Edinburgh Arts: Festival diary: Philomusica of Edinburgh

Festival diary: Philomusica of Edinburgh

(I was singing in this, as part of the choir of St John's, ergo this won't be the most impartial of reviews.)

The programme for this concert was, to put it mildly, something of a mixture: the world première of Chezz's A passing dream, Bruch's Violin concerto no. 1 in G minor, the Méditation from Massenet's Thaïs and Lauridsen's Lux æterna. Laurence Dunn, the violin soloist, had some dubious moments of tuning in the Bruch but was more successful in the Méditation, though to be honest I could see why the choral parts are usually left out - a couple of bars of humming didn't really add much. The orchestra was on great form throughout.

The Chezz came off a lot better than any of us really expected - a Stravinskian opening full of harmonic crunches and a conclusion with a Scottish flavour (though the orchestration was very cod-Chinese to my ears) framing a choral section which was, well, rather odd. Still, it was an improvement on our reaction when we first rehearsed the piece, when we couldn't stop laughing.

Lux æterna, a piece we sang with organ accompaniment on Good Friday, came off a lot better with orchestra. A few dodgy rhythms aside, we were very pleased with the performance. Now if the piece were harmonically adventurous instead of relying on facile clusters, it'd be a joy to sing.

(13th August 2005)