Songs of Edinburgh CD

This CD was recorded at a performance in August 2021.

You can buy the CD here.

A review by Hugh Kerr for Edinburgh Music Review

St Michael’s Church, Edinburgh, 22nd August 2021

A concert good enough to be in the International Festival. These were my thoughts at the end of this superb concert on Sunday evening. St Michael’s Church is a superb venue for music with a very good acoustic and a very healthy audience of over 200 on Sunday night for the concert. It was very nice to be inside for a concert rather than the tents of the official festival, which although a brave initiative to mount a festival threatened with COVID, have their disadvantages.

The final section of the concert, and what gave the concert its title, was ‘Songs of Edinburgh’, poems written by Sandy McCall Smith, set to music by composer Tom Cunningham, who was in the audience. The poems were originally written to accompany a book written by Sandy commissioned by Historic Scotland of photographs of Edinburgh ‘A Work of Beauty - Alexander McCall Smith’s Edinburgh’ I have the book on my shelf; it is a delight as are Sandy’s poems and Tom Cunningham’s music. In ‘The Gym Lesson’, a hilarious poem, Beth gave us echoes of Miss Jean Brodie. In ‘Edinburgh In Winter’ Brian evoked the spirit of the city. In ‘The Uppies And the Doonies’ Beth and Brian captured the class divisions of Edinburgh, truly a tale of two cities. ‘Unfinished Dream’ reflects on the geography and architecture of the city, not yet completed as Sandy says. I wonder what he would say about the new St James Centre and “The Turd”! ‘The State Processes’ refers to all those state rituals that Edinburgh observes and a plea for a different future for Scotland. ‘Hutton and Higgs’ refers to two of our great scientists who keep the tradition of the Enlightenment alive. ‘From Candlemaker Row’ goes back to the past in 1932 and a separated wife. ‘Jenner’s Tea Room’ is a gentle satire on Edinburgh ladies, though sadly they currently have no Jenner’s Tea Rooms to go to, and the final song, sung by Brian and Beth ‘Friends Together’ celebrates growing up in the city and the love of place that Edinburgh inspires amongst us all, aided by pictures of Edinburgh from Sandy’s book, projected on to a big screen. It was a perfect end to a perfect concert. As I said in my heading, this concert was of international quality and would be very much at home in the International Festival. Fergus Linehan our festival director (who is sadly leaving us next year) has done well to promote Scottish culture as a part of the festival, including traditional music this year (unlike his predecessor who wasn’t interested in it!). He could do worse than commission Brian, Beth and Michael to put on a version of this concert for next year’s festival programme.

Hugh Kerr