Reviews
MUSIC
Nashville Live
Hydro, Glasgow
JJJ
AS IF REAL life country music isn’t already enough of a soap opera, the hit show Nashville has dramatised the lives, loves and machinations of an intersecting bunch of fictional musicians in the titular city across six seasons, becoming a lucrative franchise along the way – not least for the actormusicians and the actual Nashville songwriters who contribute to the show’s very convincing soundtrack, in some cases bettering the output of genuine contemporary country stars.
This slick, no-nonsense farewell concert celebration kicked off with the touring cast members – rugged Charles Esten, sensitive Sam Palladio, hunky Chris Carmack, indie rocker Jonathan Jackson and pixie-ish Clare Bowen – joining in one by one on a typically tuneful if bland curtain-raiser.
Camaraderie established, the stars and backing band of seasoned sessioneers roamed around the country subgenres but never far from the middle of the road. Carmack and Palladio made good on their onscreen bromance with some pop-inflected fare but laid on the tremolo effects for a more rocking Going Electric.
The infectious Bowen was fond of a foray into the crowd but at her best replicating her onscreen chemistry with Palladio on sonorous slow waltz Fade Into You.
Everyone fell for the gritty charm of unofficial MC Esten who led the touching closing singalong Life That’s Good, but it was self-confessed Simple Minds fan Jackson who took the vocal honours of the night with a soaring rendition of Unchained Melody, which was more Radiohead than Righteous Brothers.
FIONA SHEPHERD
MUSIC Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh
JJJJ
THERE’S always a bouncy exuberance in the SCO’S step when conductor Richard Egarr comes to town and this concert was no exception. The opening salvo of chords in Haydn’s Symphony No 93 grabbed the attention from the get-go, paving the way for the whimsical allegro. Egarr doesn’t miss a trick when it comes to Haydn’s hijinks especially in the waltz-like allegro with the trumpets injecting rapid-fire flashes of subversive brilliance.
Stepping out from behind his principal’s desk, Philip Higham took centre stage in CPE Bach’s Cello Concerto in A minor. The two outer movements were full of dynamic, but excessively repeated, rhythmical statements played by the small string ensemble with Egarr on harpsichord. They framed the virtuoso cello passages – Higham’s fingers scurrying up and down the fingerboard – which brought some much needed sparkle. Higham is a fine cellist but his understated performance, while full of tonal warmth, would have benefited from a bit more soloistic oomph. His encore, of Jean-louis Duport’s gently pulsing Etude was gorgeous.
The air was electrically charged as Egarr and the SCO romped through Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony with an impressive crispness and precision. After the magisterial opening, sighing strings whipped up a storm, occasionally interrupted by calming woodwind chorales. In the scherzo the plangent tones of the clarinet passed the tune, Charlie is my darling, around the other woodwinds. A crooning duet between the bassoon and clarinet gave everyone a breather before the orchestra, firing on all cylinders, launched into the rousing, march-like finale.
SUSAN NICKALLS
MUSIC BBC SSO, Laura Samuel & Claire Booth
City Halls, Glasgow
JJJJ
EVERYONE might be able to sing along to it, but it’s not often that Mozart’s bubbling Eine kleine Nachtmusik actually gets an airing in concert. It made the ideal launchpad, however, for the slimmeddown BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s conductor-less performance, directed from the leader’s chair by Laura Samuel – fresh, breezy, sparklingly detailed and full of impetuous energy.
There was more Mozart to complete the cleverly puttogether programme – an extrovert, expansive Jupiter Symphony, for which the ensemble bulked up with additional strings and wind. It could perhaps have done with a slightly rawer edge and sharper bite at times, but it was thoroughly persuasive nonetheless, its topsy-turvy slow movement restless and strongly characterised, and the players letting rip in a joyfully precipitous but tightly controlled finale.
In between came two English works – both sharing Mozart’s directness and clarity, but providing striking contrast nonetheless. Samuel and the BBCSSO players lovingly sculpted Bridge’s melancholy Three Idylls with sensuous give and take, and a laser-like sense of focus that brought the miniatures’ storytelling to the fore.
But it was in a spine-tingling account of Les illuminations
by Bridge’s pupil Benjamin Britten that the players, joined by soprano Claire Booth, came into their own. Booth gave a radiant, rapturous, wonderfully nuanced performance, adjusting her sound from piercing purity through to luscious richness to respond to Rimbaud’s hallucinatory texts – and there was always a delicious sense of danger behind her unsettling declamations. The BBC SSO players delivered exceptionally vivid accounts of Britten’s colourful string writing under Samuel’s unforced direction. It was an engrossing, inspiring concert – and one that gets a repeat airing in His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen, tomorrow afternoon.
DAVID KETTLE
MUSIC
Gary Barlow
Playhouse, Edinburgh
JJJ
ALTHOUGH Gary Barlow’s sporadic solo recording career has taken a backseat in favour of keeping the Take That juggernaut (now down to three members but still going strong) rolling as long as possible, he’s proving to be a master of cultivating what’s known in the age of social media as his “personal brand”. From stints as a television talent judge on X-factor and Let it Shine to – as he noted here – leading his usual band in playing Rule the World at Buckingham Palace and the Olympics, he’s been making a concerted play
in recent years for “national treasure” status.
Indeed, it’s a measure of how well thought of he is across the generations that he can fill two nights at the Playhouse and further dates in Perth and Dundee, and it still seems like an intimate show. A four-piece band plus a three-piece brass section and two backing singers may have seemed extravagant by other standards, but to Barlow this was a club show.
What’s most interesting to note is how little showmanship Barlow employed when onstage on his own. Of course, he turned out dance moves here and there – how could he not during Relight My Fire? – but he seemed happiest behind his piano, firmly playing up the image of the singer- songwriter over the pop star, whether he was playing Shine or a lounge version of Could It Be Magic?, or adapting others to his style with Stormzy’s Blinded By Your Grace Part 2 and a teasing snippet of Robbie Williams’ Angels. It was a safe setlist, thin on his solo songs (Open Road, Forever Love and Love Won’t Wait all appeared) and heavy on Take That’s, but it managed to give the audience what they wanted and offer something different all at once.
DAVID POLLOCK