JENNIE MACFIE misses the promised triplepipes and the lust in the opening Caledonia Session at the International Festival.

CONCERTO Caledonia’s first Caledonia Session proved a disappointment. Subtitled ‘Triplepipes, Lust and Spilt Blood’, was light on all three, and even the addition of folk doyen Martin Carthy did not compensate.

Concerto Caledonia

The triplepipe is an ancient instrument seen on Pictish carvings and Greek vases, but now found only in Sardinia; a chanter and two drones, unlinked and bagless, it is a musical ‘missing link’ in the family of European pipes.

Alas, though the concert opened with piper Barnaby Brown accompanying the lovely Patsy Seddon in a Latin psalm to create an audio time-tunnel, it was the only time we heard this fascinating instrument. Musicianship was exemplary throughout the evening but the programming was over-endowed with what director David McGuinness aptly called “miserable but beautiful” ballads.

Why were there not one but two – beautifully delivered – versions of the lament for the death of the 2nd Earl of Moray, sometimes called ‘Lord Randall’? Enough, already. Bill Taylor’s Bray harp did not produce the frissons one expects from this usually sassy, buzzy wire-strung clarsach, and Seddon was kept on a tight leash.

Only in Carthy’s dramatic ‘Sir Patrick Spens’ and Brown’s rendering of Donald Mor MacCrimmon’s pibroch on a set of authentic 18th century bagpipes was there a hint of the drama and excitement there could, and should, have been. Where, as the Black Eyed Peas nearly said, was the lust?

The Caledonia Sessions continue with Scotsmen On The Make (24 August 2009) and Robert Burns’s Wordly Friends (26 August 2009).

© Jennie Macfie, 2009

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