MUSIC | Classical
Wednesday 6 Friday 8
Edinburgh FREE Duo Hyperborea Glass Arcade, Scottish Agricultural College, Kings Buildings, West Mains Road, 535 4000. 1.05pm. Music from Eastern Europe and beyond, performed by Helena MacGilp and Chris Elmes on oud, Macedonian tambura, percussion and vocals. Thursday 7
Glasgow Ueda-Rinaldo Duo The Merchant House, 7 West George Street, 649 5347. 12.45pm. £8 (£7; students/children £4). Lisa Ueda (violin) and Daniele Rinaldo (piano) in recital. Musselburgh Fejes Quartet Brunton Theatre, Ladywell Way, 665 2240. 7.30pm. £14 (£12). Beethoven’s String Quartet Op.18 No.2 in G major and Bartok’s String Quartet No.2.
Glasgow Callum Smart & Gordon Back Cairns Church, 11 Buchanan Street, Milngavie, milngaviemusic.org 7.30pm. £10 (students £5; schoolchildren free). Music for violin and piano by Elgar, Wieniawski, Szymanowski and Franck. The Red Ensemble: Mechanical Wave Tramway, 25 Albert Drive, 0845 330 3501. 7.30pm. £5. New approaches in experimental and electronic composition. Edinburgh FREE Michael Tsalka St Cecilia’s Hall, Niddry Street, 668 2019. 1.10pm. Music for harpsichord and clavichord by Couperin, Torres, Bach (Contrapunctus XI from The Art of Fugue), Mozart, Ligeti and Mexico’s Leonardo Coral. FREE Soundings Alison House, Nicolson Square. 5.15pm. The second of Edinburgh University’s weekends of experimental music kicks off with a seminar with John Young.
Soundings Reid Concert Hall, University of Edinburgh, Bristo Square, 651 3212. 8pm. £5 (£3). John Richards: Dirty Electronics. FREE Morley Whitehead Morningside Parish Church, 1 Cluny Drive, Morningside, 447 6745. 7.30pm. Organ recital featuring special guests. RSNO: An American Festival I Usher Hall, Lothian Road, 228 1155. 7.30pm. £11.50–£35 (£5–£17.50; under 16s free). Bernstein’s Overture to ‘Candide’, Gershwin’s Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra and John Adams’ sublime Harmonielehre. Peter Oundjian conducts with Jon Kimura Parker as soloist.
Saturday 9 Glasgow RSNO: An American Festival I Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, 2 Sauchiehall Street, 353 8000. 7.30pm. £11.50–£35 (£5–£17.50; under 16s free). See Fri 8.
Edinburgh Scottish Chamber Orchestra Family Concert: A Little Book of Monsters Usher Hall, Lothian Road, 228 1155. 3pm. £10–£29 (£5–£27; under 16s free). Concert for ages 6+, featuring Grieg’s Music from Peer Gynt, Paul Patterson’s Three Little Pigs (a setting of Roald Dahl’s version) and Stephen Deazley and Matt Harvey’s A Little Book of Monsters, performed by Edinburgh Primary Schools’ Choir. James Lowe conducts; Matthew Sharp narrates. Soundings Reid Concert Hall, University of Edinburgh, Bristo Square, 651 3212. 6pm. £5 (£3). Rainer Bürck and friends perform Bürck’s new work for piano and electronics. Soundings Reid Concert Hall, University of Edinburgh, Bristo Square, 651 3212. 8pm. £5 (£3). John Young and Adrian Moore perform new electro- acoustic music. Meadows Chamber Orchestra Greyfriars Kirk, Greyfriars Place, greyfriarskirk.com 7.45pm. £11 (£9; students £5; children £1). The amateur
CLASSICAL SOUNDTRACK/DOCUMENTARY AURICLE ENSEMBLE – THE CITY Summerhall, Edinburgh, Mon 28 Jan; Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow, Sun 17 Feb (part of Glasgow Music & Film Festival)
As New England rural idyll gives way to polluted, disease-ridden urban city life, with fumes and traffic everywhere, Aaron Copland’s score for The City is wonderfully evocative of the images portrayed on the big screen. When first seen, it wasn’t just the screen that was huge. An audience of tens of thousands of people would have experienced Lewis Mumford’s documentary film, commissioned for New York’s 1939 World Fair, and Copland’s accompanying music.
Performing the Copland score alongside a showing of the film, Auricle Ensemble are letting modern audiences hear the music live for the first time outside the USA. ‘You expect all of his music to be done by everyone,’ says music director Chris Swaffer. ‘The publishers have really
helped us to be certain that it hasn’t been performed elsewhere before us.’ The downside of finding a rarely performed gem like this is that the instrumental parts are not exactly in pristine condition. ‘It was quite hard to access the parts,’ says Swaffer, ‘which were in the state they were left in when the film was first made, and we needed special permission to get hold of them. They took some reassembling.’ Now, however, the parts are restored and ready for other groups to perform.
‘It’s great music,’ says Swaffer, ‘classic Copland, with open harmonies, folk tunes, then busy jazz in the New York scenes with pastiche and Shostakovich tucked away in there too. There are some fantastic moments.’ Scored for 20 instrumentalists, it underpins a film of social realism, inspired by the Scottish pioneering town planner, Patrick Geddes. ‘It’s sometimes a little bit uncomfortable,’ says Swaffer, ‘but still very relevant today.’ Performed alongside Copland’s Quiet City, in its original four-piece version, plus special commission Sprawl, by Steve Forman, it’s a night of urban planning with a difference. (Carol Main)
96 THE LIST 24 Jan–21 Feb 2013