Festival Music
Catriona Morison
Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh
Keith Bruce
****
BEFORE her debut EIF recital in her home town, mezzo Catriona Morison apparently confessed to nervousness as it was also her first live broadcast on BBC Radio 3 - at which point her accompanist Simon Lepper reminded her that the Cardiff Singer of the Year competition had also been transmitted to a grateful nation. She won that, of course, and there was never any doubt about the result at the Queen’s Hall either, with standing-room only and printed programmes at a premium.
Having spent the bulk of her career in Germany, it was little surprise that most of her recital was of German lieder, with Korngold’s switch to English for the last two of the five he published in 1948 responsible for the exceptions. They interestingly paralleled the Schumann five that had ended the first half, supposedly setting words by Mary Queen of Scots, as one is a patriotic battle-cry in support of her rival, Elizabeth 1, and the other Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 to his Mistress’ Eyes, echoing the verse form of two of those attributed, dubiously, to Mary.
Morison opened with ten selections from the love-lorn Brahms, and if that nervousness was detectable at the start it was dispatched during the pictorial Madchenlied, where the expression in her voice was matched by the animation in her face. The latent power in her well-tempered mezzo was starting to be heard in the two that followed, and Therese proved she could do teasing and coy as well.
Mahler’s Ruckert Songs are the sort of repertoire by which mezzos are measured, and on those it was apparent that she is not yet at her voice’s maturity although undoubtedly in possession of a very fine instrument. Lepper was a little forceful on the second of them, and while her ease with the language gave the next a fine conversational tone, the climactic Um Mitternacht was rather strident and perhaps, in its slang sense, “Germanic”.
At one time her encore rendering of Ye Banks and Braes would have made her a regular on Saturday evening variety TV; her old-fashioned take on it was, of course, cheered to the echo.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel