They say the Devil has all the best tunes. When one thinks of the gloriously
lyrical melodies of such favourites as 'Loch Lomond', 'The Road to the Isles'
and the 'Eriskay Love Lilt' there is little doubt that the soulful Scot,
obviously in league with the devil, has music in his make-up somewhere! What
if it is often marked by a kind of poignant yearning that many take for
sentimentality. Dvorak and Smetana sang no less soulfully.
This present disc, with such an opening as Hamish MacCunn's 'Land of the
Mountain and the Flood' (and including a welcome orchestration of his evocative
'Highland Memories' suite) surely underlines this in no uncertain manner.
One wonders then just why it should take an English orchestra, a Geordie,
and a cosmopolitan Londoner to compile this present selection, and, with
perhaps just a trace apologetically, (not patronising ) think
of it as 'light' music. Occasional music it may
be, even ceremonial, but the 'big tunes' (played here perhaps a very little
on the fast side) are 'singing in the bath' material
- and its
frivolities (such as Marcus Dods' delightful oboe caprice 'Highland Fancy')
are made of music of considerable distinction. A far cry from MacMillan and
Beamish perhaps? Of the two more substantial works MacCunn's great ballad
needs no introduction. But it is some time since we heard the luscious music
of Cedric Thorpe Davie's 'Royal Mile' march, to the strains of which the
Royal party, on a coronation visit to the capital in 1952 left St Giles
- and whose
great central melody (the tune Molly Stewart) was, said Edward Greenfield
in the 'Guardian' like 'Walton in a kilt', a tune that brings back for me
fond memories of 'The Highland Fair' at the Edinburgh Festival of that
year.
Yet perhaps it is not so long ago since we heard Thorpe Davie's music
- for those of us who watched
the recent television screening of Disney's 'Kidnapped' without noticing
the screen credits.....? It is perhaps worth noting that Cedric's film music
alone (never mind music for some fifty radio and TV productions) occupied
over one thousand pages of full score! Light music
- perhaps,
but serious work! However I have no real quarrel with the classification
if it allows us to hear tuneful music of the calibre of this
selection.
Ian Hamilton, one of the 'wild geese' who fled from his native land, is not
forgetful of the potential of the dances and melodies of Scotland
- these more exciting to
me than Malcolm Arnold's. Here is a Glaswegian 'West Side Story' or perhaps
'Slaughter on Sauchiehall Street' with a tipsy Duncam Gray, a raucous whistled
wooing of a 'love who's but a lassie yet'
- a jolly
'quodlibet' and a lento full of Scotch mist. Buxton Orr takes a much more
serious view of the Celtic element with a Fanfare and Processional curiously
described as a 'piece of brass writing for strings', and a Suite whose final
Port-a -beul (mouth music) also reflects the occasional work song of the
Highlands. Perhaps the strangest element is the inclusion of a richly-scored
strings version of Sir Hugh Roberton's perennial "All in the April Evening'
with its decidedly weird 'tremolando' passage evoking the stark landscape
of the crucifixion. What would the Women's Guild have made of
it?
The lightest music on the disc comes from Muir Mathieson's impressionistic,
even visual, set of Highland cameos -
depicting in good film score style, the vistas
of the Isles (the call of the mystical Tir-nan-Og) and the crystal stream
trickling over Glengarry's rocks (scarcely a Scottish Vltava)
Philip Lane's informative sleeve notes are excellent -
but marred by a few 'howlers'
- MacCunn's
opera is 'Jeanie Deans' (not 'Downs') -
Gaddie should be Gadie and surely it isn't
necessary to translate '0 gin I were ehere Gadie rins'?? Duncan Grey should
of course be Duncan Gray
-proofing errors?
But I carp! This disc will leave many a listener (on his way to the bath?)
singing joyously!
Can I suggest very strongly, for a future disc from this excellent company,
Cedric Thorpe Davie's 'The Jolly Beggars', Alexander Campbell Mackenzie's
'Benedictus', the Overture 'Renaissance' by Francis George Scott and the
exhilarating 'Scots Dance Toccata' of Ronald Stevenson.
Reviewer
Colin Scott-Sutherland
See also earlier review by Ian Lace
Royal Ballet Sinfonia
conducted by John Wilson 
