Empire Theatre, Eden Court, Inverness, 10 September 2011

BAGPIPE music enthusiasts come in many different shades of predilection (and aversion), but all would surely have found something to enjoy in this year’s Blas festival piping night – a considerable achievement in itself.

SETTING the bar resplendently high was a magisterial opening set from the newly crowned four-time Northern Meeting Clasp winner, Oban’s Angus MacColl, pacing the stage in traditional fashion to display his unhurried, unforced virtuosity from all angles. Accelerating steadily up through through the customary sequence of tune types, he adorned immaculately authoritative articulation with split-second ornamentation, before slowing back down for a wonderfully tender yet august rendition of Phil Cunningham’s ‘Sarah’s Song’.

Celebrating the Regal Pipe (image © Reaaz Mohammad, courtesy Blas Festival)

Next up were Seudan, originally the brainchild of piper and pipe maker Hamish Moore, and the product of a somewhat protracted evolution since the project was first launched as Na Tri Seudan – or “The Three Treasures”, namely the traditional Gaelic trinity of song, music and dance – back in 2004. Name and line-up have now boiled down to what’s usually a quartet of pipers – although a trio on this occasion, comprising Angus Mackenzie, Angus Nicolson and Fin Moore (the fourth, Calum MacCrimmon, being absent on Breabach duties).

Their pipes are exact replicas of the 1785 Black Set of Kintail, housed in Inverness Museum, whose ebony and silver fittings were smartly matched by the players’ all-black garb. These older-style instruments, created to revive the pre-military, song- and dance-based styles of Gaelic piping, are pitched markedly lower than modern Highland pipes, which immediately gave Seudan’s sound a distinctively rich, liquid roundness, a softer-edged timbre beautifully complemented by the silky yet precise legato suppleness of their playing, and vibrantly exploited in a wealth of lush harmonic touches.

The dance tunes combined the same rock-steady, “close to the floor” momentum prized in Cape Breton music with exhilarating fire and lift, interspersed by such slower material as a sturdily swinging waulking-song melody, and a stark but stately ballad from the Battle of Inverlochy in 1431, the latter featuring regular guest Allan MacDonald on smallpipes and vocals. Despite their venerable roots, Seudan are about as persuasive a contemporary advertisement for true traditional piping as it’s possible to imagine.

Completing the first half, the Oban High School Pipe Band, with Angus MacColl back onstage as Pipe Major, displayed all the brio, discipline and musicality that saw them crowned juvenile Champion of Champions 2010, while the second commenced with another solo set, this time from Mairearad Green, better known nowadays as an accordionist – this being, she told us, her first solo piping gig since she was at high school.

Her decision to focus on her own inventive compositions, to avoid overlap with other performers, added a sparky additional dimension to the range of material on offer, before the redoubtable Glenuig brothers Allan and Angus MacDonald rounded off the night with a mix of traditional and original tunes. A lifetime’s familiarity with each other’s playing lent an almost insouciant ease to their mastery, which balanced intense lyricism and irreproachable technique with authentic touches of grit and gristle.

Tormod MacArtair’s witty banter and self-deprecating expertise in the role of Fear an Taigh added further enjoyment to a thoroughly rewarding evening, as did the delectable venison canapés offered gratis to the audience beforehand and at the interval, courtesy of Scottish Natural Heritage.

© Sue Wilson, 2011

Links

• Blas Festival
• Sue Wilson