Film
The Passion of Joan of Arc, Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow
Keith Bruce
four stars
Baritone Donald Greig is a modern Renaissance man, whose singing career with the Tallis Scholars and as a founding member of the Orlando Consort is combined with being a published novelist and, here, as the deviser of the programme he and his colleagues provide to soundtrack an early cinema classic by Carl Theodor Dreyer. For that he has become a pre-Renaissance man, assembling a collage of unaccompanied singing by fourteenth and fifteenth century composers whose liturgical music might have been known to assiduous mass-attender Joan of Arc herself.
The justification for this radical approach is that the Danish filmmaker is documented as having been unhappy with music written or arranged for his work from is premiere in 1928 through to a 1951 version. The difficulty with it is that it makes watching the film even more of a quasi-religious, rather than a (historical and political) narrative experience, a process that has clearly been underway since the original Danish title, which translates as Joan of Arc's Suffering and Death, became the Christ-like "Passion" for the Paris premiere.
Greig's awareness of all of this is, however, quite clear in his programme note, so it is more the point to praise the Consort's singing of his clever compilation, in relays of trios more often than as a full quintet, and his sensible use of silence at times of the highest drama and most remarkable cinematography.
Because in the final analysis it is the movie that is the greater wonder. Dreyer's palette of tracking shots, pans, extreme close-ups, atmospheric angles and brilliant editing is startlingly ahead of it time - and his cast, led by Renee Maria Falconetti as Jeanne, are simply superb.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article