RSNO & Clark Rundell with Alba G Corral, Glasgow review: 'Becoming Ocean became frustratingly tiresome'

Adams’ own descriptions reveal little about the work other than to inform us that life on earth first emerged from the sea, and as sea levels rise through global warming we could all, once again, “become ocean”. Thus the palindromic contour of a score whose suffocating harmonic stasis induces a kind of grinding, minimalist-like torpor possibly intended to shock us by what little it has to say.

This Scottish premiere, presented by the RSNO under conductor Clark Rundell as part of Cryptic’s Sonica festival, eschewed the functional Scriabin-like colour projections employed in the original American premiere, calling instead on Catalunya-based visual artist Alba G Corral, seated at a computer desk, to create a live digital interpretation projected across three rear-positioned screens.

Did it contribute much to the experience? Not entirely. For a while the visual journey from symmetrically-conceived aerial seascape to choreographed abstraction - think Terry Gilliam’s Monty Python animations meet Vision On - had an evocative, organic charm to it. But like the music, deliberately economic on climactic surges and becoming frustratingly tiresome around the halfway point, it gradually lost its impact.

Despite the physical extravagance of an orchestra populated to the extent of four centrally-prominent harps, much fine playing, and many genuinely inspired momentswhere Adams’ music reveals an ingenious interlacing of mutating ideas, there was an ultimate sense that time could have been better spent. Adams has produced really effective music, like his Alaskan-inspired mass outdoor percussion piece Inuksuit, performed at the 2013 East Neuk Festival. This was not so convincing.