Erland Cooper, Glasgow review: 'an exercise in patience'

The natural world has long provided inspiration for classical composers but Erland Cooper has taken that relationship a step further, claiming his latest concerto, Carve the Runes Then Be Content With Silence, has been “co-written by the earth”. A pre-performance screening of accompanying documentary Recomposing Earth laid out the story with affection: once the concerto had been recorded, Cooper deleted all digital files, retaining just one tape reel copy which he buried in his native Orkney with clues to its location. Eighteen months later, a local couple literally unearthed the reel along with a violin – the detritus could be viewed at the merchandise table – and the tape was dried out at length with the music preserved largely intact.

Carve the Runes was composed to mark the centenary of poet George Mackay Brown, whose calming tones provided the sage text of the first movement as Freya Goldmark’s violin hovered and circled like a lone seabird.

Even at this sole Scottish performance, Cooper favoured a quirky approach, breaking up the movements with other “tunes” performed by string quartet with Cooper on piano and synthesized double bass. Fittingly for this exercise in patience, silence played a salient role, alongside sampled birdsong, flowing water (in more incarnations than one) and occasional voice.

The audience were invited to stream a recording of blackbird song via Cooper’s website in an act of “live tapestry” to accompany his lullaby Holm Sound, while the intimate Music For Growing Flowers, originally commissioned as the soundtrack to the Platinum Jubilee Superbloom display at the Tower of London, was small but beautifully formed.

Having guided the audience through the deliberately “woozy and wonky” string drones and two-minute silence of Then Be Content, Cooper encored with the mournful modular synthesizer piece Skreevar and the gentle but liberating First of the Tide before allowing himself a well deserved celebratory microphone swing.