Hail Caledonia - Scotland in Music
City of Glasgow Pipe Band
City of Glasgow Chorus
City of Glasgow Philharmonic Orchestra/Iain Sutherland
rec. live, 1995-96, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
SOMM ARIADNE 5014 [79:32]
Here we have a variety of mostly light orchestral music with a Scottish theme. We are told it was recorded live, and there is some applause at the start of the disc, but the documentation with the CD is rather vague on precisely when these live events took place. And it does matter for, as you will read later, the recordings differ so substantially that it is question of when the recordings were made does have significance.
Little of the music is actually Scottish; most of it is more in the nature of impressions by outsiders, most of whom wrote their impressions in the first half of the last century. Of the genuinely Scottish items, Iain Sutherland’s own arrangement of Amazing Grace is one of the highlights of the programme, magically combining the subtle piping of David Wotherspoon with the orchestra. Back in the 1990s, when these recordings were made, Glasgow-born Sutherland was, as his opulent biography in the booklet reminds us, a conductor who was almost ubiquitous on the radio in Britain, I remember him as a solid pair of hands who could produce the goods in any orchestral repertory for those various BBC broadcasts with house orchestras, most of which now seem to have passed into history. I do not remember that he was an arranger or composer, although I suspect I heard much of his work at the time, but on this disc his own music – notably a suite of three orchestral pieces celebrating various Scottish Castles with the first, Stirling Castle, very much in the style of the Warsaw Concerto – stand out for their fluent writing and lavish orchestrations, while his arrangements are highly accomplished; beyond Amazing Grace his take on The Black Bear Salute with the City of Glasgow Pipe Band setting the scene for the orchestra provides a suitably rousing opening to the programme.
Generally the programme avoids too much cloying sentimentality or rabble-rousing rugby-ground songs – Alexander McKenzie’s Benedictus and a boisterous Flower of Scotland by Roy Williamson with the City of Glasgow Chorus in hearty voice being exceptions – and there are some delightful pieces including a skittish Cumberland Square by Ernest Tomlinson which runs a sequence of Scots melodies in pastiche cameos which are so nicely orchestrated that nobody could take offence, and an affectionate tribute the late Queen Mother, Elizabeth of Glamis, by Eric Coates which oozes grace (and a somewhat incongruous cuckoo). The two pieces by Robert Docker, full as they are of pseudo-Scots gestures, are nevertheless a sheer delight given the gloriously athletic playing of the City of Glasgow Philharmonic. Top billing, though, should really go to the tremendously vivid performance of Malcolm Arnold’s four Scottish Dances, with Sutherland finding the perfect balance between the music’s introvert and extrovert character, never turning it into pastiche but giving it all a decidedly Scots lilt. I would put this as one of the very best recorded performances around.
In both the Tomlinson and Arnold works, the City of Glasgow Philharmonic Orchestra are on absolutely top-notch form and the recording is rich and spacious. However in many of the other pieces – including the Coates, where a noisy audience seem to be suffering from a communal bout of flu - the quality of both the orchestral playing and the recording are dramatically different. So different, in fact, that one wonders whether for the former pieces the orchestra, founded by Sutherland in 1988 for the Glasgow City of Culture year, had called in some supernumeraries. My guess is that these were pieces recorded a year after the others.
Possibly the two most popular bits of Scottish-themed music are disappointing here because they were from the earlier (presumably) concert/recording. The movement from the Mendelssohn “Scottish” Symphony is spoiled by the orchestra on very scrappy form, Sutherland barely able to hold it all together and ensemble flying out the window as soon as brass and percussion join in the fray, while a passage from Hamish McCunn’s Land of the Mountain and the Flood includes some pretty toe-curling intonation. In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, the best way to enjoy this disc is to pick out the performances recorded at the same time as the Arnold and not bother with the others. That way the jolly, light-hearted character of the programme is not marred to sensitive ears
Marc Rochester
Previous reviews: Göran Forsling ~ John France
Contents
Traditional, arranged by Iain SUTHERLAND (b. 1936)
The Black Bear Salute [3:43]
Robert DOCKER (1918-1992)
Abbey Craig [2:47]
Ernest TOMLINSON (1924-2015)
Cumberland Square (1960) [3:07]
Eric COATES (1886-1957)
Springtime in Angus (1944) [7:44]
Felix MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847)
Symphony No.3 “Scottish” – Scherzo (1842) [4:30]
Arthur BLAKE (1925-1994)
Take the High Road Theme (1980) [2:51]
Hamish MACCUNN (1868-1916), arranged by Iain SUTHERLAND
Land of the Mountain and the Flood (Sutherland’s Law Theme) (1886) [3:40]
Robert DOCKER
Faery Dance Reel (1958) [2:33]
Iain SUTHERLAND
Three Scottish Castles [11:58]
Alexander MACKENZIE (1847-1935)
Benedictus (1888) [7:10]
Granville BANTOCK (1868-1946)
Kishmul’s Galley (1944) [4:22]
Malcom ARNOLD (1921-2006)
Four Scottish Dances (1957) [9:22]
Roy WILLIAMSON (1936-1990), arranged by Iain SUTHERLAND
Flower of Scotland (1967/1990?) [5:22]
Traditional, arranged by Iain SUTHERLAND
Amazing Grace [3:12]
Ian WHYTE (1901-1960)
Devil’s Finale & Reel o’ Tulloch from Donald of the Burthens (1951) [6:23]
