Scottish Review : Hugh Kerr

Hugh Kerr
The new music-makers

Scotland is fortunate in having some wonderful chamber musicians. The superb Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO) has established itself as the best chamber orchestra in Britain and its players are also creating many musical spin offs. The Scottish Ensemble and the Hebrides Ensemble have pioneered some exciting new work in Scotland and the Edinburgh Quartet are in the eyes of many our leading string quartet and have just celebrated their 50th birthday.
     Now adding to the musical variety and quality of the nation is a new group called the Artisan Trio, which on my first hearing promises much. It is composed of three young but experienced musicians. Aisling O’Dea is a young Irish violinist who, having played widely in Ireland and Germany, now plays with the SCO. She is an exciting and authoritative violinist. Cellist Clea Friend comes from a famous musical family in London. Her father is the well known conductor Lionel Friend. However, she is very much an Edinburgh-based musician, having done her undergraduate education at Edinburgh University, and more recently studying music in the community with Professor Nigel Osborne and practicing this in Scotland, England and Bosnia. Clea is an intelligent and expressive cellist. Simon Smith was also born in England but has a strong musical connection to Edinburgh as a graduate of St Mary’s music school and has recorded all the piano works of James Macmillan.
     I was educated into chamber music by the Alberni String Quartet who were imaginatively funded to live in the new town of Harlow where I grew up. They became the centre of musical education and life in a community of 70,000 people, which at its peak produced a music school in every comprehensive, educating working class kids in classical music at lunch time, after school and in Saturday mornings. It also produced a Harlow Symphony Orchestra, Harlow Chorus, folk and jazz clubs and a whole raft of pop groups some of which were even quite good. The BBC were so impressed by Harlow they made a documentary called ‘The Pied Pipers of Harlow’.
     I am also a great fan of trios particularly perhaps the Beaux Arts Trio who I used to hear regularly in Brussels in my days in the European Parliament I and was lucky enough to be at their farewell concert at last year’s Edinburgh Festival. It may be too soon to greet the Artisan Trio as the successor to the Beaux Arts but in their exciting play and expressive understanding of modern music they are worthy followers of their great musical tradition.
     Their recent concert at the Reid Concert Hall began with the Schubert piano trio in B flat major, composed when Schubert was only 15 yet already full of the melody which makes Schubert the centre of chamber music. It was delicately played by the Artisan Trio who plan a series of concerts featuring all the Schubert trios but also with Scottish composers. For this concert the trio featured a composition from Edinburgh University teacher and composer Edward Harper called ‘The Devil and St Stephen’. Composed in 1991 by Harper, who died last year, it is a perfect work for a trio using the interplay of the piano and the strings in rhythm and pizzicato with a beautifully played central cello solo. The Artisan Trio plan to record it, which will hopefully bring Harper to wider notice. The concert finished with the Brahms Trio No 3 in C minor, opus 101, where the Artisans produced great power and musical magic.
     At the end of the concert it was clear that Scotland has a new jewel in its already starry chamber music scene and we can look forward to the Artisan Trio becoming an important part of the Scottish music scene. I also thought how lucky we are in Edinburgh. Earlier in the week I had attended another excellent free concert by the Edinburgh Quartet playing Haydn and Schumann, and on Sunday night was in our now fully-refurbished Usher Hall for a glorious performance of Elgar’s ‘Dream of Gerontious’ by the Edinburgh Bach Choir.
     I do go down to London regularly, for opera in particular as poor old Scottish Opera is too underfunded to give us much more than five operas a year. However, I am always happy to return to Edinburgh, not only for the beauty of the city but safe in the knowledge that we have a vibrant musical culture in classical music, folk and jazz  to sustain me. The addition of an excellent trio such as the Artisan makes that musical life even more appealing.


Hugh Kerr was in charge of music policy in the European Parliament He is now a freelance journalist and music-lover based in Edinburgh

Get the
Scottish Review
in your inbox
free of charge

We need your help to maintain our inquiring journalism. Become
a Friend of SR

[click here]

The Library

Recent articles
[click here]

SR competition
Schools’ Young Thinker
of the Year: shortlist
[click here]

09.06.10
No 268

Our very own
cloak of secrecy

Kenneth Roy
discovers that freedom of information is a slow job
north of the border

[click here]

My life in
The Scheme

Islay McLeod
confesses that she started
school in notorious Onthank
[click here]

Deep kill?
They may kill us all


George Gunn
challenges the idea that
the Gulf of Mexico disaster couldn’t happen here
[click here]

Alan Fisher’s World
One half Satan: the
Dutch election

[click here]

Bob Smith’s
Sketchbook
The Big Yin
[click here]

Islay’s
Album
Three summer sports
II. Cricket

[click here]

Next edition: Thursday

SR recommends for lively discussion of current politics:
www.scotlandquovadis.net

SR recommends for intelligent comment on Scottish literature:

2
www.scottishreviewofbooks.org

Scotland's independent review magazine

About Scottish Review