James Macmillan's Second Symphony could hardly be more contrasting in scale or scope from his first, Vigil. The earlier symphony was an attempt to depict the epic passions of the Easter story. This second work, half as long as the 50-minute Vigil, has humbler ambitions. Based loosely on Macmillan's early Piano Sonata, the symphony is inspired by poetic imagery of wintry Ayrshire landscapes. Macmillan's programme note controversially explains that this is intended as a metaphor for the lack of support for the arts in Scotland.

The actual substance of the Second Symphony is a fleeting, elusive narrative of extreme musical gestures and surprising citations. As a commission for the small-scale forces of the excellent Scottish Chamber Orchestra, which Macmillan himself conducted, the hyperbolic rhetorical power of Macmillan's recent large orchestral works is absent from this piece. However, the characteristic cues of emphatic percussion writing, intense string melodies and woodwind flurries remain.

But in the new symphony, these diverse musics take on ambiguous and contradictory roles. The drama is curiously and engagingly diffuse. It's as if the weight of the symbols Macmillan uses, from violent side-drum tattoos to kitschy brass hits, makes the music come apart from the inside. The final gestures of the piece - grotesque spectres of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde dissolving into creepy glissandi - suggested that the supposedly "symphonic" argument of the piece was far from resolved.

***** Unmissable **** Recommended *** Enjoyable ** Mediocre * Terrible