt & Maximiliano Martín

It had all started so well. Brilliantly, in fact, as young German conductor Clemens Schuldt directed the SCO in a truly exceptional Stravinsky Pulcinella – crisp, driven, richly textured, and giving so many of the orchestra’s musicians the chance to shine as soloists. And shine they did – notably leader Stephanie Gonley in some beautifully shaped solos, and principal bassist Nikita Naumov, out front in a concertante quintet of soloists, and gloriously flamboyant in a heavy-footed duet with trombonist Duncan Wilson. Schuldt had an astute command of texture and mood, too, gliding gracefully between Stravinsky’s arch Classical pastiche and more piquant dissonances – it felt wonderfully cubist, like the first post-modern score, a playfully ironic recasting of the past, and working to a joyous, helter-skelter climax.