EIF 26:Scottish Ensemble & Brìghde Chaimbeul
Queen’s Hall Edinburgh 23/8/26
Scottish Ensemble, Brìghde Chaimbeul (smallpipes)
The darkened Queen’s Hall on the night of 23rd August was the venue for an audio-visual “happening”, featuring smallpipes player Brìghde Chaimbeul in collaboration with the ever-adventurous Scottish Ensemble, and filmmaker Jonny Ashworth. Mostly through a minimalist prism, elements of Celtic music and mythology were explored, while monochrome moving visuals projected an added perspective. Attendance was very satisfactory and there was a buzz in the hall. Before the performance proper started, a darkly evocative projection of a slow moonrise over water set a nocturnal mood and slowed pulses in preparation for slowly evolving musical landscape, possibly both linking to and contrasting with Brìghde Chaimbeul’s recent successful album ‘Sunwise’.
As a fluent speaker of Irish and a lover of seanchas (lore), the ghost story that opened reminded me of many I have heard over the years. A tailor rashly defying warnings and spending the night working in the graveyard of a haunted church, only to have his bravado dented by a menacing and gradually self-exhuming corpse, and lucky to escape with his life, is an old tale and a good one. It was narrated through loudspeakers with surtitled captioning on the screen, with the reported speech in Gaelic both captioned and translated to English. The music emerged from a deep sepulchral drone on double basses (I think eventually shadowed by synthesiser). As the dynamic slowly and almost imperceptibly increased, cellos, violas, 2nd and 1st violins joined, building a chord. At peak volume, staggered full bowing enabled a wall of sound. Gradual microtonal shifts lent the sound an eeriness and malaise, eventually re-establishing consonance on a new chord. The sound wall was then gradually dismantled in reverse, returning to the pianissimo drone from which it had grown. The moving visuals comprised silhouettes of the players playing, as the perspective gradually shifted.
The second part was less austere. Repeated rocking figures in the strings underwent gradual minimalistic transformations, joined by a drone on the pipes. Fragments of Gaelic ‘Airs’ emerged in solos from cello (Naomi Pavri), viola (Jane Atkins) and second violin (Donald Grant), eventually gelling to a tutti sound with the pipes. The visuals were features of nocturnal moonlit highland and island landscapes. A spirited strathspey launched with the pulse of a waulking song, its visuals (I thought) showing cloth being waulked in silhouette. The rhythm became increasingly insistent and violent, culminating in tutti detached coups d’archets like hammerblows. Later there was a passage of rapid fragmented randomised playing whose quality was phenomenal.
My father hated minimalism. The mere mention of the name “Steve Reich” triggered a tirade of invective. He was bewildered by my being casetivated by the music of Philip Glass. I never shared his antipathy, but nor can I issue carte blanche. Minimalism can sometimes wear a bit thin. I was delighted to experience this event as the complete art work performed with consummate artistry that it was, and that the enthusiastic audience clearly appreciated. But I am not sure that I would leap at the chance to experience it again. Maybe. Certainly the second part grabbed me more than the first.
As a wee extra, the company performed Philip Glass’ 1969 piece ‘Music in Similar Motion’. It’s not my favourite Glass piece, but it was skilfully rendered.