Album

The folk music of Scotland, as well as of other regions whose music has been shaped by the vocabulary of Western concert music, has seen performances that fall along an entire continuum from formal arrangements for voice and piano to pure re-creations of folk practice, with percussion and full-throated singing untouched by classical vocal technique. This attractive Canadian disc falls near the middle of the continuum. The music comes from Scotland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with texts by the likes of Walter Scott and Robert Burns as well as lesser-known and wholly anonymous creators. The music frequently displays the "Scottish snap" syncopated figure that persisted for centuries and gained new life as a stand-in for African rhythms in American blackface minstrelsy. The program is split into the effective division of love and war, with the war half subdivided into music of wars, lamentations, and more war music. Each half contains instrumental pieces as well as vocal solos and duets. Soprano Meredith Hall and countertenor Matthew White, both Canadian, are Baroque and Classical opera specialists, not folk singers, and their light, flowing tone (they blend very nicely in duets) reflects their training in early music. The backing group La Nef, with Baroque violin, lute or Baroque guitar and recorder or cornamuse, gamba, and percussion, also draws on early music, but the prominent percussion in the faster numbers brings the music closer to what you might hear in a pub. The slower pieces are more sparsely accompanied. Perhaps the most remarkable and effective music on the disc is the lengthy programmatic instrumental piece A Highland Battle by composer James Oswald, an interesting figure who fell in between the classical and traditional realms. The battle is followed by the sublimely tragic The Massacre of Glencoe, to a text by Scott, and by a series of instrumental and vocal laments. The Scots texts are translated in the booklet into French but not into English; unlike what one might hear in a Scots pub these days, the English is, however, fully intelligible to outsiders. In this respect, as in others, the performers have steered an intelligent course among the music's various audiences, and in so doing they have devised a performance that will be of interest to folk fans as well as audiences interested in the popular underpinnings of the music of the British Isles in the eighteenth century.

© James Manheim, Rovi

CD 1
Robert Burns Composer Scots wha ha'e wi' Wallace bled (Bruce's address) Work Matthew White Countertenor, Meredith Hall Soprano, La Nef Ensemble
1	Scots wha ha'e wi' Wallace bled (Bruce's address)	2:31			$0.99
Scottish Traditional Composer Bonny Barbry O, song Work Matthew White Countertenor, Meredith Hall Soprano, La Nef Ensemble
2	Bonny Barbry O, song	3:16			$0.99
Scottish Traditional Composer Leezie Lindsay, song Work Matthew White Countertenor, Meredith Hall Soprano, La Nef Ensemble
3	Leezie Lindsay, song	3:19			$0.99
Scottish Traditional Composer Work(s) Work Matthew White Countertenor, La Nef Ensemble
4	Lumps o' Puddin / Jenny Nettles	3:52			$0.99
Alexander Munro Composer Sonata da camera ("Bonny Jean of Aberdeen") Work La Nef Ensemble
5	Allegro / Sarabanda (Grazioso) / Corrente (Vivace)	5:06			$0.99
Scottish Traditional Composer How sweet the scene, song Work Matthew White Countertenor, La Nef Ensemble
6	How sweet the scene, song	1:44			$0.99
Scottish Traditional Composer O luve will venture in, song Work Matthew White Countertenor, Meredith Hall Soprano, La Nef Ensemble
7	O luve will venture in, song	2:25			$0.99
Scottish Traditional Composer My Nanny-O, song Work La Nef Ensemble
8	My Nanny-O, song	2:10			$0.99
Alexander Munro Composer Sonata da camera ("Bonny Jean of Aberdeen") Work La Nef Ensemble
9	Giga (Allegro)	1:01			$0.99
Scottish Traditional Composer I love my love, in secret (John morisons way) (Mr. Beck, Balcarres Lute Book) Work Meredith Hall Soprano, La Nef Ensemble
10	I love my love, in secret (John morisons way) (Mr. Beck, Balcarres Lute Book)	2:38			$0.99
Robert Burns Composer Ae fond kiss Work Matthew White Countertenor, Meredith Hall Soprano, La Nef Ensemble
11	Ae fond kiss	2:17			$0.99
James Oswald Composer A Highland Battle, for flute, bagpipes, violin, bass viol, guitar & percussion Work La Nef Ensemble
12	A Highland Battle, for flute, bagpipes, violin, bass viol, guitar & percussion	9:46			$1.49
Scottish Traditional Composer The Massacre of Glencoe Work Meredith Hall Soprano, La Nef Ensemble
13	The Massacre of Glencoe	5:45			$0.99
Hamish Moore Composer The Torment, for bagpipes & percussion Work La Nef Ensemble
14	The Torment, for bagpipes & percussion	2:33			$0.99
Robert Burns Composer The Chevalier's Lament, song Work Matthew White Countertenor, La Nef Ensemble
15	The Chevalier's Lament, song	3:16			$0.99
Various Composers Composer Lament for the Death of His Second Wife (Gow) / The Lowlands of Holland Work Meredith Hall Soprano, La Nef Ensemble
16	Lament for the Death of His Second Wife (Gow) / The Lowlands of Holland	7:01			$1.49
Scottish Traditional Composer Welcome Home my Dearie, song Work La Nef Ensemble
17	Welcome Home my Dearie, song	0:51			$0.99
Robert Burns Composer Killiecrankie, song Work Matthew White Countertenor, Meredith Hall Soprano, La Nef Ensemble
18	Killiecrankie, song	2:13			$0.99