A century ago, Iceland had never heard a symphony orchestra in concert. Now the country has a world-class orchestra and a roster of native composers to champion. Three featured in the ISO's debut Prom, under its music director Ilan Volkov.
Two works were inspired by the volatile nature of the land the composers grew up walking on. Magma, a 1999 piece by Haukur Tomasson receiving its UK premiere, began with the strings trilling tensely, creating a sense of something about to happen, and gained release in music of teeming energy that was liberally punctuated by woody percussion. The unison wind playing was not entirely clean in the peaceful passage at the work's centre, but Volkov drove his players hard in the closing section and made vivid work of its throbbing, stuttering – and unexpectedly topical – effects.
Jón Leifs, the composer who effectively started off the Icelandic orchestral tradition, was represented by his 1961 work Geysir, an imposing tone poem full of sparse, shifting chords that sounded elemental yet often piquant. Even when Volkov sent his score flying with an expansive baton gesture, the impetus kept going. Leifs's Consolation for strings was the first encore, again using that distinctive chordal style, but this time to quietly moving effect. The second encore, a galloping folk-song arrangement by Sigvaldi Kaldalóns, provided the traditional uptempo signoff.
In among these came Schumann's Piano Concerto, full of romantic sweep. Jonathan Biss's performance came across better on the radio than in the unhelpful acoustic of the hall, where his tendency to spread out the notes of chords and to be generous with the sustaining pedal made some passages sound blurry. However, his introspective encore, Schumann's Der Dichter Spricht, held the audience rapt. There was also a brisk, warm performance of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, in which Volkov at times hung back seemingly in at order to make the most climactic moments sound bigger. It worked in its way, but made the interpretation as a whole rather small-scale.
• On BBC iPlayer for 30 days. The BBC Proms continue until September 13.
