Scottish Ensemble & Brìghde Chaimbeul, EIF music review: 'beguiling'
An exciting cross-genre collaboration between the Scottish Ensemble and Gaelic musician Brìghde Chaimbeul is the sort of thing EIF does brilliantly, writes Susan Nickalls – and the surprise inclusion of some Philip Glass was a treat too
Scottish Ensemble & Brìghde Chaimbeul ★ ★ ★ ★
Queen’s Hall
This exciting cross-genre collaboration between the Scottish Ensemble, one of the most musically adventurous in Scotland, and the fascinating and beguiling Celtic musician Brìghde Chaimbeul, is the type of commission that the festival does so brilliantly.
The event started with a Gaelic poem read by Chaimbeul, its dream-like quality setting the tone for the first part, Into Her Dark Boundaries. It started off with the double bass providing a drone that was then built on with glacial slowness, like the centuries of tradition, with other instruments slowly joining in. There was a hypnotic quality to the slow motion nature of the music and the haunting tale overlaid, Spòg Liath (the grey paw).
It tells the story of a brave tailor who goes to the church at night to sew a pair of trousers and confront a ghost. As it emerges bit by bit towards him, he flees, “cutting the grass with his haunches.”
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The mellow and evocative strains of Chaimbeul on the Scottish smallpipes was at the centre of A Beak of Light, where the long-held string notes morphed into incremental microtones and then strident chords surrounding the melody on the smallpipes. The focus of the Scottish Ensemble, led by Jonathan Morton, was intense and there was a lyrical passage between violist Jane Atkins and Chaimbeul. This absorbing soundworld was further enhanced by images of moonlight on water, swaying trees, and silhouettes of the musicians playing – part of the beguiling visual narrative for the event created by Jonny Ashworth.
Chaimbeul’s ‘surprise’ at the end, was a performance of Music in Similar Motion by Philip Glass. It had a similar ambience to the music beforehand, bringing in the string sections gradually and the tight-knit repetitive structure was mirrored in Ashworth’s busy images of what looked like dancing strands of DNA.
The Scottish Ensemble and Brìghde Chaimbeul also play Eden Court, Inverness, 15 October, and Dundee Rep, 16 October.
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