Empire Theatre, Eden Court, Inverness, 13 September 2011

THIS new music-with-narration work was originally written in Scots, but a Gaelic version pipped the original to the post in this premiere performance.

THE concept for the piece was to create a work that did for traditional music and instruments something similar to Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf in classical music, aimed at a young audience but with plenty to hold the interest of adults.

The Boy and the Bunnet in performance at Eden Court (image © Reaaz Mohammad, courtesy Blas Festival)

Award-winning Scottish novelist James Robertson was charged with writing the Scots version, and poet and playwright Aonghas Macneacail was then commissioned to prepare this Gaelic version (as he pointed out in the question and answer session that followed the performance, there is always more to translation than just literal trading of words) when a Blas performance became an option.

It was a pity that Eden Court’s OneTouch Theatre was unavailable (rehearsals for  next week’s opening of Para Handy had commandeered the smaller theatre). After Blas’s heady opening weekend of record-breaking ticket sales, this one was modestly attended in the cavernous Empire – the smaller option would have created a more supportive atmosphere for the performers and audience alike.

Nonetheless, the seven musicians and narrator Wilma Kennedy made the best of it, and delivered an enjoyable evening. Non-Gaelic speakers were aided by having the Scots text projected on a large screen. That story recounted the adventures of young Neil and his bunnet (a splendid blue example with bright red toorie was the only physical prop used in the show) with the creatures – both real and imaginary – around his Highland home.

As with Prokofiev’s famous score, Caithness-born pianist and composer James Ross allocated a different theme and specific instrument to each of the characters, drawing on his own interpretations of established forms and rhythms from Scottish traditional music.

Fiddler Patsy Reid took on the role of Neil, cellist Neil Johnstone portrayed his namesake’s granny, and Fraser Fifield’s low whistle evoked Neil’s cat. Fifield also portrayed the stag, this time on pipes, the raucous crow was allocated to Angus Lyon’s accordion, and a sleek selkie to Corrina Hewat’s clarsach.

Ross’s evocation of the terrible Urisk completed the gallery of characters, while Signy Jakobsdottir added atmospheric percussion effects. The role of narrator in this piece is always going to be crucial, and Wilma Kennedy succeeded in pulling it off in animated and compelling fashion.

Ross manipulated the musical material with skill and clarity. In this first performance, the music felt slightly formal at times, and occasional small hesitations over entries crept in, but all of that will doubtless disappear in subsequent outings.

The second half of the concert featured the musicians in a mixture of combinations, including tunes and songs from the Scots, Gaelic and Shetland traditions and original compositions from Ross (the ‘Smoo Cave’ excerpt from an earlier Blas commission, Chasing The Sun), Fifield (a rhythmically tricky 7/8 tune based on Bulgarian music), and Neil Johnstone (a poignant little melody inspired by a minor disaster that befell one of his young pupils).

James Robertson’s Scots language original will receive its own premiere at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow in February as part of Celtic Connections, with actress Greda Stevenson as narrator, and a book and recording will be available in the new year (see the Big Sky weblink below for details). It proved a very engaging addition to the Scots music canon that should have an extended life both as a performance piece and in education contexts.

© Kenny Mathieson, 2011

Links

• Blas Festival
• Big Sky