Inverness Cathedral, 8 December 2012

THE SCOTTISH Ensemble made a welcome return to Inverness Cathedral as a venue for their annual candlelit concert with a programme exploring the deceptively simple concept of variations.

WORKS by contemporary British composer Martin Suckling, Benjamin Britten and JS Bach resonated with each other beautifully in a programme that took the audience from unfamiliar territory to an experience of the sublime.

Jonathan Morton (photo Tommy Ga-Ken Wan)

Mr Jonathan Morton, His Ground-Postcard #2 draws inspiration from the aural ground of the oldest form of music making. The second in a series of Musical Postcards by Martin Suckling, created and receiving their world premieres during the Scottish Ensemble’s 2012/13 season, this work inspires curiosity in its treatment of form and in the relationships drawn between accompanying works in the programme. Suckling scores the traditional ground bass line for first violin as a circular structural element, underpinning a series of variations where silence, compressed and expanded fragments of musical time are utilised to deliver a four minute work of unexpected texture, economy and complexity.

There is a degree of playfulness with the element of time in this composition which inspires contemplation, in relation to the programme as a whole and with the idea of timeless musical form; Bach’s definitive variations inspiring subsequent generations of composers including Britten and Suckling himself. This work also feels very much about the “ground” of the soloist, the Ensemble’s Artistic Director Jonathan Morton; the spirit of exploration of musical form in the commissioning of new work, the dynamic juxtaposition of works from all periods of music as variations of human expression through time and each performance as an exciting and uniquely nuanced variation of the original composition.

In many ways it is Britten’s tribute to creative leadership expanded and an innovative exploration of the variation with long rests, allowing each musical statement imaginative pause in the mind of the listener. The experience of music as a wellspring for the composer, performing musicians and audience is beautifully articulated by this abstract work, obliquely referencing the musical canon whilst expanding our idea of musical variations. Mr Jonathan Morton, His Ground-Postcard #2 contrasts wonderfully with the beguiling lyricism and dissonant intensity of the composer’s first Musical Postcard, In Memorium EMS, performed as part of the Ensemble’s Illuminations concert tour in October, and I am sure I am not alone in eagerly anticipating his next correspondence. These newly commissioned works present a fascinating dialogue between composers past and present, selected works within each concert programme and the unique qualities of soloist and ensemble; reinterpreting and rejuvenating our live experience of historical and contemporary repertoire.

Written when Benjamin Britten was 24 and composed as a tribute to his teacher and “musical father”, Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge (1937) expands beyond personal reference in its exploration of musical form and texture. Composing a series of 10 variations on an Introduction and Theme drawn from one of Bridge’s String Quartets, Britten reflects facets of his mentor’s personality whilst transforming the range and scope of his own music. There are times when the string ensemble feels like a full symphonic orchestra, a combination of Britten’s spirited writing and the Scottish Ensemble’s superbly unified playing.

This unity and poise brought each contrasting variation to life in all its richness, drama and delicacy; the lush sonorous layers of ‘Variation 8, Funeral March’, for example, followed by ‘Variation 9, Chant’, with its atmospheric, pizzicato tension in the strings and heightened variant pitch, released like sound above and below a waterline of consciousness. The journey through this work was all the more rewarding due to its juxtaposition with the Suckling’s musical postcard and Bach’s Goldberg Variations, with the influence of each consecutive work shedding light on the next, interestingly in a reverse historical timeline of performance.

Originally written for harpsichord and one of the most influential and best loved works in the history of Western music, JS Bach’s Goldberg Variations (1741, arr. Sitkovetsky 1992) brought heightened closure to the evening. Bach’s aria and 30 variations unfurl in infinite variety through bass line and harmonic progressions that instil a sense of grand design; an interior directive in musical form elevating the spirit. At the core of this performance and within the spiritual trajectory of the surrounding architecture, sound seemed to touch every stone and pane of glass, filling the entire space and the soul of the listener with ultimate serenity.

Jonathan Morton’s magnificent solo performance was full of grace and reverie, supported by the strength of the entire ensemble in a taut and dynamic performance of a work heard many times before but perhaps not understood until that live moment of musical time. The Neo-Gothic structure and its acoustics also contributed to the idea of variation in performance; in the depth of the lower strings resonating in the body of the church and of the listener and in the purity of the solo violin heard in the ‘Aria’ as the thematic alpha and omega of the composition. The most divine quality of art or music is arguably its capacity to alter our perception and the ability to present familiar work in such a way is an absolute gift.

The Scottish Ensemble’s exploration of variations encompassed not just repetition but transformation through patterns within music. The performance enabled the capacity audience to transcend the cold night and hard pews in an immediate and sublime live experience, the three contrasting works variations of timeless human expression entwined and expanded in the mind’s eye.

© Georgina Coburn, 2012

Links

• Scottish Ensemble