Review by Northings
St Magnus Festival 2005
22 Jul 2005 in Festival, Music, Orkney
Orkney, June 2005
The Hebrides Ensemble.
ONE OF THE later events I attended at the Festival this year was a Programming seminar hosted by Martyn Brabbins and Ian Ritchie as part of the Orkney Conducting Course. I mention it now, though I’ve only got this review along as far as Saturday, because as the days passed and concerts came and went, I grew curious about how these programmes are assembled, and indeed about the architecture of the whole 6-day show.
Ian Ritchie usually reaches for a food-related metaphor when describing what’s on offer at the festival – wistfully perhaps, in view of how little time there may be to grab an actual bite – but I say architecture because I’m also thinking of an actual local building that’s being “regenerated” at the moment and about the talk that its lead architect, Neil Gillespie, gave on that day, the Saturday.
But I’ll just leap forward again and say that the seminar I attended on the closing Wednesday was most enlightening, as the eight young conductors (from the UK mostly, but also USA and Italy) came in succession to the front of the class and discussed the programmes they had prepared for an imaginary annual music festival.
These were intelligent, characterful musicians, already accomplished in their field, and the issues that the tutors raised with them as regards finance, flexibility, performers, mixing new music and the established repertoire, and building and taking your audience with you, clearly meant a great deal to them, as they did to the audience listening in.
Now at the end of its present three-year funding package, it was welcome news that money has been secured to guarantee the future of the Conducting Course for at least another year, and perhaps for another after that.
And so back to lunchtime Saturday and the Stromness Town Hall, packed – and hot – for the Hebrides Ensemble. Billed as Scotland’s foremost chamber group, they were in good form, playing to a programme that reflected their commitment to performing new and recent work, with pieces by Judith Weir, John Bevan-Baker (cellist William Conway’s late father-in-law, as he told us in a brief introduction), Nigel Osborne and Sally Beamish, as well as Benjamin Britten.
And Mozart to finish with. It felt almost as though the channel had changed when the ensemble began the Oboe Quartet in F, such brisk and elegantly upbeat music after a programme of mostly exploratory, reflective pieces. It felt almost annoying initially that we couldn’t just have had the newer work, released with all those mysteries and soft uncertainties still at the forefront of our minds. It felt – oh we have to have some “real” music now.
a neat Mozartian ending, short and sweet, a witty contrast to the generally more gestural effects of the newer works – a cheerful finish from a perhaps different world.
It certainly is real music, as of course were all the other pieces, and all played brilliantly, but still… But then as the second movement, the Adagio, got underway and I began to hear the same feelings being evoked of longing and waiting, searching and losing that had characterised the earlier works, I was very glad, and very glad indeed to have stayed to hear it, even in the by now sweltering hall.
It was very satisfying to have one’s attention drawn subtly to that musical connection, and nice also to hear an echo from last year of Kancheli’s Exil (performed in 2004 in the Cathedral by Mr McFall’s Chamber) in the Osborne piece, as well as what seemed to my untutored ears to be hints of Scottish rhythms and melodies in the final movement of the Mozart quartet, which called immediately to mind the Piobaireachd of Sally Beamish we’d heard in the first half.
If even I can pick those things up, how much more must a gifted listener be able to derive from ingeniously crafted programmes like this, and how very satisfying it must be to put them together. With this time, of course, a neat Mozartian ending, short and sweet, a witty contrast to the generally more gestural effects of the newer works – a cheerful finish from a perhaps different world.
(But it’s taking too long to get this reviewing done. Already the middle of July, and I’m still indulging in what one of those snappy print scribblers described as “the luxury of that interweb.” A bit snappier myself then.)
Neil Gillespie’s talk was to a packed house. He’s a man of vision, and charming, and part of his charm is to make us feel free to wander around, though gently guided, in the many sources and wide creative possibilities of architecture, or building, or as he prefers it, baukunst.
There’ll surely be a book published one day about this particular, luminous project, and there, if you missed the talk, you can read all about it – his plans to slay the Medusa, and his admiration for the untramelled imagination of writers, for the inspiration of visual artists, for the principles of Patrick Geddes, for the “perfect client” he finds in the Pier Arts Centre, of his gratitude to Pentarq and Casey Construction, and of his confidence in the truly visionary capabilities of self-cleaning glass (one up on the gorgons and seagulls there, we hope).
By Sunday, I’d got it sorted. I wouldn’t get to everything, so I’d enlist help.
To the restored St Peter’s Kirk then, facing Skara Brae on the opposite side of the Bay of Skaill, to hear Festival poet, and Welsh National Poet, Gwenyth Lewis, with oboist superb Douglas Boyd, in a three-part programme that unfortunately didn’t quite come together for me. I heard all three of Lewis’ readings – as well the rather overlong (for the event) and echo-beset Seafarer during a recital on Monday lunchtime – and I enjoyed them, and Boyd played Britten’s Metamorphoses after Ovid brilliantly, but too much got in the way here.
And by now I can’t remember what got in the way for me on Saturday evening – maybe I didn’t have a ticket – but it meant I missed the SCO at the Cathedral with conductor Garry Walker and soloists Bohorquerz and Kljuco. A definitive Beethoven 1st, I believe, however, with Seven Words to follow, by Bosnian composer Sofia Gubaidulina.
By Sunday, I’d got it sorted. I wouldn’t get to everything, so I’d enlist help. First however, to Gwyneth Lewis at the Parish Church in Stromness, and if I’d been disappointed by the constraints of the programme the day before, there was no holding back here. She’s full on – funny, edgy, shrewd, self-deprecating and original – and a fine writer, with a wide range. “Lies make you ill,” she said anent her collection “Keeping Mum”, about language and identity, about speaking accurately and mental health.
Attendance was also high for the her reading the following day in Kirkwall, and there were also largish groups from each of the local senior secondaries. I noticed during one of those moments when for no reason everything goes quiet, how silent they all were, and attentive.
She had some appreciative and heart-felt things to say about Orkney – “such a cultured place” – having known little beforehand, never for example having read GMB’s poetry. But she’d read the whole new Collected Poems before coming here, and “not found a dull patch in the whole marvellous book.”
That new book, The Collected Poems of George Mackay Brown, was launched on the Sunday, following an entertaining GMB-inspired Johnsmas Foy, with Stromness Drama Club, directed by Graham Garson. Co-editors Archie Bevan and Brian Murray were joined by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies for the event. (The book is published by John Murray, price £35.00.)
Before moving on to some words from my excellent helpers-at-short-notice, I’ll just mention a delightful and absorbing programme of short films by the late Orcadian film-maker Margaret Tait. It was presented by The Pier Arts Centre in association with LUX, and shown in the converted church that served for many years as her studio – now Alan and Nichola Watson’s studio in Rendall, the Orquil Gallery.
Tait’s work, more that of a painter in film than a conventional film-maker, is growing in its following and her work will be shown around the country in the near future, and in Paris, and there had been a screening at MOMA, New York earlier in the month.
Soprano Susan Hamilton with the Hebrides Ensemble, playing the Cathedral like an extension of her voice, and us all inside it, songs of glory and love and death.
And so over to my neighbour, Sigrid Appleby, on Steven Osborne’s recital on Sunday afternoon, followed by regular visitor, and a previous contributor to the Festival, playwright Alan Plater, on the SCO and St Magnus Festival Chorus that evening.
“Steven Osborne’s first recital at The St Magnus Festival was as a seventeen year-old schoolboy who won the hearts of festivalgoers and was obviously destined for a brilliant career. On Sunday afternoon, again in Stromness, his recital was stunning and fluent in the French section as well as in the long Tippett sonata – sandwiched in between Ravel and Debussy.
“Ravel’s Sonatina in three movements was full of rippling and impressionistic sounds, so characteristic of his compositions. It was a sheer delight to the ear. His contemporary, Debussy, also wrote in this vein – very evocative of moods and visual memories. His twelve Preludes spanned from the most lyrical to the majestic. One simply could not help seeing French paintings from that period and earlier; even a ballet or cabaret included.
“The Tippett Sonata No 4 was a very challenging work. Its five movements were simply called Medium Slow, Medium Fast, Slow, Fast, Slow. Sounds simple, but not so. I found march-like themes, parallel chords, much use of distant notes together in the bass and descant with calm interludes. Some humorous, some sombre, some lyrical interpretations of questions and answers.
“The fast movement had some jazzy moments and the final movement seemed to try to reason with the previous in a calmer manner, only to startle us with “Wake-up Calls” before resolving itself into a meditative conclusion. If any painting came to mind, it was a Lowrie with hundreds of matchstick people hurrying about.
“As an encore, Steven Osborne played a song by Schumann, in celebration of his first wedding anniversary.” – Sigrid Appleby
“Sunday night at the Picky was very much the reason we had come to the St Magnus Festival. A lollipop for starters (Fingal’s Cave) and a big choral piece (Haydn’s Mass in the Time of War) with major local participation to end the evening with a big, passionate finish.
In between, a 21st Century audience stretched its ears around two late 20th Century pieces by Peter Maxwell Davies and Nigel Osborne, with both composers on hand to take a curtain call. Osborne was also seen singing Bosnian folk music at the Festival Club on Monday night. These things just don’t happen anywhere else.
“Outstanding performances on the night from everybody, but special plaudits to Alison Mitchell who played flute in Osborne’s Concerto and the St Magnus Festival Chorus, directed by Iain Campbell.
“War was a major theme in this years’s Festival. The closing words of the Haydn (written 1796) are: ‘Grant us peace.’
“As another great writer on war is wont to say: ‘So it goes.’” – Alan Plater
My thanks to Sigrid and Alan, and now to my colleague Vivia Leslie – “Communicado Theatre Company has been to Orkney before, so we were expecting great things when we went along to their production of Zlata’s Diary on Monday afternoon.
“Act I was utterly superb. The production was incredibly inventive, the acting energetic and realistic once we got over the initial surprise of the very Scottish accents. This is a talented company – accomplished, creative, slick – who know how to balance the comic with the sad.
“Act II was a disappointment. It was quite static and sermonic. The play would have been stronger without the childlike philosophizing . Ending with Zlata’s elation at becoming famous detracted from the real meaning of the play. Her diary needed more adaptation to successfully bring across the sadness and futility of the Bosnian War.
I left the theatre marvelling more at the success of the theatre company rather than the success of the play.” – Vivia Leslie
And so on, very briefly, to some other highlights from the last three days.
Soprano Susan Hamilton with the Hebrides Ensemble, playing the Cathedral like an extension of her voice, and us all inside it, songs of glory and love and death. (I had to leave halfway through this one – I’ve already suggested that the programme overran, though I didn’t mean to suggest Beamish’s eloquent account of The Seafarer (trans Charles Harrison Wallace) was the occasion for anything less than an heroic recital by Lewis and the Ensemble. That the glorious past is no more – though how much at odds with Lewis’ own code – seemed both ironic and true in this enduring building. Huge applause.)
The Wrigley Sisters with Alan Emslie on percussion at the King Street Halls – an ambient-geological exploration of folk melody and instrumental possibility that I enjoyed, though perhaps a bit too inscrutably presented, for its ambition and for the fact that the Festival can give an audience (and a large one) to an experimental piece such as this. (Someone had been talking the previous evening about the soundtracks in Margaret Tait’s films. If the Festival, now that it’s found room for so much film in its programme were ever to commission a piece of film-making, Slices of Time suggests there’s talent here to fit the bill from that point of view.)
If the Wrigley Sisters’ music was the evolution of rocks and hills, Haydn’s Quartet Op 76 No 4 “The Sunrise” played by The Nash Ensemble in the Cathedral was the fact of architecture and organised space. An exquisite recital, the whole audience rapt and longing to join in with applause.
With Osborne’s Forest – River – Ocean for carnyx, quartet and tape, second on the Nash’s programme, joined by John Kenny, we were back in the darker origins of things. A terrific glimpse of elemental nature, barely inhabited, and all the more strongly sensed for the fact of being performed in this resonant and beautiful church. The Grieg that followed was glowing, rich music, and drew quite different colours from this great venue.
The physical joy and sense of dance and human contact that seems present at some level in all music, wrought here to a fever pitch.
Strath-sevdah at the Festival Club – Teo Krilic, Aidan Burke, Merima Kljuco and Ian Lowthian with members of the Orkney traditional Music project, playing Sevdah and Reels. Vigorous and tender. Jean and Andy’s Waltz. A lively night. Merima Kljoco, now off to engagements in Europe, “I’ve had a fantastic time in Orkney.”
The winners of the Premio Paulo Borciani, the Pavel Haas Quartet from Prague, just flown in following their success in Italy for the “Surprise” concert on Tuesday. The British premiere for Max’s A Sad Pavan for these Distracted Tymes, the competition’s test piece, followed by a brilliantly intense and energetic performance of Beethoven’s “Rasumovsky” quartet, rapturously and gaspingly received, and bringing us home via their own home with two movements from Janacek’s Quartet No 2. Outstanding.
From Sarajevo with Sorrow at the King Street Halls. So many very talented artists – Nigel Osborne, Goran Simic, Teo Krilic, Aidan Burke and cellist Robert Irvine, who played Osborne’s Adagio for Vedran Smailovic, the Bosnian cellist who’d defied beseiging snipers to play music in the wrecked and perilous venues of the city.
Steven Osborne’s shrug that followed the mystifying, sudden assault required on the keyboard during Shostakovich’s Concerto No 1 for piano, trumpet and strings (with Peter Franks and the SCO conducted by Garry Walker) – and all the rest of that thrilling Tuesday night concert.
Que Tangazo and Moishe’s Bagel, Tuesday-Wednesday nights at the Festival Club. The physical joy and sense of dance and human contact that seems present at some level in all music, wrought here to a fever pitch.
Meet the Composer – Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, that followed the Programming seminar I mentioned at the start, and which I’ve reviewed elsewhere.
The Armed Man, with the Paragon Ensemble conducted by Garry Walker, and Alexandra Gibson standing in at short notice for Patrick Craig. The programmatic connection here was between older and newer music, a familiar source of tension in modernist forms of expression but gripping and theatrical nevertheless, especially when choreographed as imaginatively as on this occasion. Neil Gallie’s trombone playing was unnerving and exact, thrilling to hear so close. Thrilling, altogether.
The impact of Mark O’Keeffe’s trumpet in Fanfare and Final Flourish was similarly breathtaking. He’s quite a showman too, proficient on both sea and land as it seemed, and very entertaining. As a show overall, perhaps it tried to do too many different things at the same time, but I enjoyed it for the spectacle and the for the impetus it illustrated that characterises this Festival, to push the envelope.
And to make sure we know it’s pushing it always on our behalf.
© Alistair Peebles, 2005
