{"id":4533,"date":"2018-08-04T08:06:49","date_gmt":"2018-08-04T07:06:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.larkreviews.co.uk\/?p=4533"},"modified":"2018-08-05T14:28:09","modified_gmt":"2018-08-05T13:28:09","slug":"prom-27-folk-music-around-britain-and-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/?p=4533","title":{"rendered":"Prom 27 \u2013 Folk Music around Britain and Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Royal Albert Hall, Friday 3rd<\/sup> August 2018<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

You needed to read the small print for this concert. What looked at first glance like a collection of some of our finest folk musicians was in reality a BBC Concert Orchestra concert under Stephen Bell , for they played in almost every number and at times the orchestral arrangements came close to drowning out the soloists.<\/p>\n

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Prom 27 Folk Prom
Photo by Mark Allan<\/p><\/div>\n

As a cross-over experiment there were many splendid moments. Jarlath Henderson\u2019s Uilleann pipes were captivating every time he appeared and the rendition of Dawns Soig<\/em> with ALAW was the instrumental highlight of the evening. Julie Fowlis\u2019 Puirt-a-Beul is captivating and was particularly moving when singing Lovely Molly<\/em> with Sam Lee. His earlier singing of My Ausheen \u2013 <\/em>a gentle strathspey \u2013 was effectively accompanied by the subtle underpinning of the orchestra.<\/p>\n

At other times the orchestral arrangements simply seemed too invasive. The Unthanks gave us Gan to the Kye<\/em> and Mount the Air<\/em> in the first half and both seemed over commercialised in the romanticism of the orchestration to say nothing of its volume. Their singing of Magpie<\/em> in the second half was far more successful in its wistful intensity, and they brought the evening to a rousing climax with some brief but exultant Northumbrian clog dancing.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, one of the most moving vocal items was Julie Fowlis\u2019 singing of Camarinas<\/em> in Galician and Scots Gaelic \u2013 genuinely romantic and superbly lyrical.<\/p>\n

The orchestra gave us three brief pieces based on folk tunes of which Hoddinott\u2019s Welsh Dances <\/em>were the most appealing \u2013 the others drifting too easily into the realm of generic film music.<\/p>\n

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Prom 27 Folk Prom
Photo by Mark Allan<\/p><\/div>\n

A welcome experiment with many memorable moments, but maybe there is room at the Proms for a more serious take on folk music in the same way as we have for Indian Classical music in the past. And for a long-standing resident of East Sussex it was note-worthy that there was no folk-music south of the Wash!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Royal Albert Hall, Friday 3rd August 2018 You needed to read the small print for this concert. What looked at first glance like a collection of some of our finest folk musicians was in reality a BBC Concert Orchestra concert … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4533"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4533"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4540,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4533\/revisions\/4540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}