In a brilliantly evocative performance of Scriabin’s Piano Concerto in F-sharp minor, Barry Douglas opened this year’s BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s season in an all-Russian programme led by Donald Runnicles.

The concert opened with Mussorgsky’s A Night on the Bare Mountain. Barry executed the solo in the early Piano Concerto in F sharp minor by Scriabin. Micheal Tumelty from the Herald Scotland describes the concert as “blazingly incandescent playing and a ferocious challenge to our preconceptions and expectations”.

The pianist’s performance was praised as “he captured the grand sweep of the music but kept his nuances upright and unhistrionic, almost understated” as The Guardian’s journalist Kate Molleson said. Douglas’ long-standing experience at the piano brought strength and directness to the work, giving each melody just the right level of spotlighting” as mentioned by Simon Thompson from Seen and Heard International.  For Ken Walton from The Scotsman “the Irish pianist Barry Douglas found richness in its initial introversion and orchestral domination, allowing it to blossom”.