Tag Archives: St Magnus Festival

Remembering Max

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The 49th St Magnus Festival takes a moment to remember co-founder Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, but will his piano measure up to the memory? Pianist Mihal Ritivoiu talks to KEN WALTON

There are many remarkable things about Orkney’s St Magnus Festival, not least the fact it happens in one of the least accessible extremities of the UK, and that this year’s Festival (20-27 June) celebrates 49 years in business. 

Equally remarkable, though, is its actual survival despite the absence of its iconic co-founder, the composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, whose death almost a decade ago marked the end of an era in which he and the event were a synonymous powerhouse. 

But give current artistic director (also a composer) Alasdair Nicolson his due. Through imaginative and enterprising programming and some canny politicking (funding is as ever the arts world’s uncomfortable necessity) he has managed to sustain a distinctive profile for St Magnus, not so much with expensive large-scale orchestral performances of old, but still with a commitment to challenging programming that views contemporary music as an equal partner within a wider, more traditional cross-genre mix. Moreover, Davies’ and his co-founders’ original vision of the local arts community practically engaging with visiting artists remains a potent motivator.

As for Davies, or Max as he was universally known, his memory lingers on in regular Festival performances of his music, but there’s one event in particular this year, albeit on the relative periphery, that promises to strike a truly visceral, if sentimental, chord. On 23 June, on the island of Sanday where the wise but sometimes waspish Davies lived, Romanian-born pianist Mihai Ritivoiu will play a recital in the local community school on Max’s own piano.

Expectations are moderate in terms of unqualified musical refinement. “I’ve been warned not to expect a perfectly regulated piano; that it will have a lot of ‘character’!”, warns 35-year-old Ritivoiu, a former “top laureate” of Romania’s George Enescu International Competition, who is now resident in London. On the other hand, his own interest in Davies’ music, heightened over two previous appearances at St Magnus Festivals, is unquestionably genuine.

“My discovery of Max’s music goes back to my first years in London, before I had ever visited or even knew about the Orkney Islands,” he recalls. “As a Musicians’ Company Young Artist, I was assigned to do a number of outreach events in schools around the city. Those were coordinated by senior members of The Musicians’ Company, which is how I got to know Neil Price.” 

Price, a retired accountant and founder/conductor of the Kirkwall-based Mayfield Singers, had just moved to London from Orkney. “As I became friends with Neil and his family, I learned of their special connection with Max. During a visit to his home, Neil gave me a copy of Max’s Farewell to Stromness saying ‘if you come to Scotland, you must play this as an encore! Everyone will recognise it and love it!’.” 

“A few weeks later I opened the score, expecting something entirely different from what is actually a piece of heartbreaking simplicity, with subtle traditional inflections. The story behind it makes it even more poignant. Far from being a sentimental farewell from a departing ferry, it marked a point in time when the very existence of Stromness was put into question by plans to mine uranium in the area.”

It won’t feature officially in the Sanday recital, which opens with the more apposite Three Sanday Places – a trilogy of locally-inspired miniatures dating from 2006 – as a scene-setter to further music by Schubert, Liszt, Debussy and Nicolson’s own Magnus IV: Orpheus in his Cottage, itself a tribute to Max and effectively the title track for the entire programme. There’s always the possibility, of course, that Ritivoiu will offer up Farewell to Stromness as a convenient encore should occasion permit.

The following day (24 June) in St Magnus Cathedral, however, it has a wholly functional role as the springboard to Ritivoiu’s second solo recital in his three-concert Festival residency. “I’ve chosen pieces with lots of colour for this programme, which I’ve called Impressions in the Mists,” he explains. “Pieces such as Liszt’s Années de Pèlerinage, Janacek’s In the Mists and Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Sonata.” He opens with Farewell to Stromness, but with a teasing twist to it. “I discovered, just tinkering on the piano, that it segues seamlessly into the Beethoven. I’ll give it a go, but if the audience want to clap in between so be it. I won’t force it on them.” 

Ritivoiu’s other Festival appearance (22 June in Stromness) is his first-time collaboration with the Resol String Quartet (pictured above), an ensemble formed in 2018 at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Together, in a programme called The Crossing Point, they perform Schumann’s E flat Piano Quintet, a work the pianist knows well. “It’s always exciting to play an old piece with new people,” he says. “It encourages so many fresh ideas.”

Ritivoiu’s three programmes represent a mere fraction of almost forty Festival events happening at St Magnus this year. Other guest artists include pianist Nikita Lukinov, riotous cross-genre duo Stevens & Pound, violinist Fenella Humphreys in an imaginative collaboration with novelist James Runcie, fast-rising choral group Echo Ensemble, and Glasgow-based Escocia Duo. 

Eccentric Australian performer and instrument maker Graeme Leak makes music from a recycled assemblage of 1970s cassettes, home organs, turntables and kitchen whisks in a show that asks the question, “Is this music, noise, or just sound?”

Folk artists range from local fiddler Jennifer Wrigley to accordionists Karen Tweed and Karen Street. The local St Magnus Festival Chorus are joined by visiting quintet Prismatic Winds for Dvorak’s Mass in D. Four literary events feature Festival Poet Niall Campbell, ocean-loving writer and historian David Gange, Shetland-born Jen Stout and Grantchester creator James Runcie. 

Ultimately, the star of any St Magnus Festival is the location itself, Mihal Ritivoiu explains. “It’s one of my favourite festivals to play in. There’s a so much happening in widely spread venues, yet at the same time nothing feels disconnected. Orkney and its festival feels very human, where everyone gets to know each other, where there’s always time for a chat with other artists, locals and visitors. It’s quite unique!”

The St Magnus Festival runs from 20-27 June. Full programme information at www.stmagnusfestival.com

Orcadian Feast

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Resourcefulness and imagination have never been so important in keeping events like the St Magnus Festival alive, its director Alasdair Nicolson tells KEN WALTON.

How many of us remember the perverse pleasure of the popular afternoon TV programme Ready, Steady Cook, where contestants challenged celebrity chefs to concoct a feast out of random ingredients purchased for a mere fiver? Despite such meagre resources, creativity and resourcefulness took flight, appetising results emerged. 

To some extent, that’s how Alasdair Nicolson has approached this year’s St Magnus Festival, the event he has directed for the past 12 years, and which is, he admits, still weathering the after-effects of Covid. “Right now, as things gradually return to normal, we’re having to be especially resourceful,” he insists. 

“There’s no overarching theme this year. The programme is more about a set of things I think are interesting, or a set of people I know – emerging artists or old friends – who are very good. Last year we were nearly back from Covid, but it was still odd. This year feels we’re getting there, still not at full capacity, but doing well with ticket sales.

A quick glance at the programme, which runs from 16-23 June, shows that the ingredients are infinitely more exciting than any arbitrary cucumber or carrot. The meat of the festival is still classical music, but complementing that are folk, ballet, theatre, poetry and visual arts events, with the traditional involvement of local performers offsetting the incoming presence of visiting artists.

As ever, Nicolson eschews the predictable. What is it with the accordion this year, I ask in relation to what seems like a veritable squeeze-box infestation, dominated by the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s entire Accordion Ensemble? “I’m just a lover of the accordion,” he says. “As a composer, I’ve written for it in various combinations. I also taught a composition course for accordion in Lithuania. So, personally, I have skin in the game.”

Central to this major segment of programming is Scotland’s latest accordion sensation, the young Glaswegian Ryan Corbett. Following his solo triumph last year in Orkney, and his fast-rising profile further afield, he’s here this time in two duo partnerships, one with Edinburgh-born trumpeter Aaron Akugbo, the other with his own teacher Djordje Gajic playing Stravinsky’s Petrouchka in St Magnus Cathedral.

If that isn’t quirky enough, the charismatic Ragazze Quartet from the Netherlands, known for their unconventional approach to the medium, certainly are. Nicolson encountered them while sitting in his car. “I was driving and listening to the radio when I heard them playing Schubert’s Die Winterreise and thought, this is wonderful, but it’s not supposed to be on string quartet. It worked so well in refocussing Schubert’s original [song cycle].” The Raggaze will be joined in this by baritone Maarten Koningsberger. 

In another of their three programmes, the Quartet teams up with Dutch pianist Nikola Meeuwsen in Shostakovich’s ebullient Piano Quintet. Again, the idea came to Nicolson through chance. “His parents in Holland live next door to friends of mine, who told me about him. I tried him out and realised putting him together with the other Dutch musicians made complete sense.” Meeuwsen, still only 20 and the youngest ever winner of Amsterdam’s Grachtenfestival Prize, also plays his own solo recital, the Age of Refinement, on Saturday. 

Other artists this year include: the 17th/18th century specialist ensemble Florilegium, reenacting in one of its programmes Leipzig’s legendary Coffee House concerts with music by Bach and his contemporaries; and the Scots-based Hebrides Ensemble, including an “immersive promenade concert” “Solstice of Dark and Light – Wind Water Earth Fire” in St Magnus Cathedral, combining music, art and poetry.

Atmosphere plays its part, too, in two solo performances by the young Black Isle cellist Finlay Spence: one on Hoy in which he plays Bach, Boyle, Beamish and Berio; the other on South Ronaldsay which includes the world premiere of a new commission, Fadhail, by Uist composer Padruig Morrison. 

On a larger scale, Scottish Ballet brings its steamy, critically-acclaimed production of A Streetcar Named Desire to Kirkwall’s Pickaquoy Centre. “We had to ask them to bring another show as well, given that Streetcar comes with a high guidance rating,” Nicolson explains. “Otherwise, I’d have had to field the complaints!” The solution was Nutcracker Sweets, a potpourri from past and present Scottish Ballet productions culminating in scenes from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker.

Equally exciting for Nicolson is the world premiere of Thora, David McNeish’s new play based on the mother of Magnus mentioned in the ancient sagas, directed by Gerda Stevenson. McNeish was a minister on Orkney and before that a doctor. “He worked on it originally when [Orcadian actor, theatre director and vocal coach] Kristin Linklater was still alive, and it was really meant for her,” Nicolson says. “It’s a powerful piece because it brings a woman into the Magnus story, and one who actually survived him.”

Ask the St Magnus director what makes the Festival tick today, seven years after the death of its iconic founder Sir Peter Maxwell Davies  and especially after the trials of Covid, and the answer falls somewhere between pragmatism and optimism. “If anything, we’re much more aware of how much everything costs. The challenge is to match the expectations people have from the Festival’s traditions and history against what is really possible. 

“The fact is, we’re still managing to do a largely music-based festival, trying to bring in things local people ought to see as well as setting out stuff that will bring audiences in from elsewhere. Most importantly Orkney folk themselves are still an integral element.” This year’s Johnsmas Foy – Waves and Tangles: A Countrywoman’s Diary – celebrates Orcadian poet and nature writer Bessie Skea, whose legacy was overshadowed by her more famous contemporary George Mackay Brown. The local Festival Chorus presents its own performance of Fauré’s Requiem under Hallè Chorus director Matthew Hamilton.

Times might be tougher, but with just the right ingredients and some creative flair St Magnus is making the best of uncertain times.

The 2023 St Magnus Festival on Orkney runs from 16-23 June. Full information at http://www.stmagnusfestival.co