Includes a World Premiere
Music Schubert: Overture zur Zauberharfe (Rosamunde) D644; Jerry Gregson: Four Lyrics of Francis Quarles (world premiere); Bizet: Arias from Carmen; Beethoven: Symphony no.6 in F ('Pastoral') Op.68
Performers Carolyn Filak Royan (mezzo soprano); St Andrew Amateur Orchestra, Alison Rushworth (Conductor)
Date 7 May 2005
Venue Canongate Kirk
Address Royal Mile
Reviewer Bruce Haughan
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Canongate Kirk
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The centrepiece of the concert was the world premiere performance of Four Lyrics of Francis Quarles, written by Jerry Gregson for the evening's performers, St Andrew Amateur Orchestra and Carolyn Filak Royan. Quarles was one of the English metaphysical poets of the early seventeenth century, revived briefly by the Victorian emblematists, but is now sadly forgotten except for a handful of poems that still find their way into anthologies. His poems have a charm and warmth that combine the rhythms of Lyly's euphuism with the wit of Donne.
The words of the opening poem of this cycle, 'My Soul, Sit Thou … ', set the scene, and are especially appropriate for a world premiere:
'My soul, sit thou a patient looker-on;
Judge not the play before the play is done:
Her plot hath many changes; every day
Speaks a new scene; the last act crowns the play.'
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Carolyn Filak Royan
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An orchestral introduction leads the soloist into 'My Soul, Sit Thou … ', a reflective movement which sets the scene for 'So He Is Mine', a love poem of five stanzas in which the singer searches for the beloved. Short phrases emphasise the search, the voice wreathing with the woodwind, until the triumphant ending, a slightly different version of the recurrent last line of each stanza: 'That I my best-beloved's am; and he is mine'. The third song, 'The World's an Inn', is an epigram of safe arrival and fulfilment, which is followed by a repeat of the first song, leading into the elegaic confidence of 'A Good-Night', the most lyrically-flowing of the four. At times the woodwind almost drowned the soloist, but here was fine writing and some fine singing. Ms Royan seemed not entirely at ease with the higher register of some of the lines, and we longed to hear more of the mellow warmth of the lower register of her truly mezzo voice. This was a good premiere, however, and we look forward to hearing the piece again. The composer was playing the horn in the orchestra, and able to take a much-deserved bow to the audience's warm applause.
Ms Royan followed the Gregson songs with two arias from Carmen, the 'Habanera' ('L'amour est un oiseau rebelle') and the Seguidilla. The role of Carmen demands a vast vocal range, and again Ms Royan proved more comfortable in her mezzo register.
Schubert's Overture zur Zauberharfe, usually known erroneously as the Overture to 'Rosamunde' (the programme note explains how this came about) opened the concert. The orchestra launched into this with enthusiasm, but the violins were more tentative than they need have been to hold their own against the boisterous wind and brass. This piece recalls how much Schubert owed to his idol Beethoven, and reminded us how much later theatre composers like Sullivan owed to Schubert.
The second half was devoted to Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony which was great fun, especially in the novelty passages, the birds Beside the Brook, the village band at the Merry Gathering of Country Folk and, of course, the Thunderstorm, in which Ewan Fairbairn's performance on timpani fairly (and rightly) shook the rafters. Again, the strings could have stood up more to the woodwind and brass, but the flowing coranto lines in the last movement, which pass between the parts, were a delight.
© Bruce Haughan. 8 May 2005. Published on www.edinburghguide.com