Crown Church, Inverness, Thursday 12 June 2003

ONE IMPORTANT virtue of the Highland Festival is its policy of commissioning new works from Scottish artists, and Thursday evening’s concert in the Crown Church in Inverness featured two such pieces, the instrumental composition Beautiful North by Fraser Fifield and Dunbeath Water, an oratorio written by Robert Davidson and set to music by William Gilmour.

Fifield’s piece for soprano saxophone and two fiddles (played by Victoria Fifield and Greg Lawson) proved to be an episodic treatment of a number of brief motifs, which were worked at and developed with a comprehensive and at times almost obsessive thoroughness. Celebrating the links between the traditional idioms of Scotland and Scandinavia, the music incorporated the sounds of a good-going Highland ceilidh with echoes of the Hardanger fiddle.

However this inventive piece went far beyond these obvious elements to introduce flavours of jazz, minimalism and even haunting echoes of the Psalm-singing traditions of the Western Isles. Alternating lyrical, contemplative sections in which the musical material was given more gentle treatment, with spiky, syncopated reels of toe-tapping urgency, the trio held the attention of a large and appreciative audience. This was a truly eclectic performance crackling with energy and inventiveness, in which traditional Scottish ornaments on the fiddles rubbed shoulders with the jazz-inspired juxtaposition of alternative fingerings on the saxophone.

Willie Gilmour and Bob Davidson are both well-known presences in the Highland arts scene, and their collaboration on the ambitious enterprise of devising, producing and performing a full-scale oratorio for soloists, chorus and orchestra was an eagerly awaited event. As its name suggests, Dunbeath Water owes a debt to the Highland writer Neil Gunn, and charts the spiritual growth and ritual return to his birthplace of a young man, Kenn, and the experiences and ghosts his return awakens.

Davidson’s text (reproduced in a handsome booklet available at the concerts) is rich in imagery, and Gilmour has responded with a rich score which, like Beautiful North, is powered by relatively brief but distinctive musical motifs. Dunbeath Water also displays a wealth of musical influence, Britten and Shostakovich and an occasional expressionist quirkiness, using the small woodwind section and piano to particularly fine effect. If generally expansive tempi tended to disguise some of the detail in the score, there is no doubting the skill of the composer.

In writing for his amateur performers Gilmour has in no way compromised his musical vocabulary, and challenged the technique and musicality of all the participants. Singing in the bass section, I have had the opportunity to hear the piece several times, and enjoy its complexity. On Thursday there were some problems with balance, leading to the soloists being intermittently overwhelmed by over-enthusiastic orchestral playing, while some of the more adventurous textures sounded insecure.

Robin Stewart as Kenn and Liz McLardy as his mother rose well to the challenge, although the most successful episode was the final one in which Kenn and his memories are subsumed into the river, and symbolically the soloists join the chorus in a concluding hymn-like section. These two new works were not without their challenge for the audience too, and it was encouraging to see a sizeable crowd of all ages prepared to sample this varied and stimulating fare.

Dunbeath Water and Beautiful North can be heard again at Dornoch Cathedral, Saturday 14 June 2003, 8pm (two further performances are planned in September 2003 – venues to be confirmed).

© James Ross, 2003