Back to the big league with Weller?

AFTER a bumpy flight to Scotland yesterday the conductor Walter Weller

relaxed in a hotel lounge in Glasgow and expressed confidence that the

worst of the storm was over for the Royal Scottish Orchestra. There had

been, he said, ''a little bit of unquiet'' between the players and

management, but he was optimistic that differences could be overcome and

that the troubled orchestra could now make the most of its potential.

It was, he said, a ''fantastic'' orchestra -- a phrase he used more

than once. He also said that the RSO -- along with other British

orchestras -- had more punishing schedules than European orchestras such

as the Berlin Philharmonic.

Weller formally took over as the RSO's principal conductor and music

director on Ne'erday, and tomorrow he makes his debut in that role in a

concert at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow -- a concert that will be

repeated at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh on Friday and again in Glasgow

on Saturday.

What immediately comes across in conversation is Weller's

determination to make the RSO in his own image, to stamp his personality

on it, and to establish it in the big league of music-making. He is

confident in his own ability and the RSO's talent, he is assertive and

positive about his aims, and his commitment is total.

While he will continue to fulfil engagements with other orchestras --

including the National Orchestra of Spain, of which he is chief guest

conductor -- he will be seen more frequently in Scotland than either of

his predecessors, the late Bryden Thomson and Neeme Jarvi. He conducts

12 concerts during the rest of this season and intends to conduct 28 in

a full season during the three years of his current contract.

''If I take on an orchestra, I have to be here most of the time,'' he

says. Otherwise -- whatever the title -- ''you are a guest conductor.''

''I want to put my signature on it,'' he says.

His signature should become apparent more clearly next season when his

hand will be seen in the repertoire and choice of soloists and guest

conductors. In his long letter accepting the post, he said, he had had

included a list of conductors and soloists whom he considered suitable,

adding their engagement would have his automatic approval.

Weller was quick to counter any suggestion that since his grounding

was in the mainstream classical and romantic tradition his

concert-making might tend to the conventional and traditional (though

that might suit the taste of present RSO audiences in Glasgow and

Edinburgh). Yes, he agreed, he grew up in Vienna dominated by the Haydn

to Richard Strauss tradition, but he constantly broadens his field.

In Scandinavia, for example, he learned to appreciate Normann. ''Who

knows Normann?'' he asked -- and this interviewer, for one, shook his

head. (The answer is that Normann was a Swedish near contemporary of

Beethoven.) Likewise with the music of the Spaniard Ernesto Halffter,

another nineteenth-century composer whose name does not spring to the

lips of your average concert-goer. And, he said, he was far from

indifferent to contemporary music -- which, in fact, he was reluctant to

categorise in that way. If it's good music I'll play it, seems to be his

motto. He is not averse to the occasional Henze or Ligeti.

Speaking as a man who had sold Tippett and Britten, not to mention

Elgar, to the Viennese, he said that he would be happy to consider

presenting the works of living Scots composers. Slav composers such as

Janacek, Kodaly and Glazunov are likely to feature in future programmes.

Weller, a burly, bearded Austrian who speaks fluent English, though

still with a marked accent, said that he had brought ''in my rucksack''

two main plans for the orchestra's future. Both are central to the

discontent expressed recently by the players.

Foreign touring is the first issue. Since his appointment was

announced in May he has already been using his network of international

contacts to discuss visits abroad, and several offers have been

received. Only one is so far ''on paper'' -- a tour of 15 German cities

from Frankfurt to Munich in 1994 -- but among countries where the RSO

will be seen in the next few years may be Austria, Czechoslovakia, and,

farther afield, Japan.

The second issue is recording. When the row between the RSO players

and management first blew up -- as revealed by the Herald's music critic

Michael Tumelty -- a major factor was the warning by the record company

Chandos that it intended to end its former close relationship with the

RSO. Yester-

day Weller indicated not only that attempts would be made to repair

the damage with Chandos, but that another company had expressed ''very

strong'' interest in making recordings with the RSO.

Weller is determined to keep in close touch with the players, meeting

their committee regularly and ready to discuss problems as they arise.

At one point he likens the orchestra to a family, and at another he says

the relationship between players and conductor is like a marriage.

''I grew up in an orchestra and I know the mentality of an

orchestra,'' said the man who joined the Vienna Philharmonic at the age

of 17, became leader four years later, founded his own string quartet,

first stepped on to the podium at an afternoon's notice when Karl Bohm

took ill, and since boyhood has spent nearly 40 years on the concert

platform, first as a violinist and then as international conductor --

and is still only 52.

He is married with a 14-year-old son, and for that reason doesn't

propose to have a home in Glasgow. But, as he says, he is only a flight

away -- and he has already demonstrated that he is ready to hop on a

plane at short notice when needed.