OneTouch Theatre, Eden Court, 20 December 2009; Drumossie Hotel, 15 December 2009; St Ninian’s Church, Nairn, 18 December 2009

COULD IT be that this aging curmudgeon is starting to mellow? Anyone who knows me well will be aghast that I have attended not one, not two, but THREE Christmas shows in the past five days and I have actually enjoyed them!

It all started last Tuesday when I had my arm twisted to make the trip to the Drumossie Hotel for the latest production by Inverness’s very own Truly Terrible Orchestra, that lusty infant of Anni Cole-Hamilton who make no pretence of playing to a high standard.

Capella Nova in Paisley Abbey

The capacity audience had no cause to report the players to a Trading Standards Officer. They lived up – or should that be down? – to their name and everybody had a wonderful time raising a very substantial sum for this year’s chosen charities, the MS Centre and Place 2B. To be fair, it was not all truly terrible. Jon Hall played some perfectly reasonable Gershwin arrangements on the electric piano, and Margaret Rae’s a capella choir, In Cahoots, added both harmony and glamour.

On Friday, local musical polymath, James Ross, and his ensembles Coronach and Musick Fyne, presented a baroque German Christmas in St Ninian’s Church in Nairn under the title In Dulci Jubilo. Essentially this was based on the established service of nine lessons and carols, but with a late medieval German character.

The settings, mostly by the unrelated Heironymus Praetorius and Michael Praetorius, but with contributions from Leonhard Paminger and Heinrich Schütz, were played on a collection of blockflutes with small harp and keyboard continuo to accompany the excellent singers, who had mastered the language to perfection. Several of the performers came forward in turns to read the nine lessons in flawless German.

What made this event so special was that all who took part were local and totally committed to the music they were delivering. This was the true Christmas message given in its purest form, unadulterated by any commercial or politically correct considerations, and it sent the audience out into the night uplifted by the reminder of the real meaning of Christmas.

It is something like fifteen years since Cappella Nova last performed their annual Carols by Candlelight Concert in Inverness, and then it was in St Andrew’s Cathedral and the main focus of the programme was the religious significance of the Christmas festival. But times change, and with them so does people’s perceptions of Christmas entertainment. And that is exactly what Cappella Nova’s concert last Sunday in Eden Court’s OneTouch Theatre was – entertainment.

It had been a major struggle for the members of Cappella Nova and their musical guests, Thistle Brass, to reach Inverness through the heavy snow on Sunday, and a return to Glasgow that night was inconceivable, but in true “the show must go on” style, they were not going to let a little thing like closed roads affect the party.

Alan and Rebecca Tavener had put together a programme of seasonal songs around the theme of gifts and giving. They processed in from the back of the theatre to a traditional Irish carol Love Came Down At Christmas, and were then joined by Thistle Brass and the audience for The First Nowell.

And this highlighted a major problem that kept recurring to a greater or lesser extent all evening, but would not have occurred at all in the Cathedral. The acoustic in the OneTouch Theatre is fine for music, but very poor for voice, and the sound of the brass quintet completely drowned out any simultaneous singing.

When singing a capella the audience were treated to an outstanding ensemble at the top of its form. In the first half of the concert there were two such spells, the first of 16th century and traditional carols such as Ding Dong Merrily on High or Good King Wenceslas or the Kings of Orient (who in fact may have been Zoroastrian priestesses according to Mrs Tavener), while later there was a group of modern carols by the likes of Peter Warlock and Bob Chilcott.

Between these two groups of carols, Thistle Brass played a varied selection from their repertoire. I do believe that we were treated to the official Thistle Brass line-up, which is not always the case. Ten days earlier they had performed in Inverness Town House, but only three of the five were the same.

To make matters more confusing, of the five who played in the Town House, three had played the previous week in Invergordon under the name of Regal Brass, but only one of the Invergordon quintet ended up playing as part of Thistle Brass in the OneTouch Theatre.

The Taveners had stated that they wanted to try different venues so that they could present slightly more theatrical programmes. This was certainly very true in the second half, which might have sat slightly uncomfortably in the sanctity and gravitas of the Cathedral.

The opening While Shepherds Watched and the delightful Videntes Stellam by Poulenc would have been equally fine in either setting, but the set which followed, a deliciously humorous group of songs by Alexander McCall Smith, with music by Tom Cunningham, called A Time of Gifts, is most certainly better suited to a theatre.

Thistle Brass’s second spot featured a selection that had been part of the concert in Inverness Town House only the previous week, such as Carol of The Bells, Puttin’ on the Ritz and We Wish You A Merry Christmas. The evening ended with Cappella Nova on their own, with a delicate Mary’s Boy Child, a somewhat saucy Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town, and the inevitable Twelve Days of Christmas with some nice touches such as the quote from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, or the turtle “doos” during the pipers verse.

This was a well constructed, slick, professional concert that veered away from the traditional Christmas and tugged its forelock towards the commercialism and Americanisation of the most important festival in our calendar. But of the three audiences, this was the one that had the least buzz about them as they went out into the night.

I have found it to be a most enjoyable week, so I must be mellowing, and this year, I have actually put all my Christmas cards on display as opposed to leaving them stacked in a pile. But there is still room for a few “Bah! Humbugs!”, even if I have to keep them under my breath.

May I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

© James Munro, 2009

Links

• Cappella Nova
• Coronach
• Truly Terrible Orchestra