A perfect soundscape for autumn
Concerts in Crieff excellence from duo Amy and Daniel
Amy Strachan and Daniel Silcock entertained Strathearn Music Society during a recent performance in Crieff.
Soprano Amy and pianist Daniel are both former pupils of Peterhead Academy, where they made music together during their school days.
Reunited on the professional concert platform, they plainly still share a relaxed and affectionate rapport with each other as well as a close affinity for the music of their native land.
Performing on October 18 as part of Strathearn Music Society’s Concerts in Crieff series, they presented a programme in which refined French nuance and the lush Late Romantic colours of Richard Strauss framed a diverse selection of Scottish folk song arrangements.
A couple of Joseph Canteloube’s ‘Songs of the Auvergne’ set the gentle opening atmosphere, along with a Debussy Prelude, leading into the same composer’s ‘Ariettes Oubliées’ which formed the main substance of the first half.
The words of Paul Verlaine, which provided Debussy with his half-dozen texts, seem to be inspired by nostalgically- coloured recollections of his early life – his was almost a caricature of the archetypal Bohemian existence, slowly spiralling into conflict, imprisonment and addiction to drugs and alcohol.
However, both poet and composer produced work of sensuous and original character out of an apparently decadent fin-de-siècle personal experience, which Strachan and Silcock interpreted with empathy and skill.
The titles of the opening two songs – ‘This
They plainly still share a relaxed and affectionate rapport with each other as well as a close affinity for the music of their native land
Languorous Ecstasy’ and ‘It Rains in my Heart’ – aptly summed up the mood of the set.
On either side of the concert interval a group of familiar Scots and Hebridean songs served to dispel the introspective and – dare one say it – almost decadent feeling inherent in Verlaine’s suggestive verse.
A variety of arrangers, from Marjorie Kennedy Fraser and the lesser-known Lady John Scott and Helen Hopekirk to Daniel Silcock himself, were showcased, along with an entirely original new tune to ‘My Heart is Like a Red, Red Rose’ by the American composer Amy Beach.
All individual, beautiful and beautifully sung, they cleared the air for the ‘Four Last Songs’ of Richard Strauss which closed the evening.
These, the composer’s final completed works and long- regarded as a perfect expression of calm acceptance at the end of life, received a rapt and glowing performance from two musicians clearly attuned to their deep autumnal colours.
The next Strathearn Music Society concert is from 7.30pm on Wednesday, November 15, in Crieff’s St Andrew’s Halls.
It will feature a performance by pianist Jia Ning Ng.