Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, 16-18 November 2007

Lau

THE MAIN event at the opening concert of Scotland’s 12th annual fiddle festival was described both in the programme and by its composer (in both his accompanying text and his onstage introduction) as the premiere performance of a Scots Fiddle Concerto, written by concertina player Simon Thoumire.

It wasn’t. Premiere, yes, Thoumire, yes: concerto, no. Expanding musical parameters and rewriting rules is one thing – frequently a good thing, too – but flagrantly disregarding the accepted meaning of basic terms seems like wilful self-sabotage, as well as plain irritating.

According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, a concerto is “a musical composition for solo instrument accompanied by an orchestra.” The piece thus designated here was indeed for solo fiddle – played by Gordon Gunn – only accompanied by two more fiddles (Lori Watson and Sarah Wilson), guitar (Kevin Mackenzie) and piano (Harris Playfair).

“The fiddle, I think, is always better within a folk ensemble rather than in front of an orchestra,” wrote Thoumire in his programme notes, which is fair enough – but why, then, insist on calling it a concerto? And while the above definition admittedly makes no stipulation regarding length, a “concerto” lasting around ten minutes also seemed rather on the skimpy side.

The rest of Thoumire’s programme – which followed yet another stunning set from the stupendous trio Lau – comprised three fiddle solos, performed in turn by Mairi Campbell, Aidan O’Rourke and Jenna Reid, and a duet from O’Rourke with Patsy Reid.

Thoumire’s terminological inexactitude would have mattered less if the actual music had worked better, but most of it seemed possessed by a similarly puzzling contrariness – and not in a good way.

Thoumire had spoken beforehand of seeking to highlight and explore the innate characteristics of Scotland’s fiddle tradition(s), albeit adapted to an untraditional format, but the resulting compositions seemed paradoxically burdened by a preponderance of classical stylings, requiring bowings and upward left-hand positions with which few of the performers sounded halfway comfortable, let alone fluent.

While Thoumire is justly renowned for his brilliantly wayward approach to melody, here it came across as aping the contemporary-classical pursuit of dissonance, but without the rigorous theoretical underpinning, and unmitigated by much in the way of discernible shape or purpose.

Thoumire’s formidable creative energies – as a musician, as proprietor of Footstompin’ Records and as founder of the Hands Up for Trad organisation – are undeniably a huge force for good in Scottish music. In the present context, however, it’s perhaps telling that he has already premiered a bagpipe “concerto” in August this year – just three accompanying instruments, that time – and has a symphony and a clarsach concerto due in 2008.

If you’re going to start using this kind of language, there’s no escaping the fact that the acknowledged masters of these musical forms would sometimes spend years on a single work. The idea that you can knock out four in the space of twelve months or so – and/or unilaterally redefine the words themselves – smacks somewhat of hubris.

As has been the case throughout a triumphant year for Lau, reflected in several award nominations since the spring release of their debut album, Lightweights and Gentlemen, they were the ones here who were successfully pushing musical envelopes, frequently in several directions at once.

If anything, the visceral thrill of their early performances, as fiddler Aidan O’Rourke, accordionist Martin Green and singer-guitarist Kris Drever discovered the joys of firing off of one another, has intensified rather than slackened, catalysed further by a degree of near-telepathic, hair-trigger attunement that only lots of gigging can engender.

Rarely can an all-acoustic trio have made such a monstrous, magnificent noise – complete with contrasting passages of utmost exquisite delicacy – nor one that so triumphantly matched technical daring with joyous abandon. If you should happen to be in Edinburgh for some last-minute Christmas shopping, they’re recording a live album at the Bongo Club on 17 December: it promises to be quite a night.

A new addition to this year’s fiddle festival programme was an early-evening concert on the closing Sunday, the first of which happened to be accordionist Karen Tweed’s last performance with Anglo/Swedish quartet Swåp, twelve years after co-founding the band alongside guitarist Ian Carr and fiddlers Carina Normansson and Ola Backström.

Their virtuosic yet mischievous alliance of English, Celtic and Nordic influences, mainly in the form of original material from all four members, has long had a loyal Scottish following, and the audience here gave Tweed a deservedly warm send-off.

With Backström mainly playing the viola d’amore, an adapted baroque fiddle with five bowed strings over four resonating ones, there was plenty of the sumptuous, spinetingling lyricism that’s always been a Swåp trademark – along with plenty of the spiky, restive, gleefully frenetic tunes that form the flipside of their unique, sublimely accomplished sound.

Having helped to spearhead the fusion movement now being dubbed “nu-Nordic”, Swåp will continue for now as a trio, although longer-term plans thus far remain undecided.

© Sue Wilson, 2007

Links

• Scots Fiddle Festival