VoxCarnyx

Barony Hall, Cumnock

The saxophone and the euphonium were invented in the same decade of the 19^th century but the amount of repertoire created for each of them as solo instruments in the 180 years since could scarcely have been less equal.

While the sax made the transition from French marching bands to the new art form of jazz while forging a parallel path in classical music, the euphonium remained in the brass band world and never featured in symphony orchestras. Tellingly, one acquired a snappy, abbreviated nickname, but no-one has ever played the “yoof”.

The comparison may rarely be made, but this year’s Cumnock Tryst did so, and the work of the festival’s founder, Sir James MacMillan was key to that.

On Friday evening, at the state-of-the-art hall in Cumnock’s new Barony Campus, the strings of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra played music that featured both instruments in concerto soloist role, penned by MacMillan.

Scotland saw the premiere of his Saxophone Concerto, by Amy Dickson with the SCO and Joseph Swensen, in 2018 but Jess Gillam has recently made the work her own, with  a growing list of performances over the past two years. Its inspiration may be specifically Scottish, from traditional music and Gaelic Psalm singing, but the mix of lightning-fingered exuberance and melancholic melody suits her style perfectly.

The composer’s expressive conducting style also suits the work well, and the pair were a delight to watch together in the opening movement in which the March, Strathspey and Reel seem filtered through the cartoon scores of Carl Stalling or Raymond Scott.

 It was the slow movement, where beguiling overlapping string lines are led by the cantor voice of the saxophone in imitation of the psalm singing of the Western Isles, that yielded the most memorable moment of Gillam’s performance. The exquisite control of her closing phrases were absolutely breath-taking.

MacMillan described his more recent Where the Lugar Meets the Glaisnock as a “concertante”, and its combination of demanding work for the strings and showcase for solo euphonium is a single-movement concerto that is also a depiction of Cumnock itself, which grew up at the confluence of those rivers.

It was written for the concert’s soloist, David Childs, and premiered in his native Wales; he has since taken it around the globe as what he describes as the most important work for his own instrument in its history.

MacMillan’s inspiration – as well as the virtuosity of its dedicatee – was his grandfather, an Ayrshire miner and player of the euphonium in brass bands. The picture of the composer’s native turf that emerges is a warm and generous one. Like the Saxophone Concerto, this is very approachable modern MacMillan, packed with lyrical tunefulness, exploiting the range and tone of the euphonium to the full.

If it is a virtuoso work-out for Childs, and any other player of his instrument capable of taking it on, it also requires precision performance from the strings, initially just six front desk players and later precisely voiced chords behind the soloists.

In those elements, it spoke to the clever choice of opening work in the programme, Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, directed from the violin by the SSO’s long-standing Associate Leader, Kanako Ito. There was historically-informed-performance sensibility to aspects of this reading, but with a contemporary edge that meant the detail benefitted from the venue’s dryish acoustic.

All three works were recorded by BBC Radio 3 for future broadcast, although their transmission as a sequence may be a forlorn hope.

On Saturday, both soloists gave recitals in Cumnock’s Trinity Church, illustrating the parallels between their chamber music histories. Both began with earlier music – Corelli in Gillam’s case and a Hummel Fantasy, originally not for trumpet as one might have guessed, but viola or clarinet, from Childs.

The Telemann concerto in Gillam’s set was first intended for bassoon or recorder, while Childs included an early work by pianist Ludovico Einaudi that was written for cello. Accompanied by Christopher Williams at the piano, his modern choices also included the tango movement of a concerto commissioned by him from Sir Karl Jenkins, and a piece by the Canadian-Japanese composer Cait Nishimura, with a Welsh title, Hiraeth.

His most apposite choice was the three-movement Force of Nature by Sir James MacMillan’s student contemporary and brass-band colleague Peter Graham, of Prestwick. His depiction of Ernest Hemingway and his obsessions, from the bull-ring to sea-fishing, was well worth hearing.

Gillam attracted a larger audience, and with her partners, pianist Zeynep Ozsuca and double bassist Sam Becker, the music sometimes recalled the Jacques Loussier trio. More often, though, it was quintessential Jess Gillam, segueing from Nadia Boulanger into Barbara Thompson and Meredith Monk into Rune Sorenson (of the Danish String Quartet) and culminating in the bespoke calling card written for her by John Harle, RANT!

Keith Bruce

Picture by Stuart Armitt