BBC SSO/Stenz, Glasgow City Halls, review: 'thrillingly vivid' "Mental" was the ill-advised adjective that conductor Markus Stenz used to describe his unconventional programme with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in his pre-concert talk. There was something pretty crazy, though, about combining two innovative Baroque works, bang-up-to-date John Adams, and Beethoven on the cusp of revolutionising the symphony. The question was whether the works in this provocative combination would shed much new light on each other - as they certainly hadn't drawn the crowds in a perplexingly half-filled Glasgow City Halls. Stenz seemed in his element in Adams's Absolute Jest, a playful romp for string quartet and orchestra that pulls apart Beethoven scherzos and puts them back together again in a minimalist collage of ever-changing textures and half-recognised quotations. Adams's scoring - including Stravinskian piano stabs and a prominent part for tuned cowbells - was astonishing, and Stenz teased out the detail in a thrillingly vivid, high-energy performance, making light work of the piece's fearsome rhythmic complexity. He was intensely physical, drawing bright, vigorous playing from the BBC SSO. But he still couldn't do much to fix the piece's fundamental problem - that the solo (concertante?) string quartet struggles to make itself heard against Adams's glistening orchestral backdrop, despite strong, characterful playing from the Doric Quartet. Stenz was similarly physical in the concert's two Baroque works, dancing along to the stomping rhythms of the Danse des sauvages from Rameau's "Les indes galantes," and shaping Rebel's bizarre, dissonant, forward-looking Le chaos from "Les éléments" with big gestures, even if the BBC SSO (using modern instruments but period techniques) still sounded a bit rich and thick for this repertoire. Following Adams's provocative homage, Stenz closed the programme with more forward-looking music: Beethoven pushing against the boundaries of Classical form in his Second Symphony. The most revelatory thing here, though, was the orchestral layout Stenz had chosen. With first and second violins splayed out to the left and right of the conductor, Stenz had his violas mid-stage in front of him, then cellos and basses in two groups at ten o'clock and two o'clock - meaning violin lines sparkled, inner parts glowed with clarity, and basslines were excitingly propulsive. But despite the theatricality he'd shown elsewhere, Stenz seemed determined not to overplay his Beethoven - so the Scherzo's explosive interruptions simply came as part of the flow, and the whip-crack and shudder of the finale's abrupt theme sounded smooth and graceful rather than arresting. It was a beautifully delivered performance, with the same keen ear for detail he'd shown elsewhere, but perhaps not quite as "mental" as we'd hoped. Listen online to the BBC Radio 3 broadcast of this concert for the next four weeks at bbc.co.uk