Talk to me about the Music

Perhaps it’s time I stopped talking about the beaches and the whisky on this Outer Hebridean String tour. (I notice ice cream seems to be featuring quite heavily on the Wind Tour.)
On our long ferry crossing from the tiny island of Barra back to the mainland, I spoke to David Watkin, our Director for this tour, about his role. First of all, I should clarify that this week we have been performing without a conductor. If you are surprised to hear this, remember that as a small performing group, we don’t really need one. You may well be familiar with the idea of someone directing from the violin, or from the keyboard (our recordings with pianist Piotr Andersweski and also with violinist Alexander Janiczek are examples of this), but directing from the cello, as David does, is a bit more unusual.

What does it mean to be directed rather than conducted? Well, in a sense, these figures all fulfil the same role - a director will choose the programme, ‘take’ the rehearsals, choose the tempi etc, just like as a conductor would. Like a conductor, it will be the director who starts the pieces, whom we watch to see how long the pause will be, and who will generally be in charge of determining the shape and direction of the live performance. Except of course that the director will have an instrument in their hand, rather than a baton. And because the director is, simultaneously, also one of the players, there will be more of a sense of collaboration, rather than the traditional and hierarchical dictation from the conductor’s podium. Ideally, it will produce a feeling akin to playing chamber music, where each player takes more individual responsibility for their own role.

The idea of directing the concert from the cello is closely linked to David’s choice of programme. When performing Baroque and Classical music, where, as David believes, the music is shaped more by the harmonic structure rather than the melodic line, it makes particular sense to direct it from the bass line. The 19th Century tradition of musical hierarchy - Composer, Conductor, Orchestra Leader, Section Principal, Tutti Player (in descending precedence) - is less relevant to repertoire like a Bach Cantata, where the violins don’t play at all half time. There are stories of Bach himself directing his Cantatas from the viola. (Whatever next!)

Of the 200 of Bach’s Cantatas that survive, very few of them are widely known. David wanted to play some of this very wonderful music, and to perform with the beautiful soprano Julia Doyle, and so he selected a few gems from several different Cantatas. Explaining to our audiences his decision to put movements from both secular and sacred works side by side in performance, (don’t forget that the Hebrides are famously Presbyterian, even if they do allow ferries on a Sunday these days) David felt sure that the great composer himself would not have disapproved - believing that all of his music, sacred or secular, was written for the glory of God; Soli deo gloria being inscribed at the bottom of all of Bach's completed manuscripts.

[With many thanks to David Watkin for taking time out from the CalMac Ferry quiz machines to answer some of my questions.]