AFTER a tour which has included remote parts of the Highlands and
Islands, the Scottish Early Music Consort finally arrived back in
Glasgow last night with a programme of music mostly by Monteverdi.
Colourful it certainly was, and a slickly executed programme, devised by
Kate Brown.
A group of seven on-stage musicians held it all together,
interspersing the vocal pieces with attractive instrumental sonatas by
Marini, Buonamente, and Gabrieli.
Lighting was sympathetic, while allowing for the necessary following
of the admirably presented texts, and the three singers -- Debra Stuart,
Henry Herford and James Meek -- gave splendid performances of a variety
of early seventeenth-century works.
I have to say though that I found some of the staging rather intrusive
and almost counter-productive. Debra Stuart's performance of Lanier's
Hero's Lament, for instance, was much less poignant than it ought to
have been because the singer had been directed to an excess of movement.
In the Monteverdi works there is, of course, plenty of drama in the
music, and you hardly need much posturing on stage, but the staging of
last night's highlight, Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, was
most moving. Herford was a splendid, lively narrator, Stuart rose
magnificently to the final ''Amico, hai vinto'' and Herford was a
suitably heroic Tancredi. (And for sheer infectious musical pleasure
there was the glorious Chiome d'oro of Monteverdi.)
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article