Earth Thy Cold Is Keen
St Mary's Church, Whitekirk; 4/9/25, 3:00 pm
Lotte Betts-Dean (mezzo-soprano), Stuart MacRae (director/harmonium), Sequoia [Alice Rickards (violin) & Sonia Cromarty (cello)]
Scottish composer Stuart MacRae’s music first came to my attention via Scottish Opera’s production of his opera ‘Anthropocene’ a few years ago, which blew me away. This second report from the first day of the Lammermuir Festival comes from Whitekirk’s beautiful newly-reopened medieval church, where an afternoon recital of his songs was given Australian mezzo Lotte Betts-Dean, accompanied by the composer on the harmonium and the string duo Sequoia, comprising Australian violinist Alice Rickards and Scottish cellist Sonia Cromarty. The title of the program, ‘Earth Thy Cold Is Keen’, is a Christina Rossetti setting which opened the programme, which closely followed a CD album by the same performers, mostly consisting of songs written with Lotte in mind. The harmonium played by Stuart was formerly his grandmother’s and had been specially transported to Whitekirk for the recital. A recurring theme was the uneasy relationship between man and nature.
Dense polytonal chords on the harmonium contrasted with skilful hocketing and folk-like ornamentation in the vocal line in the opening number, setting Rosetti’s poem ‘Advent’. It was immediately clear why Lotte’s vocal prowess had guided Stuart’s creativity, crafting a rather Sibelian dichotomous view of a beautiful but deadly environment. A phenomenal sound world. The sea as giver and taker of life was the backdrop of the string duo instrumental ‘the ebb’ which followed, ‘Earth ever green the ways’ was a vocal solo, the English text adapted by Stuart from kennings in the Norse ‘Edda’. An extraordinary assortment of vocal techniques with contrasts of timbres, registers, resonances, dynamics, breathing and vibrato gave individual character to the facets of nature as they were mentioned. A second, even more conflicted and sepulchral, Rossetti setting concluded the set with string duo and voice in ‘O Earth, lie heavily’.
Three songs, an instrumental and an atmospheric vocalise montage comprised the next set. Two anonymous medieval poems in Middle English opened, the melodies very lovely with a medieval vibe (despite the morose message of “life is hard”), the lyrics delivered with exquisite clarity of diction. ‘The Lif of this World’ bore ornamentation not unlike Irish sean-nós. ‘Stond wel, Moder, under rode’ was a ‘Stabat Mater’ cast as a dialogue. between the crucified Christ and his mother. Very lovely. In ‘wodwo’, an improvised vocalise was combined with recordings of birdsong electronically transformed to be almost whale-like, while very low notes on the harmonium completed the spooky but enchanting illusion of a chimeral primeval creature, menacing yet fascinating. Scots Gaelic in the form of a setting of a Skye folksong ‘Chaidh mo Dhonnachadh ‘na bheinn’ told a tale of a beloved Duncan whose young life was not spared by the unforgiving mountains. Fabulously evocative string writing and playing closed the set in ‘Haroldswick’, a set of variations on a Strathspey-like original melody by Stuart, inspired by the wild northernmost point of the Shetland Islands.
Excerpts from Emily Brontë’s poem ‘The Prisoner’ provided the text of the final set. The ‘Prologue’, a dramatic vocal solo over chords, painted a picture of a young woman imprisoned and tortured, but defiant, as her imminent death will release her soul from its captivity in her broken but still beautiful body. In the extended central section, ‘The Prisoner’, the solo voice in the first person articulated the visions that console her with the promise of eternal life. Spellbinding vocal technique gave this an amazing directness and immediacy. In the ‘Epilogue’, strings and harmonium in a major mode conveyed a consolatory message vindicating the prisoner freed by death. A super piece, concluding a captivating recital.