Festival Music

Had We Never

Scottish National Portrait Gallery

Hazel Rowland

three stars

PUTTING on an event in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery’s Great Hall must have seemed like a good idea. Not only is the room beautiful, its limited capacity creates an intimate atmosphere. Yet its layout caused problems with Douglas Gordon’s installation, Black Burns, dividing audience and performers, creating a distance difficult to communicate across.

This proved problematic for a concert that centred around the poetry of Robert Burns, where grasping the words is paramount. Countertenor David James opened from the balcony singing he Slave’s Lament. Being unable to see where his voice was coming from produced a haunting effect, but it was also difficult to distinguish his words. Perhaps Brian Bannatyne-Scott’s wonderfully resonant voice made him more adept at projecting to the audience in Ae fond kiss, yet the programme notes did not display the Russian words next to their English translation for Shostakovich’s settings of two poems by Burns (which had been translated into Russian for his setting). Without the Russian, we could not follow precisely what Bannatyne-Scott was singing, though his rich low notes remained a treat nonetheless.

The three members of the Scottish Ensemble had more success in communicating to the audience when they joined reggae singer Ghetto Priest for Sally Beamish’s new version of The Slave’s Lament. Although Beamish writes simple, long-held notes, they were completely enrapturing. Responding to Priest’s singing, the performance became an overt demonstration of how music’s emotional power can surpass that of words.

That the audience were asked not to clap between pieces indicated that Had We Never was conceived as a single entity but the connections between the pieces needed greater consideration if this intriguing concoction of music and poetry was going to reach its lofty ambitions.