Merlin Music Society Review November 2007

The third Merlin Music Society concert of the current 45^th season happened on Wednesday 7^th November in the Blake Theatre. Due to unforeseen circumstances, it did not feature the harpist Ingrid Henderson as advertised, but instead the singer Anne Martin, who was due to sing with her, performed with her regular collaborator, the violinist Ronan Martin (no relation), who was, through an incredible stroke of luck, on holiday near by and agreed to perform with very little notice indeed.

Both Ronan and Anne Martin are inhabitants of the Scottish Isle of Skye, where music is an integral part of life, and both were brought up from childhood learning the traditional songs of the island in their beautiful language of Gaelic. Anne, a musical adviser to the Scottish Arts Council, has been researching Gaelic song and performing since childhood, and has released two albums, collaborating on one as a duet with Ingrid Henderson. Ronan Martin has been playing the violin since he was a boy and, like Anne, has collected a vast amount of music, traditional and new, some having been composed recently by his friends.

A barefoot Anne began the concert by singing an unaccompanied song that she explained was the traditional ‘Greeting to the Isle of Skye’, an atmospheric introduction to the concert that was nicely mirrored by a traditional ‘Song to say farewell to Skye’ at the end. Anne then sang a series of traditional songs, some unaccompanied, some with fiddle, including a set of work songs, traditionally sung to the rhythm of work such as weaving, ploughing and rowing. The swaying beat had a hypnotic quality, and the soft sound of the Gaelic intertwining and echoing the trilling of the fiddle had a mesmerising effect. Other songs included a ‘Lament for forbidden love’ and the particularly haunting ‘When will I see you again?’ providing an emotional contrast to the lively work songs. Anne even sang a song on request (itself in Gaelic, something highly improbable in Monmouth), a testament to her thorough knowledge of the Gaelic song, a vast genre of music that draws influences from all over the world, from Scotland and Ireland to as far as Canada.

Ronan played a series of solo tunes including reels, jigs and songs traditionally played on the pipe, but which translated beautifully well onto the fiddle, which both mimicked the piquant contrast of drone and grace notes of the pipe, while also adding the effortless fluency of the fiddle. A particularly lively set of jigs he played were traditional ‘Strip the Willow’ songs based on the character of a Hebridean weaving dance, a nice echo of the work songs sung by Anne. A highlight of Roan’s solos was the aire ‘Sitting on the prow of my boat,’ a slow lilting song communicating a sailor’s love for his boat, and Ronan, himself a keen sailor, managed to invoke the serenity of the scene, expressing so much of his own love of the sea.

This was the predominant quality that the Gaelic music communicated: a deep personal affection for the landscape and lifestyle of Skye, something clearly very close to the performers’ hearts, and although the musical style of Gaelic song is vastly different from the more generically classical music as usually heard by the society, the musicianship and delivery was equal to that of conventionally classical musicians and gave a colourful touch of variety to this season’s concert series.         

Charlotte Domanski