‘Atmospheric’: Glasgow Barons Early Music Festival review

Their mix of academic archaeology with new polyphony by tenor member Joshua Stutter was less about period authenticity than evocation, but the call-and-response, hummed drones and precision unison phrasing resonated beautifully in the old kirk’s acoustic.

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The star attraction of the weekend was Saturday night’s recital by a quartet of instrumentalists from the Dunedin Consort, with artistic director John Butt at the harpsichord. That reverberation in the building was not always a friend of their intimate music, but focused listening produced rewards. Violinist Huw Daniel and flautist Katy Bircher were the familiar top-line soloists on sonatas by Bach, Handel, and Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, and a Telemann quartet, but it was the rich-toned viola da gamba and cello of Lucia Capellaro that was the bedrock of much of the music.

The festival had opened on Friday with Cantus Firmus, a young vocal group whose roots are across the river at the University of Glasgow and St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral. With understated direction from within their ranks by tenor Ally Robertson — also a member of Iuchair — the octet followed a 16th century mass by Nicolas Gombert with a programme of Mexican and Spanish polyphony. Assured one-voice-to-a-part ensemble-work followed a little early rhythmic hesitancy and shaky tuning, and basses Pete Sykes and Ben Heatherley combined notably well.

Saturday night ended with an atmospheric and educational performance from Glasgow Cathedral organist Andrew Forbes, demonstrating both the strengths and weakness of the instrument in Govan Old, which needs and deserves some contemporary TLC. J S Bach opened and closed his programme of mostly earlier music: that era seen, as Forbes put it, through the lens of the 19th and 20th century when the organ was built.

In this new festival, Glasgow Barons’ artistic director Paul MacAlindin and his associates showed the zeal for artistic endeavour that brought the city the accolade of European City of Culture in 1990 – and that was transformational to the international reputation of Glasgow in a way that no subsequent hosting of sporting events has been able to match.