Fringe: Shakespeare in Song - Taylor Wilson Sings The Bard

Scottish Arts Club - 18/08/23

Taylor Wilson, voice | Neil Metcalfe, piano | Brian Branford, double bass

Taylor Wilson is a national treasure who ought to be more widely known

I have been listening to Taylor Wilson over the last 10 years singing in large scale concerts of the Bach Passion, to small scale university concerts, special German cabaret shows, and very good covers of Edith Piaf. In everything she does she excels, she not only sings very well with a superb mezzo soprano voice but she also acts well, inhabiting every role and convincing you of her song. In fact I was at the premiere of Barrie Kosky’s ‘The Threepenny Opera’ on Friday night and thought at the time how much better Taylor would have sung a number of the roles as well as acting convincingly. Her latest concert highlights songs around the works of Shakespeare. It was a triumph and convinced me that Taylor is a national treasure and ought to be much more widely known across the world of music. As we know getting recognised is a bit of a lottery in music.

It was a sold-out audience at the Scottish Arts Clubs, so some of us know how good Taylor is, and she was backed by two very good musicians, Neil Metcalfe on piano, and Brian Branford on double bass. Between them they created a magic soundscape which took us back to the baroque period and ended up with some modern jazz settings. She began by singing “If Music Be The Food of Love” of course the opening lines of ‘Twelfth Night’, although those are the only words of Shakespeare in the song; the rest of the text is by Henry Hevingham, written in 1692 and set to music by Purcell. She then demonstrated her perfect French (as you would expect from an Edith Piaf specialist) by singing ‘Chanson D’Ophelie’ by Ernest Chausson. Next came ‘Fairy Lullaby’ from ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ with music by American composer, Amy Beach; then Roger Quilter’s setting of ‘Take, O take those lips away’ (‘Measure for Measure’), - a later twentieth century version by English composer and actress Madeleine Dring, who also wrote ‘Crabbed Age and Youth (The Passionate Pilgrim) was an interesting contrast.

Before that however, highlights were Schubert’s ‘An Sylvia’ (1828, from ‘The Two Gentlemen of Verona’) and Finzi’s beautiful setting of ‘Fear No More the Heat of the Sun’ (‘Cymbeline’).

In all these Taylor gave life to the songs but also the characters in the songs. She finished with a set written by Johnnie Dankworth for his wife the wonderful singer Cleo Laine who contributed greatly to popularising Shakespeare songs for jazz influenced music. Cleo is still alive aged 96, and last week I reviewed her daughter Jacqui Dankworth who is also a superb singer and was appearing on the Fringe. The Dankworth songs were fun, but also fine music, ranging from ‘All the World’s a Stage’, another ‘If Music be the Food of Love’, ‘It was a Lover and his Lass, and finally ‘Dunsinane Blues’, which brought the house down! Taylor’s voice is different from Cleo’s but no less expressive and well-suited to these arrangements.

Hopefully, Nicola Benedetti and her staff will learn more about Taylor’s work and we’ll see more of her at next year’s Festival.