Rating Guide
None = Unmissable
= Unwatchable
Page number refers to the Fringe programme
Check
out Pat's preview
of the music at this year's Fringe.
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4
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4-Mality
Live! (page
54)
Drams 0 Excellent
Venue The Bongo Club (143)
Address 14 New Street
Reviewer Garry Platt
What do 3 young Englishmen and a Icelander have in common? Well in this
case they all play percussion instruments like men possessed. 4 Mality
are a four-piece percussion group playing in the Bongo Club on a stage
so small they have pushed out into the audience space. I counted at
least 30 instruments each of which gets used during the performance.
The music they play is both original and their interpretation of unusual
or familiar pieces. It ranges over African, Salsa, Light Jazz, Japanese,
you name it.
The instruments they play cover everything from marimbas, through to
bamboo canes, if it makes a noise they can play it, or so it would seem.
The performance space they have to work in requires them to move the
instruments around between each set and to do some amazing choreography
during some sets jumping from one instrument to the next and back again.
Their talent and skill is evident in the first 10 seconds, the beats,
the rhythms, the cadences fall from the stage like a waterfall of syncopated
sound. They play with a level of unison which is startling and achieve
an almost transcendental level of music playing. The day I was in there
were 8 other members of the audience, this group deserve and should
get 800 - but the Bongo club won't take it! Go see this group if you
enjoy percussion music and want to see it played at its best.
Garry Platt
- 4 August 2001
Runs intermittently between 4 - 27 Aug at 18:15 (19:15)
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25th Birthday
Concert -
Philomusica of Edinburgh (page 65)
Drams
Venue St Mary's Cathedral (Venue 91)
Address Palmerston Place, Edinburgh
Reviewer Kenny Morrison
Boyce:
Overture Ode to the King's Birthday; Bach: Concerto for
Oboe and Violin; Telemann: Concerto in G major 'Polish'; Ney
Rosauro: Marimba Concerto; Bottesini: Passione Amorosa for
2 Double Basses; Michael Haydn: Trumpet Concerto No.2 in C; Boccherini:
Fandango
The programme for this birthday concert was very well selected. Boyce
and Michael Haydn are two composers I would love to hear more of. The
Boyce was very well played, to open the concert. A very nice full string
sound for a group of this size, probably helped by the rich acoustic
in the cathedral. This became a hindrance in the Bach and Telemann,
though; with more intricate baroque orchestration, that doesn't come
out so well in this type of acoustic. I must mention Morven Bell, the
oboe soloist in the beautiful Bach Concerto for Oboe and Violin.
It's a lovely piece, and Ms Bell's playing was extremely good. The slow
movement was particularly good. I had more problems with Laurence Dunn,
the violin soloist throughout this. He is clearly a fine player, and
there were some exquisite violin sounds coming out, but his tuning was
very ropey, some notes really straining the ear.
The marimba concerto was good to see. I'm a fan of some percussion concertos,
and they very often prove to be extremely vibrant pieces of music. This
was no exception, and well played too. The Michael Haydn is a piece
which pales into some insignificance when taken alongside his brother's
trumpet concerto, but this was a well played and pleasant performance
of a fine piece of music.
My only problem was tuning. It's a very basic thing that has to be correct,
and in many parts, this ensemble was simply not in tune. It ruined parts
of a very well selected and obviously well rehearsed programme. I don't
think that they were incapable of playing this, at times, very difficult
music, but a little more preparation on the night was needed.
© Kenny Morrison, August 2001
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Bach's
Goldberg Variations - Harpsichords
at St Cecilia's Hall Series (page 60)
Drams none
Venue St Cecilia's Hall (Venue 31)
Address Niddry Street, Edinburgh
Reviewer Pat Napier
Performed
by Iain
Simcock.
No
programme - no accident. So said Iain Simcock when he chose to say a
few words of introduction to this first and most famous of Bach's great
single-theme encyclopedias of music. This was done, so that his near-capacity
audience would in no way be distracted from total concentration on the
revelations to come.
Goermans/Taskin
© University of Edinburgh |
Only the genius
of Johann Sebastian Bach could put together a theme, place it firmly
in the left hand and then build no less that 30 variations (plus an
introduction and finale), all in the same key, without causing his listeners
to die of boredom. Instead the audience, on a hot and sticky afternoon,
became totally absorbed and completely involved in the endlessly inventive
swirls and flows of music, which have been made widely famous through
the recordings of the late Glenn Gould.
As if that musical experience were not enough, the audience participated
in an even more meaningful experience: they listened in a perfect oval
concert hall orginally built in 1762, to music composed some time after
1739 and played on one of the world's most famous harpsichords built
in 1784. Just how much closer can you come to the authentic musical
experience? In this instance, the harpsichord was every bit as big a
star as the composer and as important, for these variations absolutely
require two manuals. The star was the voluptuously extravagant, black
and red Chinese-lacquered Goermans/Taskin of sumptuous sound and very
rare knee levers which commanded the highest price of its day when sold.
And worth every penny, as Iain Simcock demonstrated: the perfect instrument
for sublime music.
The Goldberg
Variations were commissioned by a count who couldn't sleep and who
required to be entertained during those hours. So Bach wrote these colossal
and endlessly inventive variations for one of his best pupils, Johann
Gottlieb Goldberg, who was engaged to play them to the count.
Iain Simcock played the introduction very slowly, taking some 3 minutes,
with the left hand sounding the theme very clearly. Thereafter, we were
swept along on a tide of every possible invention and variation: in
tempo, brilliance, counterpoint, harmony, syncopation, mood, contrasting
keyboards and stops, and much more besides. At one point, moving from
the 4th to the 5th variation, he had a little difficulty in adjusting
the knee levers but this interruption allowed us to catch our breath,
then we were off again, eventually stopping at Variation 15 for a well
deserved interval. The
second half, which turned out to be even better than the first, contained
more variation between flamboyance and quiet contemplation. Some variations
were very exciting indeed, especially no 29. But the slower variations
in minor keys were exceptionally moving. Overall, the experience became
so intense for the audience that the recital ended on that rare magical
moment, the willing suspension of applause which encapsulates the moment
forever in the collective memory.
© Pat Napier. 19 August 2001
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Bach,
Scarlatti, Pachelbel, Couperin and Muffat (page
60)
Pachelbel: Aria sexta; François
Couperin: Movements from the Troisième Ordre; J S Bach:
Partita No.2 in C minor; Muffat: Ciacona in G; Domenico
Scarlatti: Sonata in F minor (K481); Handel: Suite No.7 in
G minor. All played on the Kirckman double manual English
harpsichord of 1755
Drams
Venue St Cecilia's Hall (Venue 31)
Address Niddry
Street Edinburgh
Reviewer Pat Napier
Performed
by Otto
Choi.
There
were two firsts tonight: The Friends of St Cecilia's Hall, the promoters
of this early music series shaped around rare keyboard instuments, have
decided, for the Kirckman Harpsichord first time, to sponsor one of
their concerts. They chose a young Hong Kong-born harpsichordist, who
is still a music student at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and
Drama, to give that other 'first': his first solo recital. The instrument
chosen was the 1755 Kirckman English two manual harpsichord, said to
be the favourite of the late Raymond Russell, whose collection was gifted
to the University of Edinburgh and which is housed in St Cecilia's Hall.
For a young man making his concert debut, this was a very big and varied
programme, containing some musical rarities. He was extremely poised
and obviously very 'at home' in front of an audience. He began, somewhat
nervously, with Pachelbel's little-known Aria sexta, which turned
out to be a delightful little piece. He then played four movements from
François Couperin's Troisième Ordre: Les Regrets,
in which he caught a beautiful air of melancholy; then followed a jaunty,
nautical Les Matelots Provençales; a lovely chaconne,
La Favorite, calmed things down before ending with the bright,
glittery La Lutine. The Bach Partita was played without
repeats and it was here that his nerves showed most. The potential offered
by the instrument would have enhanced the music. However, that said,
it was a very good performance of very passionate music and his technique
was more than capable of coping with its exciting ending.
Another rarity, in Otto Choi's words "a chaconne from Muffat's
snappily-titled Apparatus musico-organisticus" of 1690 turned
out to be another little gem. Domenico Scarlatti's sonata was a slow
melancholy piece played with great musicality. By the time Choi reached
the Handel, he was relaxed and comfortable, clearly enjoying the experience.
This suite was obviously very much to his taste and a huge contrast,
musically, with the Bach. Here, for the first time, Otto Choi made full
and effective use of both of the Kirckman's manuals and explored the
stops to achieve a range of colour and emotion which had been missing
in the earlier pieces.
The lavishly-decorated harpsichord was, to my mind, something of a compromise
choice for this wide-ranging programme. It has a very bright, sharp
sound, deriving from an extra set of jacks, placed so as to achieve
exactly that sound. It was very good for some pieces and less so for
others. This, combined with a possible timidity in using the full range
of choices offered by the instrument, gave a somewhat narrow range of
sound. One or two wrong notes were willingly forgiven, especially when
Choi came alive in the Handel, taking off in the Passacaille and giving
us the most flamboyant, high speed finsh, fully worthy of his teacher,
John Kitchen, who was heard to remark "Even I couldn't play it
at that speed". Otto Choi has a bright future ahead of him!
© Pat Napier, 2001.
