Ensemble’s Concert by Candlelight was world class

The guest artists entertained by the Scottish Ensemble over the years are wide-ranging, from brass to string and woodwind. And, on the odd occasion, voice. While it might be 99% instrumental, the other 1% can be a telling minority as the guests in the ensemble’s current tour prove. Robert Hollingworth’s I Fagiolini are the vocal equivalents of Jonathan Morton’s players, a small group of world-class quality.

Once again the programme for this Caird Hall Concert by Candlelight was choice. It was wellbalanced between voice and string, with a wide-ranging spectrum of music delivered with consummate ease and blistering quality.

If I had one small criticism, it would be through Caresana’s La Tarentella, a comic-cantata loosely based on the nativity. The gist of it was there, but some guidance in translation would have made for a more exciting performance.

Caresana was just one of a series of new names to come to terms with. The 17th Century Anthony Holborne was one as was the new-age Edmund Finnis, whose Verbo Domini had a wonderful quasi-baroque trait to it.

Perhaps the real and underlying success of this collaboration were the 16 individual items that made up the programme. Some might call it “bitty” but I’d rather choose the expression “cleverly conceived”. Some were short, some were from either ensemble on their own while some were full company.

James Woollrich’s Ulysses Awakes, with stunning solo viola from Jane Atkins, was a belter, as were two sections of Arvo Part’s Berliner Messe. I thought the Peter Warlock/Holborne foursome was another winner, renaissance music allied with a modern-day take on it.

The concert finished with Winter Chorale, by Adrian Williams. Heavily influenced by JS Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, it fused vocalists and instrumentalists in a wonderful combination of sound and colour.