Gig review: Four Corners, Glen Urquhart Hall, Drumnadrochit

IT WAS a mixture of old and new for this ambitious project featuring Mr McFall’s Chamber and four of our best-known folk musicians.

Aidan O’Rourke, Corrina Hewitt, Fraser Fifield and James Ross were all commissioned to write new pieces inspired by their home areas for string quintet and their own instruments (fiddle, harp, pipes and whistle and piano respectively).

They began with performances of four existing pieces, at least two of which were already in the McFall’s repertoire, Fifield’s Kilchoan Ferry and O’Rourke’s Bridge. Hewitt’s Making the Connection and Ross’s Lament from his longer work, Chasing The Sun completed the first half.

Fifield’s Playground Tales evoked his upbringing on an Aberdeen estate in vivid fashion, opening and closing with an allusion to Gaelic salm singing. Hewitt grew up on The Black Isle, and her eponymous piece took us on a colourful journey around several significant locations from her childhood.

Wick-born Ross revealed a pleasing sense of structure and flow in his own portrait of Flow Country, while O’Rourke took the cacophony of ship’s horns at Hogmanay in Oban Bay as the starting point for an energised celebration of New Year’s Day in Horns in the Little Bay.

All of the composers rose to the challenge of writing for the classical quintet in sophisticated style, and it will only need an additional performance or two for the musicians to have it all fully under their fingers.

Rating: ***