Review Details
MUSIC IN THE UNIVERSITY In association with ABERDEEN MUSICAL SOCIETY MUSIC FOR St. CECILIA
Alan Cooper
24 November 2009
King's College Chapel
The fourth annual “Music for St Cecilia” attracted another absolute capacity audience to King’s College Chapel. The concert was once again given courtesy of the revived Aberdeen Music Society. Dr Roger Williams dashed here there and everywhere, directing, accompanying, giving solo performances on harpsichord and organ and leading the splendid chamber ensemble, mostly students, that performed music by Bach and of course Corelli. The constitution of the original Society stipulated that their concerts should always include at least one work by Corelli and in keeping with that tradition this year’s choice was the Concerto Grosso in F op.6 no.2. It was a delicious pick n’ mix of a piece by which I mean that there were so many different tempi, forms and musical textures that there must have been something special in it for every member of the audience. My favourites were the glorious fugal allegro, giving as the programme note stated a foretaste of Handel and the joyous finale.
This was followed, again according to tradition, by music with local connections, including a set of Dances which Roger Williams and Nathalie Vanballenberghe had restored to performing condition from rough scoring preserved on the back of sheets of madrigals by Arcadelt. As Dr Williams suggested these pieces could have been written out in haste in a tavern during some early performance. The manuscript is held in Aberdeen University Library Special Collections, hence the local connection.
It was the jaunty, jerky early music dance rhythms that came through best in these harpsichord versions. The French would use the adjective “saccadé” which avoids any sense of the pejorative that the English “jerky” might suggest. Later on in the concert Dr Williams played four more dances from the same collection but this time on the Aubertin Organ. I preferred the marvellous sense of colour that these dances gained on this instrument.
The Aubertin was also one of the stars along with Kay Ritchie’s magic flute providing a perfectly sensitive accompaniment to her splendid flights of fancy in Francis Peacock’s set of variations on an old Scots tune, The Lass of Paty’s Mill. Francis Peacock arrived in Aberdeen as a dancing master in 1744 and his name is still remembered in Peacock’s Close and Peacock Visual Arts near St. Andrew’s Cathedral.
Also from Aberdeen University Library and with a connection to Duff House in Banff, now a reputed concert venue came two songs Lochaber No More and The Birks of Endermay sung with great clarity, confidence and power by Thomas Henderson with harpsichord accompaniment. Thomas gave us a fine smooth-flowing account of the ornate melodic lines of these songs. With a plainer melody and lots more beef Thomas, with Roger Williams on piano this time, gave us Nelson of the Nile, a patriotic song with somehow the merest hint of “the last night of the proms” about it. The music was by the Newcastle-born composer John Ross who for many years was organist at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church which used to stand in the Gallowgate.
Rebecca Queen with harpsichord and violin obligato played by Nathalie Vanballenberghe gifted her clear shining soprano to The Lover’s Message by Thomas Erskine, slightly better known as the Earl of Kellie.
Last year, the highlight of the concert was a performance of Bach’s Third Brandenburg Concerto and this year it was The Fourth Brandenburg with David J. Smith and Ed Friday on recorders giving the work its essential flavour. And there was a fabulous performance from lead violinist Nathalie Vanballenberghe. I wonder if she still has her violin. It sounded as if it had burst into flames in the outer movements. As Roger Williams told us, the original Aberdeen Musical Society probably did not know the music of Bach, but if they had, they would almost certainly have played it and it did send the whole audience out into the night “on a high”.