A Celebration of the Music of George Watson’s College
Usher Hall - 30/03/23
I was invited to this musical extravaganza in the Usher Hall as a former pupil of this great old school, someone who has achieved something in the world of music. I was happy to go along and be entertained by the latest cohort of young people, playing a wide range of music from various genres. I have written before on this site about my huge debt to Watson’s, and how my time there from P1 in 1960 to S6 in 1973 was a significant contributor to my professional career as an opera singer, taking me to such venues as La Scala, Milan, the Opéra de Paris, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and the Salzburg Festival. My love of singing started at Watson’s in the school choir, where we sang major works like Purcell’s ‘King Arthur’ and Brahms’ Requiem and toured in 1968 to the United States. On that trip, we were shown the brand new Metropolitan Opera House at the Lincoln Center in New York and little did I know that I would be working there myself over 40 years later. Little did I also know that, 30 years later, I would be singing the solo parts in ‘King Arthur’ at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires and recording the work for Deutsche Grammophon with Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert.
My experiences of music at Watson’s were the stimuli that set me on my career path, and I was delighted to be invited to come back and see and hear what was going on in this quite different world, fifty years later, a world, alas, where classical music is daily ridiculed as elitist and almost irrelevant, where hundred year old traditions can apparently be scrapped with one stroke of the delete key. My colleagues in continental Europe are luckier, in that governments there still value the traditional appeal of that wonderful outpouring of classical music from the Renaissance to the present day which so enriches people’s lives at every level of society.
All this is a background to my feelings in going to the Usher Hall last night, in the hope of finding some crumbs of comfort in the face of so much negativity recently. Well, I am invigorated! It was a triumph both for the school and for music in general, and I feel heartened at the wealth of skill and positivity on display. I wasn’t going to write a review, as I never feel it is fair to comment on amateur performances, and indeed this is more a celebration than a review! I shall lay my critic’s hat to one side, although I must say that the standard of much of the music making was of extraordinary quality, and I am going to start by declaring, categorically, that one performer last night is a star in the making, Alexander McNamee.
Before I get to him, we were entertained right at the beginning by the magnificent sounds of the Juvenile Pipe Band, directed by Michael O’Neill and Ross Harvey. Two pipers, Jamie Goodbrand and Ally Mulligan, started things off before the massed ranks filed in to take their places across the vast spaces of the Organ Gallery. A selection of jigs, reels and strathspeys followed, executed perfectly by the band, with an almost balletic style on the whirling drumsticks.
This was followed by the Trad Band, directed by Douglas McCallum, featuring four pieces by Scottish composers reflecting the variety of Scots traditional music, with well-played solos by all the participants. I particularly enjoyed the drummer, who was clearly having a great time!
Changing genres again, we next heard the Big Band, with a terrific array of brass and woodwind instruments, along with lead guitar, bass guitar, keyboard and another good drummer. All the solos were warmly applauded by the very big audience, who appreciated the high standard of all the playing, excellently directed by James Chamberlain.
The Caritas Strings and Chamber Choir, directed by Claire Docherty, provided a quite different sound in the Laudate Dominum from Mozart’s Solemn Vespers. I last sang the Vespers just before lockdown in York Minster, and I was intrigued to see how soprano Larissa Lourenço coped with Mozart’s wide range. For such a young singer, she sang admirably, and produced a lovely sound, easily filling the large auditorium. The ‘backing group’ of the Chamber Choir were similarly splendid. I was delighted to see that the chamber orchestra has been renamed the Caritas Strings. The Watson’s motto, ‘Ex Corde Caritas’ (Love from the Heart) was used fifty years ago by my classmate, Donald Runnicles, as the name for an orchestra he founded, the Caritas, and of course, he has since become one of the world’s great conductors, now Sir Donald Runnicles, and Musical Director of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin. He and I eventually worked together a few years ago in a BBC Prom performance of Wagner’s ‘Tannhäuser’ in London’s Albert Hall, and we still meet up when he is visiting Edinburgh.
The first half of the concert ended with the Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the Director of Music, Steven Griffin, thrilling us with three well-known classical gems. They started with the lovely Meditation from Massenet’s opera, ‘Thaïs’, with Thea Jones as the solo violin. I’ve never been a huge fan of Massenet but this intermezzo from the opera is a beautiful piece, and Thea played it expertly. She is studying for her Advanced Highers and has been using this meditation as a blissful release from studying!
There are many Watsonians active in the world of music, and I predict that we will be joined quite soon by the soloist in the next piece, Grieg’s Piano Concerto, First Movement, Alexander McNamee. From the very first chords, forever associated with Eric Morecambe and André Previn in the minds of a certain age of reader, Alexander stamped his personality on the music, and treated us to a simply superb rendition of this extremely difficult piano concerto. This was not schoolboy stuff, this was top professional playing, demonstrating a flawless technique and consummate musicianship, and we were all simply staggered by Alexander’s playing, prompting an immediate standing ovation. One hears about prodigies; indeed Mozart was one, but it is very rare to be in the presence of one, and at the cusp of a fine career.
Alexander switched immediately to his double bass in the orchestra to play in the final piece of the first half, Grieg’s ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’ from his incidental music to Ibsen’s ‘Peer Gynt’, conducted again by Steven Griffin. This work demonstrated that we were listening to a school orchestra, rather than the RSNO, but they coped admirably with the demands of this exciting showpiece, with its hectic accelerando. Top marks to the two percussionists who gave it laldy on timps and bass drum!
After the interval, the Caritas Chamber Choir and the Ex Corde Choir (parents and teachers) presented the world premiere of a new choral work by, yes, you guessed it, Alexander McNamee, with words by the Director of the Ex Corde Choir, Sophie McNeil. Following Mozart’s lead as a virtuoso pianist and composer, Alexander has produced a work of rare beauty, with a small chamber ensemble accompanying the vocal parts, with the composer on piano and Hanna Ward as descant soloist from the Grand Circle. Another extraordinary achievement.
The big choral event of the concert was the Gloria by John Rutter, written in 1974. I’m not usually a fan of his compositions, but this worked very well for a school performance, conducted again by the admirable Steven Griffin, with a brass ensemble of adult players, and Morningside Parish Church’s organist, Morley Whitehead, on the magnificent Usher Hall organ.
The concert was brought to an exciting conclusion by Steven Griffin’s fine arrangement of Auld Lang Syne, with the audience joining in, and with the Pipe Band returning for a final skirl.
It was an exhilarating evening of varied and interesting music, testimony to the continuing excellence of music at George Watson’s College, not just a school, but an Edinburgh institution to be celebrated and encouraged. As music tuition is cut back in the public sector (with the notable exceptions of Broughton School in Edinburgh and Douglas Academy in Milngavie), it is left to the great independent schools to nurture and promote musical talent, and ensure that Scotland continues to bring forth young performers, and also to give our children a chance to experience all that music can provide in a wider context.
Cover photo: Kim Traynor
