James McIntyre and Ross Morris
Paxton House 7/6/26
James McIntyre tenor and Ross Morris guitar
Music at Paxton in association with Live Music Now Scotland
This afternoon's concert at Paxton House is part of the preliminary series of concerts before the Music at Paxton festival in late July. There's a good-sized audience for tenor James McIntyre and guitarist Ross Morris in a programme of classical and folk songs, many of them in their own arrangements. The Irish/Scots 'Wild Mountain Thyme' is the opener, given an extra flourish by James's splendid high notes in the last verse. Ross plays acoustic guiitar. but in the selection from Dowland uses it to mimic the lute to excellent effect, firstly in his solo 'Prelude' and then in the accompaniment to three secular songs, which follow the path of love - smooth, woeful and "a bit cheeky". The rapid 'What if I never speed' is followed by my favourite of the three, the slow enraptured 'I saw my lady weep', finishing with the more folk-like 'Fine knacks for ladies'.
The last time I heard James and Ross, in an Emerging Artists Concert at the Usher Hall, I was impressed by their Schubert arrangements, for which they adapted the piano accompaniment to suit the guitar. Today's three songs show similar talents, with their first song, the heart-felt 'The Harp-player' appropriately providing rippling and plucking effects which suit the guitar part. In 'To Music', the guitar faithfully replicates the piano's echo of the beautiful sung melody.
This afternoon's find is Fernando Sor (1778-1839) the Barcelona-born composer for the guitar, who also wrote song, opera and ballet music. His favourite guitars were made by a French maker, M.Lacote – examples of his work are in the collection at St Cecilia's Hall. Ross and James play five songs, Ross relishing their opportunities for bravura classical playing, while James enjoys the drama of these operatic style arias, The third song is the comic 'Muchacha, y la verguenza' in which a greedy young woman blames the cockroach for eating the food she's had a sly bite of, until she's reminded that cockroaches don't have teeth!
Then, on his fourth language of the day, James gives impeccably smooth accounts of four songs by Faure, perfect showcases for his legato technique. They're preceded by Ross's solo Debussy, his celebration of the girl with the flaxen hair. We return to folk songs for the final set. After 'Master Kilby', one of Britten's more cheerful ballads, James shows his expertise in Scots in 'Ca' the Yows'. The popular encore is Danny Boy. This has been an excellent ‘taster’ for the main festival, and much appreciated by today’s audience.
Music at Paxton are providing two further pre-festival concerts. These family events, "suitable for ages 3 to 103", are given by Mairi McGillivray (voice and fiddle) and Katie Allan (guitar and fiddle) in The Maltings at Hide Hill, Berwick at 12 noon and 2pm on Sunday 21st June (tickets £8/£5 and free for under 12s from maltingsberwick.com)
