Music review: Aly Bain & Phil Cunningham: 25th Anniversary Tour

As accordionist Phil Cunningham recounted, in one of the many comic anecdotes which, as ever, peppered his double-act with Shetland fiddler Aly Bain, he once caused distinct consternation among a Speyside audience by referring to the two of them as a couple, rather than a duo. Rumours of their coming-out may thus have been wholly exaggerated, but with this year’s two-month, Scotland-wide tour marking a full quarter-century of their musical partnership, analogies with an old married pair – mutual familiarity, affection and occasional bickering – didn’t seem entirely misplaced.

The show was very much business as usual – although Cunningham won extra sympathy/heroism points for playing with a badly broken pinkie, sustained when Bain accidentally slammed a car door on it – and “usual”, in the case of these two icons, is an exceptionally high standard. The combination of Bain’s implacably forceful yet ultra-fluid bowing and singularly vibrant intensity of tone with Cunningham’s extraordinarily fleet fingerwork, silky harmonic facility and compositional lyricism continues to set contemporary standards for this Scottish instrumental pairing, as does the precision with which they articulated every note, even despite the creeping acceleration that lent a needless sense of hurry to some numbers. And if there was sometimes a hint of autopilot about the faster sets, it was mitigated by the vividness of focus and compelling depth of feeling that distinguished the slow airs.