Date Published: 28th September 2022
Songs of Edinburgh is a Song Cycle through Edinburgh in the company of Alexander McCall Smith
A city of hills and buildings, Upon hills; a city of secret ways
Poems by best-selling writer Alexander McCall Smith have been set to music and released as a Song Cycle: ‘Songs of Edinburgh’.
Edinburgh-based composer Tom Cunningham has set to music nine poems by the best-selling author, Alexander McCall Smith, inspired by photographs in Edinburgh: A Work of Beauty – a book of vintage photographs and other pictures of the Scottish capital from the collection of Historic Environment Scotland. The songs are performed by Brian Bannatyne-Scott (Bass) and Beth Taylor (Mezzo), accompanied on the piano by Michał Gajzler. This live recording was made at St Michael’s Church in Edinburgh and the collection is produced by Birnam Records.
The songs are:
- The Gym Lesson
- Edinburgh in Winter
- The Uppies and the Doonies
- Unfinished Dream
- The State Processes
- Hutton and Higgs
- In Candlemaker Row
- Jenners Tea Room
- Friends Together
Alexander McCall Smith commented:
‘Songs of Edinburgh’ started life as poems in Edinburgh: A Work of Beauty, a volume of vintage photographs and other pictures of the Scottish capital from the collection of Historic Environment Scotland, the body charged with the recording and protection of Scotland’s built heritage. That book contains text and poems that I wrote in response to a series of images of places in the city, some well-known and some obscure. The words set out to capture the particular beauty and atmosphere of a city that has long beguiled both resident and visitor alike. Tom Cunningham’s settings enhance that process and, as performed here by two well-known Scottish singers, have created a tribute to a city which never ceases to delight those who fall under its spell.’
One of his poems, ‘Unfinished Dream’, is given below:
Unfinished dream
This city is partly dream As our days are partly dream, A work of imagination in the sense That we imagine our lives, ourselves. Light falls upon this city In the way we play with light To recreate light, to make The world what we’d like it to be. A city of hills and buildings Upon hills; a city of secret ways And secrets that such ways contain, A city veiled in beauty, A city in which reason Has been enthroned, a proud city, Not yet completed, like the columns Upon its hills, attendant.
Tom Cunningham studied composition and conducting at Morley College, London, and his compositions have been performed by many orchestras and choirs throughout the world. From 1984 till 2002 he was Musical Director of the Brussels Choral Society and a guest conductor of the Flemish Radio Choir. He was worked on many collaborations with Alexander McCall Smith – one of which, ‘A Tapestry of Many Threads’, won a Herald Angel Award at the Edinburgh Festival.
Brian Bannatyne-Scott has enjoyed an international career as a bass singer, and has performed in most of the world’s great theatres, including La Scala, Milan, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, La Monnaie, Brussels and Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires, as well as appearing at many international festivals. In 2020, he released his first solo album, ‘Songs of Stevenson’. He was, for 10 years, Honorary Professor of Music at St Andrews University.
Beth Taylor: Since graduating from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Beth Taylor’s career has already taken her to some of Europe’s finest opera houses and concert halls, including the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Deutsche Oper, Berlin, Frankfurt Oper, Opera de Lyon and the Glyndebourne Festival. She is a fine recitalist, a prize winner at the Wigmore Hall Competition and the Gianni Bergamo Classical Music Awards, and a passionate advocate for music accessibility for all.
Michał Gajzler Born in Krakow, Poland, Michał is a freelance pianist, repetiteur and vocal coach, working for Scottish Opera, Opera Alba-Opera for All, Strathclyde University Choir and the Academy of Sacred Music. He is a graduate of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, the Krakow Academy of Music and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and now lives in Glasgow.
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