Duo have understanding to be great
Jenna Reid & Kevin Mackenzie
Edinburgh Folk Club
Rob Adams
THE great duos in traditional music – Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill, Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas, to name but two – have a special understanding. It might materialise in a spark that one can ignite in the other or an understated accompaniment that makes a melody really sing. And there was something of both of the aforementioned in Shetland fiddler Jenna Reid’s playing here with that marvellous guitarist, Kevin Mackenzie.
Mackenzie often underplays to let Reid’s exuberance and passionate expression of a slow air shine, at which times he is the Cahill to her Hayes, but he can also, and with apparent effortlessness, match her on the hair-pin bends of James Scott Skinner’s most devilish creations and on the hornpipe Princess Beatrice he produced some wonderful Peerie Willie Johnson-esque swinging cheek to lift an already fizzing fiddle demonstration into another exhilarating gear.
Reid’s value as a performer lies in the fact that she isn’t just playing the notes, be they many or more sparing. She knows their providence and her modestly phrased revelations that the composer of a tune was the guy who taught the guy who taught her somehow enrich what happens when bow touches string. She also brings her own personality to everything she plays, so a Cape Breton march or a Donegal reel will emerge with a marked Shetland accent and the unfettered vigour that gives her strathspeys such bounce will contrast with the sweet soulful longing she expresses on her mentor, Willie Hunter’s Leaving Lerwick Harbour and the dignified sincerity with which she delivers Niel Gow’s beautiful lament for his second wife.
Texas
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
Marianne Gunn
“IT’S going to get dirty tonight,” announced Sharleen Spiteri in a wicked promise that just about summed up the numerous expletives she would use over the course of the evening. The Bellshill-born lead singer had entered rather nonchalantly, dressed in much more casual attire than her 1990s heyday. Playing down the glamour meant the focus was all on her vocals and they certainly did not disappoint. Texas are celebrating more than 25 years in music and this gig was the filling in an impressive Glasgow musical sandwich: the band just played an intimate gig at King Tut’s and, in December, will rock the SSE Hydro. Pension plans must be afoot.
Spiteri, now a 47-year-old mother, has always been the heart of Texas, so where the gig fell down a little was in removing the focus from her and their impressive back catalogue. One of the band (Michael Bannister on keyboards) was celebrating his birthday and there were a few too many in-jokes flying around the stage at one point. The audience participation was partially ill-fated too: inviting the campest man in the Concert Hall up on stage is only ever going to end with the Zumba-style dance moves pulling focus from what the customer wants to see.
But as well as praising the banter of the crowd, Spiteri was on fine vocal form with I Don’t Want A Lover, Inner Smile, Halo and Say What You Want providing the warmest nostalgic moments. Texas play the SSE Hydro on Friday December 18.
BBCSSO/Collins
Kate Molleson
City Halls, Glasgow
ON June 8 it will be 50 years since the death of Erik Chisholm – pianist, organist, conductor, concert promoter, musicologist, educator, Scotland’s greatest 20th century composer and a name too rarely heard, even on these shores. The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra is doing its bit for Chisholm’s weirdly neglected legacy: it programmed the Second Piano Concerto last year and now the Violin Concerto, with Michael Collins conducting and Matthew Trusler as eloquent soloist.
Written in 1950 when Chisholm had left Scotland to become head of music at the University of Cape Town, this four-movement, 25 minute score is a searing, mystical, restless, beguilingly atmospheric kind of work. It begins uneasy and searching, lines spinning out from wan cellos and basses before the solo violin takes up a lean, silvery theme. Later, a meandering cadenza deals in the staccato rhythms of an Indian raga. Trusler delivered the solo part with gusto and lyricism, and I’d love to hear the BBCSSO really let loose on the bolder passages in the way this orchestra does with music it knows well.
The rest of the programme paid tribute to Chisholm the concert promoter, opening with the long ballet music from Mozart’s Idomeneo and closing with Bartok’s Second Suite (Chisholm befriended Bartok and invited him to perform in Glasgow twice). Collins, a clarinetist-turnedconductor, brought a beautiful bloom to melodies but paid less attention to details like tidy chords or strong accompaniments.