EIF music reviews: Mahler's Fifth Symphony | Mahan Esfahani | Domo Branch | VRï

MUSIC

Mahler’s Fifth Symphony *****

Usher Hall

When is a concert not a concert? When – to borrow a concept so central to the International Festival this year – it’s a ritual, one of celebration and gratitude, but also of sadness and farewell. Sir Mark Elder has been a towering figure in British music for several decades, not least as the Hallé’s Music Director for the past quarter-century, but their International Festival concert together marked his final performance in that role.

It was a cunningly conceived programme, one that climbed from the sepulchral darkness of Lili Boulanger’s remarkable setting of Psalm 130 through to the blazing but hard-won light in the final moments of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. More than that, though, it demonstrated Elder’s own unassuming authority, whether navigating through the murky but opulent harmonies of Boulanger’s breathtaking musical response to De profundis, or in a tautly argued traversal of the Mahler Symphony that drew attention to the vast piece’s grand architectural designs.

The Hallé was on magnificent form, and judging by the hugs and smiles as Elder thanked each section in turn, the concert meant more to the orchestra’s musicians than simply a superb performance. After a typically outspoken farewell address, exhorting all of us to value music and the arts more than ever in straitened times, Elder closed with the nobility and restraint of Elgar’s Chanson de nuit – a fitting conclusion to an evening of both sadness and joy.

David Kettle

MUSIC

Mahan Esfahani *****

Queen’s Hall

Iranian-American soloist Mahan Esfahani is among the foremost harpsichordists of his generation, committed to keeping the instrument alive today. Here he explored varied dimensions of middle and late Baroque repertoire with deep sensitivity, musicality and considerable technical mastery.

Esfahani opened with Wilhelm Friedemann Bach’s Fantasia in E minor F21. Negotiating a flurry of notes with smoothness and aplomb, he moved straight on to Handel’s contrasting Chaconne in G HWV 435, full of ornamentation and swagger in its 21 variations on a sarabande. The main feast was Bach senior’s definitive, seven-movement Partita No 4 BWV 828. This was a masterclass. Esfahani’s main focus is contemporary harpsichord music, but he is a fine exponent of high Baroque chromaticism too.

After the break attention turned to companion influences on Bach and Handel. Pachelbel’s Chaconne in F minor is slow and tender. C P E Bach’s Fantasia II in C lives up to its name, exuding elements of carnivalesque lightness and mischief. Perhaps the highlight of a compelling recital was Buxtehude’s La Capricciosa, 32 demanding variations on a Bergamasca melody and chord progression. These include hints of Bach’s Goldbergs and huge stylistic shifts, ending with a gothic stomp. Esfahani excelled in it all.

Simon Barrow

MUSIC

Domo Branch & Friends ****

The Hub

Dominick “Domo” Branch is a respected young American jazz drummer, composer and educator. He also knows how to generate a great vibe, quickly winning over the Hub in trio with pianist Joe Block and double-bassist Jonathon Muir-Cotton.

Evidently delighted to be making a return visit to the Festival (“I wish the world was like Edinburgh.”), he opened with the stately Coltrane ballad Naima, introduced with a flourish of rumbling toms and hissing cymbals, piano rippling over bowed bass. Branch presided genially, at times seemingly in intimate improvisational conversation with his drums but occasionally discharging an explosive enjoinder.

Things moved up-tempo with the purposeful shuffle of Harlem Boogie, bass and piano interacting energetically. Also persuasively upbeat was Block’s composition Horizons, despite having been written during the pandemic.

A Wynton Marsalis tune, Something About Belief, took on a slow-blues swagger, before an unexpected guest was Oni Marsalis, young daughter of trumpeter Marsalis, whose singing of The Masquerade Is Over revealed expressive power well beyond her years.

Further trio excursions included an expansively treated What a Wonderful World, and they encored with the snappy 12-bar of Branch’s apparently freshly composed Edinburgh Blues, leaving the audience anything but blue.

Jim Gilchrist

MUSIC

VRï ****

The Hub

VRï is old Welsh for “uplifting” and this amiable and adept chamber folk trio lived up to their name, combining  deft instrumental work on fiddle (Aneirin Jones), viola (Patrick Rimes) and cello (Jordan Price Williams) with beguiling Welsh vocal harmonies. The traditional music they’re revivifying was, they told us, largely suppressed by the Methodist church; in their hands, however, it proved very much alive and kicking and performed with finesse – think Danish String Quartet meets Eisteddfod.

They kicked off with a bragging song that alternated tight vocal harmonies with vivacious string work, going on to play lively dance sets that included a tune from “our Brythonic cousins” in Cornwall. One thing the Nonconformist church had bequested them was a great tradition of hymn-singing, “stuck in our psyche”, and reflected in some winsome song and cello airs from Williams. Earthier repertoire included an ox-driving song in which the audience were incited to add a non-verbal chorus.

A tale of a horse informed one particularly dynamic set that involved rattling foot percussion from Rimes and lusty call-and-response vocals reminiscent of Breton singing. An encore of spirited polkas set the seal on this impressive Edinburgh debut.

Jim Gilchrist