Alan Cooper reviews: Mr McFall’s Chamber
REMEMBERED/IMAGINED
Mr McFALL’S CHAMBER
MAEVE MACKINNON
ANGUS PETER CAMPBELL
THE LEMON TREE
Saturday 1 November 2014
When I arrived at the Lemon Tree for Saturday evening’s performance, the upstairs Studio was not yet open but the bar offered a friendly welcome. Just as well I went in because the performance really kicked off in there. Angus Peter Campbell, award-winning poet, novelist, journalist, broadcaster, actor and now warm-up man as well seized the attention of everybody with his words on poetry and some of the writers he had known. He spoke in both Gaelic and English and introduced his co-performer Maeve Mackinnon who got us all to join in the chorus of a Gaelic song. Some people there seemed to know it well. I thought for a moment that I was at the Mod. Thus our two principal performers provided a bridge between everyday Aberdeen and a world of Celtic myth and magic which was about to mystify, charm and delight us all.
Scottish Opera for a few years ran an enterprise in which they brought together writers and composers to collaborate in creating five short operas which would then be presented to audiences at various venues including once in Aberdeen. Saturday’s project, Remembered/Imagined ran along similar lines. Not opera, but four stories with music involved the participation of a writer and composer taking their inspiration from material found in the archives of the School of Scottish Studies based in the University of Edinburgh. The overall Creative Producer of Remembered/Imagined was one of the composers, Amble Skuse who comes originally from Wales.
The project was centred on an idea of “What if…” What if we were to bring together writers composers and performers and give them the archive material as a source – what would happen?
The first piece entitled “For the bees” brought together writer Rebecca Sharp and composer Ailie Robertson. This piece explored the theme of a man and woman in love but separated as the man was away at sea. Would he remain faithful? As Angus Peter Campbell explained in his introduction, Rebecca Sharp had used some very arresting imagery in her writing. If a bee was put in a cage would it stay there or if in a jar would it roar like a lion? The piece was in three movements and the string writing was quite luscious with gorgeous playing from first violin Gordon Bragg. Although the central movement was based on a compositional technique created by Boulez it was still easily approachable. The addition of Gaelic songs performed by Maeve Mackinnon served as an anchor to the emotions of the work. Angus Peter and Maeve represented the man and woman and despite the richness of the music their texts came through with splendid clarity.
There were two different versions of the second story Clachan Beò. In the first the writer was Angus Peter Campbell and the composer Amble Skuse. The story in Gaelic was pre-recorded then commented on by Angus Peter and Maeve. The Gaelic words of the story were mirrored exactly in pitch and rhythm by the string players – a fantastically difficult thing to achieve but the five string players of Mr McFall’s Chamber were absolutely brilliant. The story apparently a Celtic version of a Catalan legend concerned two brothers turned to stone when they went up a mountain in search of a magic tree, a talking bird and the water of life. They made the mistake of looking back when told not to but the third brother manages the task and the water brings all the stones back to life so that a whole crowd of people come back down the mountain to the Church which the brothers had built and can now be sold for five hundred pounds.
The writer for the second version of the story was Sophie Cooke and Amble Skuse provided a more fragmented version of her original score with a far more extensive electronic contribution.
The final piece had music by Mike Vass and writing by Charlotte Hathaway. This concerned a common narrative among Highland and Island people namely visions of fairies and the abduction of mortals by such beings. The electronics included genuine archive interviews with people who claimed to have seen fairies and Angus Peter Campbell’s acting out of some of the narratives was brilliant. He certainly had me convinced for the duration of the piece at least. Fairy abductions appear regularly in old ballads both Scottish and English and especially in Ireland with stories about “the little people”. Modern Americans have their own version of the idea in their stories of “alien abductions”.
I loved the music by Mike Vass which had a rich folksy feel to it. Su-a Lee’s cello led off a nice bouncy rhythmic riff which was taken up playfully by the rest of the string players and towards the end Maeve Mackinnon delighted us with her lovely fresh singing of another Gaelic air.
This whole performance was absolutely enchanting in every sense of the word and it was the very embodiment of one of this year’s Festival Themes: ways of bringing new life to traditional music and in this case word as well. How amazing it would have been if some of the people recorded in the Scottish archive had been able to see and hear this performance. It would have been like pouring the water of life on them thus bringing them back to life – and in a sense was this not exactly what this performance achieved?
© Alan Cooper
