Tag Archives: Stuart MacRae

EIF: Beth Taylor | JLCO & Yuja Wang

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Queen’s Hall | Usher Hall

It’s only in the past year or so that the Scottish mezzo soprano Beth Taylor has begun to make an distinct impression on her native soil. Things were already happening for her, from success as a Grand Finalist in the 2023 Cardiff Singer of the World to debut appearances at Glyndebourne and New York’s Carnegie Hall. But it was her seraphic performance last year as the Angel in Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with the BBC SSO that had Scottish audiences sitting up and taking exceptional note.

So Last Tuesday’s Edinburgh International Festival debut was timely, a Queen’s Hall recital that demonstrated not only her engaging musicality and communicative personality, but a performer at ease in any given style with a flair for explorative repertoire and a desire to surprise.

For a start, there was initially no sign of Taylor. Pianist Hamish Brown was seated expectantly on stage, but the first sounds emanated from the rear of the hall were a distant hurdy gurdy-like drone and a disembodied voice intoning a mystical antiphon by the 12th century abbess Hildegard von Bingen. 

It was the first of many vocal “personae” Taylor would negotiate over the next couple of hours. From the unadorned purity of O Ignee Spiritus, and with Brown now called into action, she turned to the languid late-19th century Gallic signature of prolific French-Irish composer Augusta Holmès, firstly in the dense harmonies and sweeping crescendo of Pareil à la mer profound, then the Bacchanalian wildness and wit Le Vin. Sung with emotive warmth and vivid characterisation, and matched by Brown’s demonstrative pianism, Taylor extended her French selection with the dreamy sentiments of Lili Boulanger’s Reflets. 

Written especially in 2024 for Taylor, Cameron Biles-Liddell’s The Breakers conjured up sweeping images of the sea, its coupling of The Storm and Twilight playing to the singer’s extraordinary range from meaty lower tessitura to searing upper register. The same composer’s sultry arrangement of the traditional Orcadian tune The Grey Selkie o’ Sule Skerry saw Taylor transport us seamlessly to the plaintive world of Scots folksong. Dame Ethel Smyth’s Three Moods of the Sea, with their faint echoes of Elgar’s Sea Pictures, returned us to the eloquent world of art song.

The second half was no less comprehensive. Alongside such mainstream German Lieder as Fanny Hensel’s eloquently-styled Schwanenlied and Clara Schumann’s animated Lorelei, Taylor turned to the enigmatic American songwriter Connie Converse (who mysteriously disappeared in her car in 1974) and her last known work, the Cassandra Cycle – shapely unaffected storytelling sung with salon-like appeal.

As the only female member of the idiosyncratic French group Les Six, Germaine Tailleferre’s Pancarte pour une Porte d’entrée provided an off-the-wall springboard to the apogee of this consummate recital, the world premiere of Stuart MacRae’s Medusa. Theatrical, virtuosic and fired by clarity of purpose and, at times, bitter imagery, this was a performance of compelling drama, menacing energy, a kaleidoscopic tour de force for both musicians. Most of all, MacRae’s music played unstintingly to the charismatic versatility of Taylor’s ravishing voice.

Yuja Wang and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (Photo: Andrew Perry)

How versatile would superstar classical pianist Yuja Wang prove to be, taking to the Usher Hall stage with Wynton Marsalis’ Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra for the first of two Wednesday evening repeat jazz performances? The audience was clearly lapping up the prospect, a darkened Usher Hall filled to near capacity, the atmosphere welling to euphoria with each neatly delivered number, the newly-minted arrangements by JLCO band members like liquid gold, shot through with sprays of climactic glitter. 

While it was natural fertile ground for the JLCO’s breezy nonchalance, Wang’s delivery, while rhythmically ballistic and unquestionably virtuosic, often felt constrained by her studied discipline and rigid precision. That was a critical issue, given the programme’s thematic focus on the rise of keyboard virtuosity in 20th century jazz, putting Wang firmly in the spotlight. 

True, hi-octane precision is exactly what Dave Brubeck applied to the limping rhythmic gait of his own Rondo à la Turk, which Wang’s machine-like rapidity captured intellectually if not wholly in spirit. JLCO trombonist Chris Crenshaw’s judicious arrangement came into its own in the woozy seductiveness of the central blues. 

Fast forward to Duke Ellington’s time-stopping Reflections in D (arr. Joe Block) or the bossanova vibe of Oscar Peterson’s increasingly high speed L’Impossible (arr. Alexa Tarantino), and Wang revealed a more laid back, collaborative ease. Yet there was still a dry disconnect in her boogie-woogie response to Leroy Carr’s How Long Blues, and in Marsalis’ Marthaniel (from his larger work Citi Movement) the most interesting sounds came from his own JLCO, its lugubrious ensemble and liquidly nuanced solos.

It was in the likes of Cuban pianist Ernesto Lecuona’s La Camparsa (from his Danza Afro-Cubanas) and racy Gitanerías, both heavily scented in bassist Carlos Henriquez’s sensuous arrangements, then in the hair-raising panache of Art Tatum’s Crenshaw-arranged Tiger Rag and a closing rendition of Joseph Korma’s Autumn Leaves, that Wang eventually found the relaxed means to root out her inner cool. 

One practical issue rather diluted the overall impact of the show. Marsalis chose to emcee seated far back in the trumpet section. Visually alone, that was a weak move. But audibility was also problematic, Marsalis’ quick-fire delivery not always picked up clearly by the hall’s PA system. Much vital information went unheard.

Ken Walton 

(Photos: Andrew Perry)

Lammermuir: Earth, thy cold is keen

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St Mary’s Church, Whitekirk

The other St Mary’s Church in the Lammermuir list of lovely venues is a gem of building half way between North Berwick and Dunbar, now in the care of the community. It returned to the festival this year with a programme of music by Stuart MacRae that perfectly suited its resonant acoustic.

Those who know MacRae mainly from his big Scottish Opera commissions would have recognised his signature in much of it, but it was perhaps just as well that the young mezzo-sopranos due to sing big roles with the company in the Haddington St Mary’s that evening could not hear Lotte Betts-Dean, the singer whose remarkable voice was showcased here.

MacRae tailor-made much of this repertoire for the UK-based Australian, having heard her perform one of his songs, and this recital drew substantially on the 2023 Delphian disc with string duo Sequoia (violinist Alice Rickards and cellist Sonia Cromarty) and the composer himself on harmonium. If the language is “classical” – these are contemporary art songs, setting ancient texts alongside those of Christina Rossetti and Emily Bronte – there is a rich seam of traditional and indigenous music being mined in the work of everyone involved.

Betts-Dean has an extraordinary range, from rich, full alto to soaring soprano, and just as wide in timbre and tone. She is as accurate and controlled as she is expressive, but those technical capabilities are allied to colours that recall such diverse antecedents as Robin Williamson of the Incredible String Band and Nina Simone.

MacRae’s familiarity with Gaelic song ran throughout the programme, not just in his setting of one of those, but also in his instrumental writing for the strings, both evocative of landscape, notional and specific, and part of an environmental focus that is key to Sequoia’s practice.

With Norse and Middle English part of the textual fabric, and birdsong and electronics in the soundscape, there were a lot of ingredients in the mix but ample space for Betts-Dean to demonstrate her a cappella abilities as well. Not only was the material radically re-ordered from the recorded version, it was also substantially revised in some arrangements. The sense of a growing, organic project was clear.

That was obviously so with the world premiere that ended an enthralling 80 minutes, setting Bronte’s The Prisoner. The central song of The Captive was sung unaccompanied, and was MacRae’s superb word-setting at its finest, while the bracketing narrative Prologue and Epilogue added the instruments and a very seductive melody. The 5-tone falling figure on the word “liberty” at the end of the former was emblematic of the fruitful relationship between the composer and his muse.

Keith Bruce

Portrait of Lotte Betts-Dean by Matthew Johnson

The Night With… Festival

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The Engine Works, Glasgow

The bold assertion by contemporary music evangelist Matthew Whiteside that the first festival under the banner of his concert series, The Night With … ,  aims to give classical music its own Glastonbury may not bear very rigorous scrutiny, but neither is it entirely nonsense.

The opening sessions established an atmosphere that was relaxed and informal, making full use of the post-industrial venue’s spaces, without disrespecting the music in any way. A food truck dispensed sustenance between sessions and a “Parlour” hosted conversations away from the performances, while the programme alternated between two areas, permitting a seamless flow of sounds, even if the planned schedule very swiftly began to slip.

The Hebrides Ensemble took The Night With … into new areas, and not solely because the quintet featured a concert grand, played by James Willshire. Cellist Will Conway’s ensemble, completed by violinist David Alberman, flautist Emma Roche and Yann Ghiro on clarinet, represents an older generation of players, and that was paralleled in some of the music they chose, from more established names than have been the regular fare at Whiteside’s events.

The oldest piece was Seven Pierrot Miniatures by Helen Grime, a Hebrides commission from 2010 which references Schoenberg in its structure and in some of its sound but makes complete sense in its own terms – sonically theatrical, especially in the exchanges between the top line instruments.

That sense of drama was also present in the world premiere of the Ensemble’s set, Rylan Gleave’s Leave John, take Michael, its possibly punning title also suggestive of liturgical choral work. If the quintet’s sound was sometimes hymn-like, it was at a distance, with percussive use of the piano and abrupt changes of dynamics and tonality. Most startling of all were the most conventional moments – a straightforward popular song-style modulation and a quaintly resolved final chord.

David Fennessy’s duo for violin and cello, Changeless and the changed, while beautifully played, perhaps sat rather oddly in the middle of a programme which was framed by two more quintets. It opened with Mingdu Li’s Superposition and Measurement, a quantum physics-inspired piece by the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Masters student that was premiered at the conservatoire’s 175th birthday celebrations last year, and closed with Stuart MacRae’s lockdown composition from 2020, Ursa Minor. It probably presented the group at its most integrated and was, in its pictorial and atmospheric way, the ideal work with which to end.

The festival had begun by referring back to previous incarnations of The Night With … through a set by virtuoso violist Garth Knox that included pieces he played in 2019 at Glasgow’s Hug and Pint, by RCS composition student Nora Marazaite and self-composed. The second of his Entropies, entitled Pluie, was precisely titled not just in its sound but in its effect on the weather at the food truck, while his closing duet with fellow viola player Ruth Gibson, Still Points, repurposed the familiar “Theme by Thomas Tallis” that Vaughan Williams used to distinctive effect, much as Knox’s Microtonal Blues had earlier radically revised Muddy Waters.

But, perhaps surprisingly, its was the work of two dead composers that will be remain in the memory from Knox’s festival-opening gambit. The Prologue to Gerard Grisey’s Les espaces acoustiques was specifically requested by Whiteside for its exploratory meaning as the event’s first utterance. Kaija Saariaho’s exquisite Vent nocturne (Night Wind), was composed for and dedicated to the viola-player by the Finnish composer, who died in June this year, and he played it in her memory.

Keith Bruce

Scots to the fore at The Ivors

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The annual Ivors Composer Awards will be announced on December 1 and the recently announced shortlist reveals the health of the Scottish scene across the musical spectrum.

Nominations in the Community and Participation category include Judith Weir for The Big Picture, which celebrated the re-opening of Aberdeen Art Gallery at Sound Festival, and Bute-born educator Paul Rissmann for the multi-faceted What Do You Do With An Idea?. Stuart MacRae’s  Prometheus Symphony, co-commissioned by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra as the culmination of his work as the Lammermuir Festival’s composer-in-association, is among the five works in the Chamber Orchestral category, alongside Hover by long-time Scottish resident Sally Beamish.

The other three works with Scottish roots are by composers nominated for an Ivor for the first time. Timothy Cooper’s “ . . . Shadows that in darkness dwell . . .” was commissioned by Matthew Whiteside’s contemporary chamber music initiative The Night With . . . and features on its first album, Live Vol One, performed by the group formed to do that, Ensemble 1604.

Aberdeenshire’s Claire M Singer is a composer putting the organ back at the heart of contemporary music, including partnerships with post-rock groups Low and Stars of the Lid. Her work for organ, strings and horns, Gleann Ciuin, in nominated in the Large Chamber category. Completing the line-up is bassist Calum Gourlay, from Glasgow, whose New Ears Suite, recorded with saxophonist Helena Kay, trombonist Kieran McLeod and drummer James Maddren is in the Jazz Composition for Small Ensemble category.

www.ivorsacademy.com

Image: Composer Claire M Singer

Nevis Carol Competition

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In the same season as BBC Radio3 has dumbed-down its annual carol-composition competition to a simple melody-line task (“you can just sing it into your phone” as presenters have been encouraged to exhort listeners), Scotland’s path-making Nevis Ensemble has announced its own two-strand commissioning initiative for new songs that will be broadcast over the festive period.

The first is open to young composers under the age of 18 living in Scotland and the selected young person will be mentored by top Scots composer Stuart MacRae to write a new work setting a text in Scots. The results of that will be seen on Christmas Day.

The second is open to submissions of an existing score by composers anywhere in the world, with the winner receiving a £1000 commission to set a new Scots text for voice and orchestra, which will be recorded by mezzo Andrea Baker and the Nevis Ensemble.

Baker has just been named as the orchestra’s second Ambassador, alongside trumpeter John Wallace. She toured to 20 community venues with the Ensemble in December 2019, an experience which she says “brought me back to why I became a singer, the capacity of live music to bring people together through a shared experience”.

Full details on how to apply for the carol competitions are on the Nevis Ensemble website, and the closing date for entries is Tuesday November 10.

Image: Andrea Baker © John Need