City Halls, Glasgow, 9 September 2007

Phil Cunningham and Aly Bain

TWENTY YEARS into their duo career – a milestone celebrated by their current two-month Scottish tour – Aly Bain and Phil Cunningham have surely earned the status of an institution, however dubiously artists might conventionally regard the term.

With an MBE apiece, the solidity of their premier-league reputation rests fundamentally on their trailblazing success in bringing traditional music to new contexts and audiences – allied, of course, to their outstanding technical and interpretative prowess.

Habituated as we now are to seeing them on the TV, performing at top concert halls, and headlining events such as November’s reopening of Eden Court Theatre in Inverness, it’s worth remembering that such a step up from the village-hall and folk-club-circuit, when first mooted for one of their early tours, was widely greeted with ridicule.

As their agent was told in no uncertain terms by the then manager of a certain royally-monikered northern theatre, audiences attending such prestige venues were scarcely likely to be interested in a mere box and fiddle duo.

Surveying the assembled crowd at Glasgow’s City Halls, home to the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Bain and Cunningham must have enjoyed the latest of umpteen last laughs, before settling in to what they jointly do best: playing tunes and cracking jokes.

After more than a month on the road already, the set was certainly well run in – rather too much so, if anything, given the performance’s persistently throttle-happy nature. Dazzling though the duo’s ability is to play at breakneck speed, ultimately it produces feats of physical dexterity rather than musicianship, sacrificing virtually all subtleties of both tunes and technique in a manner that first grew frustrating, then positively tiresome.

Matters weren’t helped by the obtrusive presence in most numbers of the plastic, plonking, pseudo-piano chords produced by Cunningham’s MIDI-effects gadget, which may have enhanced the old-style country-dance feel of some numbers, but largely submerged the silky harmonic layers and honeyed sweetness of expression for which he’s justly famed.

In matters of tempo, welcome relief and ample rewards were afforded by a goodly sprinkling of marches and strathspeys, displaying both players’ cleanly accented rhythmic finesse and sure dynamic control, and most of all by the slow airs – these also being mercifully MIDI-free.

With fiddle and accordion each taking turns in the lead, tunes such as ‘Eleanor of Usan’, ‘Sarah’s Song’, and Cunningham’s exquisite elegy for his late brother Johnny, ‘A Bright Star in Cepheus’, unfolded with sublimely lingering grace, highlighting all the richness of tone and timbre, delicacy of phrasing and intensity of feeling that were missing from the jigs and reels.

The duo are on tour until 30 September. The opening concert at Eden Court on 3 November is sold out.

© Sue Wilson, 2007

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