St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall, 12 December 2010

THE CHRISTMAS concert in St Magnus Cathedral was full as usual, and no wonder; it must be one of the most atmospheric venues on the planet with its soaring Gothic arches and Viking girthed pillars.

St Magnus Cathedral (photo by Catherine Turnbull)

This year was no exception with hundreds of concert-goers making the most of the brief winter thaw to hear the Festival Chorus, conducted by Glenys Hughes, sing Carmina Burana with three of the most talented young soloists based in Scotland.

But first we were treated to three pieces of Christmas music performed by Orkney Camerata. Corelli’s Christmas Concerto for strings and harpsichord was a gentle introduction with its six short movements displaying a range of mood and tempo. Berlioz’s Overture ‘The Flight into Egypt’ featured well balanced effects between the strings and woodwind sections.

Our final treat before a brief interval was a brilliantly comic and polished performance of Leopold Mozart’s Toy Symphony, played on toy instruments as found in a children’s toy box in the 1770s. This was ably conducted by Iain Campbell with perfect comic and musical timing. His soloists included former Liberal Democrat MP and MSP for Orkney, Jim Wallace, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, now Advocate General for Scotland, who displayed a talent for playing the cuckoo and quail.

His novelist wife Rosie Wallace performed well on the nightingale and cathedral minister Fraser Macnaughton twirled the rattle with relish. Orkney Islands Council assistant chief executive Elaine Grieve blew a child’s trumpet, Papdale Primary School head teacher Jane Bruce beat time on a drum and BBC Radio Orkney’s Dave Gray got his chance to excel on the triangle. This was pure entertainment.

Glenys Hughes with children in Malawi

The main course of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana saw the Festival Chorus of Orkney singers accompanied by the St Magnus Festival’s new director Alasdair Nicolson and David Knotts on piano. This setting of 13^th century secular poems in Latin, written by roving students and later defrocked clerics, has all the ingredients for a popular work with bawdy drinking songs, merry country dancing, courtly love songs and the dramatic O Fortuna sung at the beginning and end.

The chorus made their dramatic opening Oh Mistress Fate with a roar and lament the blows of the wheel of fortune. There was power and might in the handling of the complex rhythms and awkward notes.  In Taberna (In the Tavern) tenor Joseph Doody sung his only song, The Roast Swan aria, as the bird, now black and roasting on the spit, recalls his days as a beautiful swan who once dwelt in the lakes. High notes are almost falsetto; we felt the swan’s agony.

Baritone Benjamin Weaver conveyed the drunkenness of the gambling abbot well, and the chorus joined in about their drinking habits for good measure. As cupid flew everywhere in the court of love, soprano Suzanne McGrath’s In Trutina was achingly beautiful, but apart from a few admiring glances from the baritone singing her his love songs, there wasn’t much heartfelt passion, either in the love songs about the flames of desire or the bawdy drinking songs. More passion would have made a better performance and ignited more excitement.

Proceeds went to the Malawi Music Fund, which helps students in Malawi.

© Catherine Turnbull, 2010