Review: The Legendary Music of Rajasthan

Photo: Hema Narayanan

By Jane Compton

At The Legendary Music of Rajasthan, accomplished folk artists Lakha Khan, Kadar Khan and Bhanwari Devi gave the audience a rare chance to experience a live performance of the centuries-old indigenous musical heritage treasured by the desert communities of north-west India. Dressed in vibrantly coloured traditional clothes, they sat cross-legged on the stage, joined by a further four musicians who provided vocal and instrumental accompaniment.

The concert was held in the magnificent main hall of the National Museum of Scotland which re-opened in July following a £47.4 million, three year redevelopment. Lakha Khan began proceedings with lilting, soothing songs for voice and sarangi, a stringed instrument held against the chest and played with a bow. One of only three musicians from the Manganiyar community to have been awarded the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi Award from India’s National Academy of Music, Drama and the Arts, he is also a skilled luthier who handcrafts and fine tunes his own instruments.

Kadar Khan presented ancient pieces from the massive repertoire of the Sarangiya Langa community which he calls home. Taught the sarangi as a child, since 1982 he has performed throughout India and across the world. He was accompanied by Noore Khan on voice and sarangi and by Papamir on the dholak, a classical north Indian hand drum similar in timbre to the bongos. The inimitable sounds produced by the sarangi were expertly shaped into bold and evocative melodies that blended very effectively with the brisk and energetic percussive beats.

During short intermissions between performances, interesting contextual commentary was provided by Divya Bhatia, the Artistic Director of the Jaipur Virasat Foundation and the Rajasthan International Folk Festival. HRH Prince Charles is the international patron of the Foundation which works with musicians, dancers and other artists in Rajasthan, helping them to use their skills, traditions and knowledge to enhance their lives and promote understanding of their heritage.

Singer Bhanwari Devi and her sons Krishna Kumar and Indra Chand travelled outside India for the very first time to participate in the Festival and share the music of their Bhopa community with an international audience. Traditionally, the Bhopas are itinerant priest singers of the folk deities of 14^th-century Rajasthan and they are invited to perform in villages, particularly during times of illness and adversity, as their presence is considered to be a blessing.

At these performances, historical poems are sung by the bhopa (husband) and bhopi (wife) in front of an intricate scroll called a phad, which features scenes from the deity’s life. After Bhanwari was widowed in 2004, her son Krishna, a singer and harmonium player, took over the role of the bhopa. Gifted with an exceptionally powerful and sonorous voice, Bhanwari’s duet with Krishna was one of the highlights of the evening.

For the last song, all seven musicians performed together in an excellent finale to a great night. Their appearance at Festival 2011 has been made possible with the support of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, New Delhi which seeks to promote cultural exchange and understanding between India and the rest of the world.

eif.co.uk/rajasthan

The Edinburgh International Festival runs from 12 August – 4 September. Browse and book online at eif.co.uk or call  0131 473 2000.

Review: Scottish Chamber Orchestra

Photo: Chris Christodoulou  

By Jane Compton

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra, led by Principal Conductor Robin Ticciati, opened the concert on 21 August at the Usher Hall with a flawless performance of the four movement orchestrated version of Ravel’s  Le tombeau de Couperin.  One of the composer’s most personal works, Ravel’s tribute to friends who died fighting in the First World War is styled upon a Baroque dance suite.  An entertaining start to the evening, the prominence given to the melancholy tones of the oboe served as a reminder of this lively music’s underlying memorial nature.

This was followed by the world premiere of the EIF commission Blossoming II, a compellingly beautiful short piece of music for chamber orchestra by the internationally renowned Japanese composer Toshio Hosokawa that he based loosely on his 2007 string quartet Blossoming.  An important aspect of Hosokawa’s aesthetic and his originality is that he seeks to fuse the sounds of the natural world with music in a very close relationship. 

In this work the stages of growth and decay of a lotus, a symbol denoting the essence of enlightenment in Buddhism, are meticulously charted.  The journey begins when the plant stem is ascending purposefully up through the murky depths of the water towards the surface where it will finally emerge and reveal its existence.

Hosokawa’s unique musical language was interpreted with care and attention to detail by Ticciati, and realised with precision by the SCO musicians who used western instruments to produce sounds that were often eerie and other-worldly. Delicate, wispy music introduced by the strings materialised out of the silence in one long, sustained note in the middle register that represented the surface of a pond.  Sounds lower than this note echoed the plant’s energy under the water and sounds that were higher portrayed the world above.  The rapturous applause afterwards intensified when the Japanese composer briefly appeared on stage to take a bow. 

For the final part of the programme the SCO were joined by over a hundred young singers aged 16 to 24 from the National Youth Choir of Scotland, and by two soloists, baritone Simon Keenlyside and mezzo-soprano Sophie Koch who replaced Magdalena Kožená at short notice.  During the superb rendition of Duruflé’s atmospheric nine part Requiem the excellent acoustics of the grand auditorium were fully exploited as the singers’ voices soared upwards in a series of crescendos that delighted the audience.  

For those who missed a wonderful evening there will be another chance to hear the music on 15 September 2011 when it is broadcast as Performance on Three on BBC Radio 3 (90 – 93 FM).  The SCO will bring the Edinburgh International Festival to a dramatic finale on Sunday 4 September at the eagerly anticipated Virgin Money Fireworks Concert in the stunning setting of Princes Street Gardens where the talented musicians are set to perform an eclectic programme of music inspired by Asia, Arabia and the east.  Over 100,000 fireworks, tonnes of explosives and hundreds of firing sequences launched from Edinburgh Castle will be choreographed by Pyrovision alongside pieces that include Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, Borodin’s Prince Igor, and Glinka’s Overture from Ruslan and Ludmilla.

The Edinburgh International Festival runs from 12 August – 4 September. Browse and book online at eif.co.uk or call 0131 473 2000.

Princes Street Gardens tickets are still available for the Virgin Money Fireworks concert on Sunday 4 September. Visit eif.co.uk/virginmoneyfireworks for more information and to book.

This article has also been published on stv.tv which features reviews, previews and features from this year's Festival.

Review: Orchestre symphonique de Montréal 02

Photo: Dominique Lafond

Wednesday 17 August
Usher Hall

By Mateusz Jazdzewski

In The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka describes how to main character Gregor is bewitched by violin music played by his sister which calms him and helps him forget his existential problems. The Orchestre symphonique de Montréal had the same effect – from both the performers and the spectators one could feel the extraordinary focus that comes before an unforgettable experience. This is thanks to an interestingly designed programme connecting three completely different pieces of music providing both soothing tunes and energetic and emotional strokes.

At first the orchestra, conducted by Kent Nagano, introduced us to the music of Takemitsu who is renownedas one of the most recognised Japanese composers of all time. Orchestre symphonique de Montréal’s performance showed us why – A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden is a dream-like composition resembling Claude Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun was brilliantly interpreted, especially by the violin section.

The next part of the concert was a solo vocal performance from mezzo soprano Waltraud Meier whose powerful voice made the lyrics of Mahler’s Rückert Lieder deep and moving. The orchestra stayed withdrawn enough to expose Meier’s vocal capabilities yet still created a suggestive and coherent background.

The final element was truly the icing on the cake. Stravinsky’s The Firebird was performed with extraordinary imagination. The composer was neither understood nor appreciated in his time – his music was believed to be too chaotic, unpredictable and uneven. The OSM’s performance proved that this is a virtue rather than any kind of disadvantage. Powerful drums combined with soothing violins and explosions of energy were followed by long minutes of intimate music. This challenging piece displayed both the genius of the composer and the technical skill of the orchestra.

The enthusiastic audience did not want to set the musicians free and the long ovation led to two encores. And for those wanting even more, the orchestra’s soloists performed a programme of chamber music at the Queen’s Hall today which included Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro, Unsuk Chin’s Fantasie mécanique and Schubert’s Octet.

The Edinburgh International Festival runs from 12 August – 4 September. Browse and book online at eif.co.uk or call 0131 473 2000.

This article has also been published on stv.tv which features reviews, previews and features from this year’s Festival.

East Meets West: Close Encounters of a Cultural Kind

By Mateusz Jazdzewski

Sir Roger Norrington

This year’s Edinburgh International Festival deals with the meeting of two cultures – east and west. Elements of the programme, curated by Festival Director Jonathan Mills, could be viewed as challenging the tastes of audiences often perceived to be euro-centric. However sceptics may come across a surprising revelation – that western culture’s love of the east is not in fact a novelty but has been happening over hundreds of years.

The first encounters between European and Oriental cultures can be found in ancient Greece, when philosophy and art began to mingle its ideas with the heritage of conquered cultures such as Persia, Mesopotamia and Egypt. But the real flourishing in the fashion for orientalism took place in the 18^th and start of the 19^th centuries – a cultural phenomenon resulting from colonial expansion in the east. European travellers made grand tours to the Middle East, Africa, China and beyond and those artists now known as the Romantics began to focus their work on the unknown exoticism of the east.

Tomorrow’s Opening Concert sets the tone for the rest of the Festival with Robert Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri, performed by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and conducted by Sir Roger Norrington. The oratorio is based on Thomas Moore’s tale Lalla-Rookh, the beautiful myth of the fallen angel Peri who tries to re-enter paradise by finding the gift held dearest by the gods. It is one of the brightest musical examples of 19^th century European orientalism, blending the European aesthetic with eastern poetry. So successful was the fusion of these factors that the piece became one of Schumann’s greatest successes.

Das Paradies und diePeri seems the perfect choice for the Festival 2011 Opening Concert, with the spellbinding music providing the soundtrack as we begin to consider relations between east and west and the changes they have experienced over the years and the centuries.

The piece was written at a time when Europe was expanding and often imposing its own rules and traditions on conquered lands, but for contemporary audiences it also reflects the desire of this year’s Festival programme to present the beliefs and achievements of other cultures with curiosity and respect. And the value of showcasing Asian art on the European stage can also be seen not only as artistic but political, as we reassess the role of our continent on the world stage. Through shared art and culture, 21^st-century Europe, and indeed the whole world, can promote and understand the shifting parameters of the global landscape.

Das Paradies und die Peri
Robert Schumann

Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Sir Roger Norrington Conductor
Edinburgh Festival Chorus

Tickets available from eif.co.uk/opening or 0131 473 2000