The Inverness Fragments Tour with The Musick Fyne Soloists, at Old High Church, Inverness on the Tenth of September, 2016. Review.
The Old High Church sits on one of the oldest ecclesiastical sites in Inverness. It is claimed St Columba preached here in 565. Before the Reformation the Catholic Church of St Mary stood on the site. This church was associated with the order of Black Friars who also had a monastery in the in the area. After the Reformation the church passed to the council and then to the Church of Scotland.
Musick Fyne are a local early music group formed in 1980 and led by local musicologist Mr D James Ross. The Soloists are a sub set of the main group. For this performance there were five performers including Mr Ross (Ms Aileen Birch, Ms Morag Ainslie, Mr Johnny McGhee Doyle and Dr Tilman von Delft).
In 1973 Father Mark Dilworth of Fort Augustus Abbey was working on the binding of an old book when he noticed some fragments of Latin text and musical notation. It turned out that these fragments dated to 1550 and were products of the Sang School located in the area of the Old High – thus the name – the Inverness Fragments. Mr Ross has utilised his musical skills to reconstruct the fragments into complete pieces.
The performance today was therefore something very special – the Fragments came home. Along with the Fragments the Soloists also performed the Missa Pater Creator omnium by the Scots composer Robert Carver. Carver was based down in the Abbey at Scone (did he ever visit the Sang School here?) and is one of the main Scots composers of the time. This Mass is also incomplete and Mr Ross has again reconstructed the missing parts. In comparison to European composers of the period Carver’s music has a rather austere quality. I often wonder how much of an effect the cold and damp Scottish weather, psyche and social conditions has had on this. Additional pieces in the concert came from the Wode Partbooks and the Art of Music.
The whole concert was performed to an extremely high standard. It began with the Soloists moving from outside the church to inside singing the “Laudate pueri” from the Fragments. The parts of the Carver Mass were then interspersed between the other music. The concert ended with the group exiting the church singing the “Laudate” again. This was truly profound – bringing together not only the cycle of the performance, but also the cyclical pattern of the spiritual day in the monastic community. In an exceptional performance three jewels were present where the Soloists really captured the essence of early music. These were “Si quis diligit me” (by another Scots composer David Peebles – did he visit the School also?), “Descendi in hortum meum” from the Wode Partbooks, and “Ite missa est/Deo gracias” from the 16th century Art of Music. In these pieces the voices of the Soloists soared and circled around the church like eagles exploiting air vortexes – truly spectacular!!
For the performances Mr Ross produced two very informative handouts containing background information relating to the concert.
The present day Old High provided a fitting setting for the music – despite the very modern intrusion of motor noises from outside (but who’s to say similar type noises didn’t disrupt the workings of the Sang School).
Having been fortunate enough to have seen the likes of the Tallis Scholars and Orlando Consort the reviewer is extremely grateful to local groups like Musick Fyne for making early music accessible to northern audiences. To find about more about the group and their performances please visit: http://coronach.co.uk/
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Image courtesy Mr Alastair Owens
