St Mary's Summer Concert
Tuesday 1st July 2008
Celebrating its 35th birthday, St Mary's Music School laid out its wares this week in a big, joyful concert featuring its orchestra, string ensemble, cathedral choristers, celtic fusionists and sundry soloists in music displaying all their strengths and enthusiasms. The young Stirling-born Rory Macdonald, resourceful assistant to the newly-knighted Mark Elder at the helm of the Halle Orchestra in Manchester, was conductor. A lovely new piece for treble voices, trumpet and strings, commissioned for the occasion from James MacMillan and performed in his presence, formed the heart of the programme.
Amid his larger, more challenging works, MacMillan's short sacred pieces can convey messages of great sweetness, and the quiet beauty of this one, entitled O in tribute to the Advent antiphon beginning O radiant dawn, was no exception. The abilities of his chosen performers were gently exploited but not overstretched. The final floating of the music into infinity was greatly touching.
But this was solemn music surrounded by much that was fun. The Barber of Seville overture was brilliantly articulated, a lithe foretaste of Macdonald's forthcoming performances for English National Opera. A racy account of Bach's fourth Brandenburg featured Colin Scobie, Taylor Maclennan and David Smith in the exuberant violin and flute parts. Shostakovich's First Piano Concerto sprang with glitter from David Gray's fingers, and in the Scottish fusion music Richard Ingham showed how he could blow saxophone tone into the sound-world of clarsachs and other regional instruments.
