Don’t play this if you have a hangover. The American composer Samuel Adler’s sixth symphony is so loud, frantic and brilliantly exciting it will blow you across the room. In three movements it crackles with electric energy, with only the central section offering a brief respite. Yet for all the clamour it is tightly organised, with a clarity of purpose and sense of direction that sends it hurtling to a dramatic conclusion. The cello concerto is initially far more introspective, offering long, singing lines for the soloist, beautifully realised here by Maximilian Hornung. But Adler can’t resist moving things along in the finale, the terrific strings of the RSNO throwing up great thickets of chords for the soloist to cut through and emerge triumphant.
