BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, City Halls, Glasgow, review The great radical works produced in Vienna in the early 20th century are a perpetual miracle. They're like a flight of arrows shot into the future, which haven't yet landed. The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra's three-part series The New Century celebrated that astonishing era. The first concert put two great works by Arnold Schoenberg alongside music by his two most gifted pupils, Anton Webern and Alban Berg. It launched off with Webern's arrangement of Six German Dances by Schubert, a neat idea as it reminded us just how rooted in Viennese traditions these radicals really were. It was played with delicate, old-world grace by the orchestra, conducted by Ilan Volkov. After this brief calm, we were plunged into the rigours of Schoenberg's Violin Concerto. What makes this a tough listen is the way the music's surging melodic lines suggests a Brahms-like romanticism, but the atonal harmonies and splintered sound-world point in another direction entirely. Bridging the divide is a huge challenge, especially for the soloist, whose part is monstrously difficult. "I want the violinist's little finger to become longer," said Schoenberg maliciously. Well, he seems to have got his wish in Ilya Gringolts, who negotiated all those vast leaps with superb assurance, and hit the top notes with laser-like intensity. But what was really remarkable was the way he surmounted these impossibilities with such charm. Rather than search for the piece's heart, he brought out its wit and ease, as did the players, under Volkov's alert direction. Volkov understands that making the many layers of this music clear, and showing how its odd angular phrases are actually full of expressivity, is the key to making it comprehensible. There was a fine example of that in the next piece, Schoenberg's Five Orchestral Pieces. Compared to the somewhat "classical" Violin Concerto this really is blazingly radical. The first piece has a moment where rhythmic layers pile up in wild fury. In many performances the timpani let rip, but here Volkov kept them on a tight rein so we could hear all the layers; which was actually more exciting. All this was thrilling, but the really miraculous moment came in Berg's Three Pieces from the Lyric Suite, arranged for string orchestra. The central movement dissolves harmony and melody into pure sound, in scurrying motion. Listening to it played so superbly, one realised that this music always seems young, because it can never be surpassed. Hear this concert on the BBC iPlayer www.bbc.co.uk/radio3