With all respect to the professional composers, past and present, whose music was played on Wednesday night by the Red Note ensemble, joined by members of the RSAMD’s MusicLab, I think we should give the space to the young students who had new pieces played.
The maths behind Claire McCue’s Xi: Imaginary Numbers mystified me, but the music, for large ensemble, was direct and immediate, launched with a series of strikingly dramatic gestures, propelled by a rhythmic pulse and an insistent, driving quality with intriguing little curls of melody on top.
After a soulful centre, led by violist Scott Dickinson, the pulse seemed to want to return: here comes the reprise. But it wasn’t. The force was spent and the music settled into an intriguing state of calm.
Ian Anderson’s quartet for oboe and string trio, entitled People Who Make No Noise Are Dangerous, was a beauty, whose melody, introduced by the strings in turn, was deeply expressive, with a deliciously quizzical turn of phrase in the middle.
And they laid down a gorgeous carpet of sound for the haunting strains of the oboe on its delayed appearance.
The piece was a fine example of what Red Note violinist Greg Lawson memorably termed “melodic narrative”.
From the pros we had Rory Boyle’s Night Pictures, with a magical evocation of nocturnal stillness at its core, the late Frank Spedding’s intense and economic Piano Quintet, and Edward McGuire’s light and lyrical Carrochan, with the composer in pastoral mode.
Star rating: ***
