Celtic Connections 2009: Dhachaigh: A Celebration of Murdo Macfarlane

5 Feb 2009 in Festival, Music

Strathclyde Suite, Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, 26 January 2009

Christine Primrose and Brian Ó hEadhra

LOVE, EH? Does the light of your life’s singing make even the lark keep schtum? Are you besotted with someone who needs no cosmetically enhancing products? Would you never let this person carry peats, no matter how long you’d gone without a supply?

The late Lewis bard Murdo Macfarlane could apparently answer yes to all of these questions – and that gathering winter fuel rider was the deciding factor for Christine Primrose, whose soulful expression brought Macfarlane’s Mhorag to three-dimensional life in this latest airing of Dhachaigh.

Primrose was one of four Lewis singers featured in a celebration of the bard’s songs and his spirit, through works in sympathy with his own. It takes its cue from the Macfarlane exhibition staged in 2002 by the estimable Stornoway arts centre, An Lanntair, which in turn inspired an opening concert at the Hebcelt 2007 festival and the subsequent CD, Dhachaigh (Home), released last year.

Encompassing recordings of Paul Mounsey’s majestic overture and finale and notably sunny on-screen images that made one wonder why Macfarlane ever left Lewis in the first place – his homesickness and speedy return from Canada being a recurring theme – the concert gave the lie to the notion, often circulated by Gaels themselves, that Gaelic song is a miserablist’s paradise.

Sure, there were periods of longing and gory wartime images, the latter adding an element of defiance to Ishbel MacAskill’s calm, soothing tones as she sang Macfarlane’s World War 1 reflection, Naoi Ceud Deug’s a Ceithir Deug, with its depiction of young Gaels’ blood draining into the Flanders soil. But the overall mood conveyed was that, whatever disaster should befall, the joy of life, love and mischief (what on earth is happening to that goat in that closing puirt-a-beul?) will overcome it.

Joining Primrose and MacAskill on stage left, Fiona Mackenzie lent her youthful, almost girlish engagement, while Calum Alex MacMillan sang with typical richness and Dublin Gael Brian Ó hEadhra (guitar), Aberdeenshire’s Fraser Fifield (soprano saxophone and whistles) and Lewisman Alasdair White (fiddle and cittern) provided accompaniment and instrumental interludes.

MacMillan is a wonderful singer, almost luxuriating in the baritone register, and his remembrance of the Iolaire disaster, sung to White’s simple but very effective fiddle drones, and his depiction of a drought in Tobair Tobair Siolaidh, atmospherically enhanced by Fifield’s saxophone and electronic effects, were contrasting highlights.

Ó hEadhra’s nostalgic Taladh Na Beinne Guirme, written in a style not dissimilar to Macfarlane’s, was one of several anthemic songs that, alongside the inevitable Macfarlane classic Canan Nan Gaidheal, underlined the uplifting and indeed celebratory nature of a thoroughly enjoyable presentation.

Sponsored by Scottish Power.

© Rob Adams, 2009

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