Perth Festival of the Arts: Review of Perth High School in St John’s Kirk

May 27 2011 Perthshire Advertiser Friday

MUSIC plays a large and important part in the lives of the pupils of Perth High School, witness the large number of them appearing in the midday concert on Tuesday.

Their music making was of all kinds, involving strings, brass, woodwind, vocal – a rich variety.

In the choice of works there were no easy options. Symphonic Variations was virtually a show piece for the Windband, which opened the concert.

It came across as a dialogue between brass and woodwind, each in turn leading, the other backing. Brass fine and resonant, woodwind sharp and perky. A great ensemble, giving a very polished performance.

Huapango Express invited the Brass Band not to hang about. Sounding splendidly smooth, with none of the raucid edge sometimes met with in inexperienced players, the band attacked the work with effective panache.

The String Orchestra chose as its piece the Allegro from Sinfonia in G by Albinoni. The playing was impressive, fine in tone and nicely paced.

It was a commendable feature that the spirit of the Baroque was stylishly captured.

The Brass Quintet of Kate Walker, Melanie and Eleanor Figures, Christopher Marshall and Tom Bubb, though a small group, produced a surprisingly powerful tone in a Sonata from Die Bankelsangerlieder.

The ensemble’s sound had an almost heraldic clarity.

The fiddlers of the Ceilidh Group set toes a-tapping with a selection of popular Scots tunes to provide a lighter moment in the weightier context of the rest of the programme.

Choir singing in schools is in decline, it is often said. Not here.

The first choir to appear sang It don’t Mean a Thing if it ain’t got Swing, a popular choice in these school concerts. They were right in the groove.

The girls of the Glee Club, with heartfelt sincerity, sang the gentle Lennon song Imagine. The Boys’ Choir’s choice was I Once Went A-Wooing, a quasi folk song in the fa-la-la tradition.

There was a sense of fun about the performance. Some listeners might have thought the inclusion of this jolly ditty inappropriate in the concert’s more august musical ambience – but it wasn’t!

Full orchestra forces were called for in the final item, one of Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances.

It got the robust, resounding treatment it deserved, offering the opportunity for listeners to realise emphatically the School’s commitment to music.

To revert to an item earlier in the programme. Max Bruch’s work for cello, Adagio op.56, is a beautiful work.

A thread runs through it between melancholy and wistfulness, and at the end of this thread the listener is brought face to face with the composer.

The work demands a player of exceptional skill with technical command, acute sensitivity, awareness of subtlety, highly developed musicality. Merran Kay exhibited all of these.

It was a privilege to hear her play. What she produced was sheer music.

Sigurd Scott