Reviewing recently in
these columns other discs of Scottish
piano music I ventured the point that
the real essence of Scottish music -
that is the almost Eastern-sounding
music of the Gael and the highly stylised
music of the piobaireachd cannot easily
be expressed in keyboard terms. This
is further underlined in this new CD
which clearly demonstrates the
difference between the shapely melodies
of lowland song (a supposedly
folk tradition that was in essence a
genteel ‘pop’ culture) and
the very expressive melodic (and implied
harmonic) movement of the songs of the
Gael - much of which was ‘working’
music to accompany the rhythm of labour,
religious rite, or else love song. The
translation into keyboard terms of the
lowland song was to attract the attention
of Beethoven and Haydn (among others)
- and the first three items on this
disc will amply illustrate just why
this music should so attract. The melodies
fit quite comfortably into the musical
mores of the 18th and 19th centuries
- and, as clearly demon-strated here,
the harmonies implied by these tunes
are left undisturbed, while the line
itself is treated in what amounts to
a conventional method of linear variation.
The two Cramer pieces - ‘Fy
let us a’ to the Bridal’
and ‘The Braes of Bellenden’
have quite lovely tunes which are treated
in the style of Hummel/Moscheles - and
belong readily to the budding virtuosity
of the salon.
Little is known of Kiallmark
(the son of a musically influential
father), but his treatment of ‘The
Boatie Rows’ is very eloquent.
This quasi-concert-platform character
becomes even more pronounced in the
three pieces - an extended Suite of
Lisztian proportions - by Alexander
Campbell Mackenzie. Though Mackenzie
was perhaps the first to imbue the music
of the concert platform with a genuine
Scottish element, the pre-dominating
character of these pieces is unquestionably
classical. There are echoes of Liszt
- but more significantly, of Smetana
and Dvoéák (beloved of
Mackenzie’s fellow academic Corder.)
The first is a concert piece in good
bravura style, the second a gentle Barcarolle
with some surprising tonal shifts. The
sprightly music of the third might recall
his fellow Scot MacCunn.
The most disappointing
items are the following Three Cameronian
Sketches of Bantock - too long-winded
for the paucity of melodic interest
and overburdened with the monotonous
bagpipe ‘drone’ and the insistent
double tonic. Yet even here, the harsher
accents share something of the wildness
and martial aspects of the Scottish
character.
Erik Chisholm may be
the least known, even to those Scots
who will be aware of his achievements
in Glasgow of the 1930s when he fed
the good citizens with the then new
music of Medtner, Bartók and
Sorabji! But here, in a brief Harris
Dance Tune, the accent is certainly
on the more ‘highland’ aspects
of Gaelic melody, the clashing harmonies
cloaking the melody with splashes of
Peploe-like colour.
The soloist, in his
programme note, singles out Ronald Stevenson
as, in his opinion, ‘the truest
Scots composer in spirit’ - and
Stevenson’s deceptively simple
pieces of a South Uist Folk Song
Suite, and his Wheen Tunes for
Bairns to spiel penetrate right
to the heart and soul of the folk music
of the Gael, while, as might be expected
from a pianist of the calibre of Stevenson,
retaining a uniquely pianistic quality.
In the first set is exemplified the
‘working’ element in Gaelic
music - a Sailing Song, a ‘witching
song’ for the milking, a ‘waulking
song’ to accompany the stretching
of the cloth, and a delightful port-a-beul
(mouth music for dancing.) And in The
Christ Child’s Lullaby a few
simple chords evoke a rich emotion.
The Wheen Tunes might recall
Bartók, yet, knowing Stevenson’s
love for Italian music these enchanting
miniatures for me relate more readily
to the set ‘Per la Gioventu’
of Tagliapietra.
The pianist Ronald Brautigam,
of Dutch extraction but married to a
Scot, is a pianist not only of consummate
skill, he is also an interpreter of
great sensitivity - his technique never
showy, using the pedal with more than
customary expertise. I hope he may investigate
further the music of Scotland.
Reviewer
Colin Scott-Sutherland
Ronald Brautigam (piano).