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My Heart's in the Highlands: the debut recital from tenor Glen Cunningham mixes Stuart MacRae's new songs with other composers with 'Scotland in Mind'
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaJWnhNHk2Gga93IdCK0iGfLO2T4fUIibsZZgBYCs7ufyywcSweizIYHQCbCyaQE1I47pip69SjTvW4Vyab0IowQJChbkpTr5lCocs1IisTTP8p1TcQyaiEKheMHsImH0PQynQNkm02iD7aq4o-5FxvzJsJAswSyZqXk2F8n1xvMAqG3EiUgfzOg/s2000/my-hearts-in-the-highlands-burns-hahn-lehman-schumann-macrae-cd-delphian-records-840213_2000x.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="My Heart's in the Highlands: traditional, Schumann, Stuart MacRae, Liza Lehmann, Hahn; Glen Cunningham, Anna Tilbrook; DELPHIAN Reviewed 5 February 2025" border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="2000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaJWnhNHk2Gga93IdCK0iGfLO2T4fUIibsZZgBYCs7ufyywcSweizIYHQCbCyaQE1I47pip69SjTvW4Vyab0IowQJChbkpTr5lCocs1IisTTP8p1TcQyaiEKheMHsImH0PQynQNkm02iD7aq4o-5FxvzJsJAswSyZqXk2F8n1xvMAqG3EiUgfzOg/w400-h400/my-hearts-in-the-highlands-burns-hahn-lehman-schumann-macrae-cd-delphian-records-840213_2000x.webp" title="My Heart's in the Highlands: traditional, Schumann, Stuart MacRae, Liza Lehmann, Hahn; Glen Cunningham, Anna Tilbrook; DELPHIAN Reviewed 5 February 2025" width="400"/></a></i></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i><br/><span style="font-size: medium;">My Heart's in the Highlands</span></i><span style="font-size: medium;">: traditional, Schumann, Stuart MacRae, Liza Lehmann, Hahn; Glen Cunningham, Anna Tilbrook; DELPHIAN<br/>Reviewed 5 February 2025</span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b>For his debut recital, the young Scottish tenor takes us back to the Highlands of the imagination with music that moves from Stuart MacRae's new songs to Schumann setting Burns, Lehmann and Hahn setting Stevenson in an engaging and imaginative recital.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">The recent disc from tenor <a href="https://www.glencunningham.com/" target="_blank">Glen Cunningham</a> and pianist <a href="http://www.annatilbrook.co.uk/" target="_blank">Anna Tilbrook</a>, <i><a href="https://www.delphianrecords.com/products/my-hearts-in-the-highlands-burns-hahn-lehman-schumann-macrae" target="_blank">My Heart's in the Highlands</a></i> on <a href="https://www.delphianrecords.com/" target="_blank">Delphian</a> explores not so much Scottish music as the idea Scotland, what Roger Fiske in his book <i>Scotland in Music</i> refers to as 'Scotland in Mind'. So we have the premiere of <i>Five Stevenson Song</i> by Scottish composer <a href="https://stuartmacrae.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Stuart MacRae</a> (also from the Highlands, evidently), alongside art-song arrangements of Scottish songs, Robert Schumann's Robert Burns settings from <i>Myrthen</i> and songs by Liza Lehmann and Reynaldo Hahn. Lehmann, Hahn and MacRae all set words by Robert Louis Stevenson which adds another thread running through the disc.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">The Scottish songs are spread throughout the disc so we start with <i>Ca' the yowes to the knowes</i> arranged by Claire Liddell who also provides the arrangements of <i>Ye banks and braes</i> and <i>Wee Willie Gray</i>, with <i>Ae fond kiss</i> arranged by Alfred Moffatt and <i>My heart's in the Highlands</i> in a version transcribed a 1962 Kenneth McKellar recording! Cunningham and Tilbrook make these art song, not folk song, but Cunningham (who was born in the Highlands) does not shy away from the language, thankfully.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Cunningham studied at the Royal College of Music's Opera Studio and at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. He was a member of the Opera Studio of Opera national du Rhin and was a Scottish opera Emerging Artist and performed the title role in Britten's <i>Albert Herring</i> with Scottish Opera earlier this season.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXsWjlx-rXLo1xJmsbwNSz3u_2xHLuz0SZxBEMiUhTVN8cYEaw9zScRBQftTLf-X2venTHp0jrkJbSDnJ0tA4n3DBDT6euYFI_5kinjMIAHblvUHW8SCE9OHcxl82oDe_9iO-HgnwsL16ERPOp1EVjY-xMd4PfngTdIiV0WJVcPneYfZv6W-RZIA/s1600/my-hearts-in-the-highlands-burns-hahn-lehman-schumann-macrae-cd-delphian-records-528909_2000x.webp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Anna Tilbrook & Glen Cunningham recording Delphian's My Heart's in the Highlands in St Mary's Church, Haddington" border="0" data-original-height="1250" data-original-width="1600" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXsWjlx-rXLo1xJmsbwNSz3u_2xHLuz0SZxBEMiUhTVN8cYEaw9zScRBQftTLf-X2venTHp0jrkJbSDnJ0tA4n3DBDT6euYFI_5kinjMIAHblvUHW8SCE9OHcxl82oDe_9iO-HgnwsL16ERPOp1EVjY-xMd4PfngTdIiV0WJVcPneYfZv6W-RZIA/w640-h500/my-hearts-in-the-highlands-burns-hahn-lehman-schumann-macrae-cd-delphian-records-528909_2000x.webp" title="Anna Tilbrook & Glen Cunningham recording Delphian's My Heart's in the Highlands in St Mary's Church, Haddington" width="640"/></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Anna Tilbrook & Glen Cunningham recording Delphian's <i>My Heart's in the Highlands</i> in St Mary's Church, Haddington</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br/>It comes as something of a surprise to find that Robert Schumann wrote some 20 settings of Robert Burns, in translation of course but something in Burns' directness must have appealed to him. Here we hear the eight Burns settings from </span><i style="font-family: verdana;">Myrthen</i><span style="font-family: verdana;"> which form an interesting group, all about love and loss (including love lost), and lamenting in tone. As Lucy Walker points out in her fine booklet article, the political overtones of Burns' writing will have passed over Schumann's head, but we can enjoy his engagement with the subject.<span></span></span><p></p><a name="more"></a><p></p><p> <i>Jemand</i> is warmly passionate, Cunningham's lyric tenor is finely vibrant. He and Tilbrook bring out the contrasts between the Schumann songs, so the Highland widow is vivid and intense, whilst the Highlander's farewell is vigorously robust and the lullaby is suitably gentle with Cunningham's phrasing here, as elsewhere, beautifully done. <i>Hauptmanns Weib</i> is characterful, the words and the story counting, whilst the gentle lyricism of <i>Weit, Weit</i> gets remarkably intense. There is a vivid swagger to <i>Niemand</i>, and a gentle lyricism to <i>Im Western</i>. As a postlude to this group we get Schumann's version of <i>My luve's like a red, red rose</i>, in a beautifully touching version, followed of course by Thomas Swift Gleadhill's arrangement of the original.</p><p>Liza Lehmann's <i>The Daisy Chain</i> is a set of songs for mixed voices of which Cunningham and Tilbrook perform four of the five Robert Louis Stevenson settings. These are children's songs, in theory, but they are still complex art songs. <i>Keepsake Mill</i> is vivid and urgent, whilst <i>Stars</i>, the most substantial of the group, is ardent lyrical outpouring. <i>The Swing</i> is clearly depicted in the sway of the music, here in a vibrant, engaging performance and this engaging quality continues with <i>The Moon</i>.</p><p>Stuart MacRae was evidently drawn to the vivid surface imagery of Robert Louis Stevenson's poems before consideration of what they might mean. The songs all treat the voice with lyrical care, these sound as if they are effective and grateful to sing, yet the composer's contemporary chops are never in question. There is also a constant feel of Scottish melody and psalmody in a way that imbues the songs but never veers towards pastiche. The result is an engaging, imaginative and at times magical grouping.</p><p>Evidently, MacRae wrote the vocal line first, and in the first two songs his use of a high piano accompaniment with no piano bass is noticeable. <i>ENVOY</i> is quite intimate, the high piano creating a magical atmosphere over Cunningham's finely crafted vocal line, the result highly seductive. This atmosphere carries over into <i>For age an' youth</i> and here there is a Scots inflection to the melody. Perhaps significant that the first poem is in English whilst the second is in Scots. The piano flickers above Cunningham's tenor. <i>Bright is the ring of words</i> (familiar from RVW's setting) is vividly vigorous, the complex piano gestures complemented Cunningham's finely proclaimed tenor line. <i>KATHARINE</i> is rather haunting and eerie in the piano, contrasting with the vibrant vocal line, whilst <i>EVENSONG</i> (from <i>Songs of Travel</i>) has a distinct Scots feel to it, with echoes of the pipes in both the lamenting tenor and the piano, the pibroch perhaps not far away.</p><p>I have always been fascinated by Reynaldo Hahn's <i>Five Little Songs</i>, setting verses from Robert Louis Stevenson's <i>A Child's Garden of Verses</i>, written whilst the composer was seeing action in the First World War. They were written in French translations but here are sung in the original English. The composer's imagination and gift for song is apparent throughout, yet if I heard these cold would I immediately say they were by Hahn? Whilst his style did not develop according to the norms of contemporary music in the 1910s and 1920s, it is clear that Hahn's style was developing.</p><p> <i>The Swing</i> (also set by Lehmann) is fresh and engaging whilst <i>Windy Nights</i> (familiar from John Rutter's choral setting) is vivid and remarkably complex, children's songs are a long way away. There is, perhaps, a certain Scots swagger to the vocal line in the tunefully appealing <i>My Ship and I</i>. <i>The Stars</i> (also set by Lehmann) is a rather ardent art-song, whilst <i>A Good Boy</i> is lyrically engaging.</p><p>The performers end with a final pair of Scots songs, bringing to an end a disc that combines imagination with a wonderful feel of imaginative engagement. There is a sense of the two performers bringing these different ideas of the Highlands alive. There is definitely no sense of light music to the performances of the Hahn and the Lehmann. Throughout we are intrigued and engaged.<span> </span></p><p>I would love to hear the two exploring Scotland in music further, the idea of Ronald Stevenson's <i>Border Boyhood</i> (setting Hugh McDiarmid and written for Peter Pears) or some of Francis George Scott's songs would be highly appealing!</p><p><br/></p><div><br/></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div><div><br/></div><div><p><br/></p><p><br/></p><p><br/></p><p><br/></p><p><br/></p><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>Never miss out </b><span style="font-family: verdana;">on future posts by <a href="https://follow.it/planethugill?action=followPub." target="_blank">following us</a></span></span></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><div><p style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>The blog is free,</b><span style="font-family: verdana;"> but I'd be delighted if you were to show your appreciation by <a href="https://www.buymeacoffee.com/planethugill" target="_blank">buying me a coffee</a>.</span></span></p><p style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><font size="4"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Elsewhere on this </b></span></i><span style="font-size: large;"><b>blog</b></span></span></font></span></p><ul><li><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></li><li><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>Unbearable intensity: </b>musically strong revival of Janáček's <i>Jenůfa </i>at the Royal Opera with incoming music director Jakub Hrůša on searing form in the pit - <a href="https://www.planethugill.com/2025/02/unbearable-intensity-musically-strong.html">opera review</a></span></li><li><b style="font-family: verdana;">Schubert's Birthday at Wigmore Hall: </b><span style="font-family: verdana;">Konstantin Krimmel in overwhelming form, with a welcome group of Carl Loewe too - </span><a href="https://www.planethugill.com/2025/02/konstantin-krimmel-in-overwhelming-form.html" style="font-family: verdana;">concert review</a></li><li><span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>Bruckner's obsession with death, Scottish Gaelic folk poetry & a grumpy gaboon</b><b style="font-style: italic;">: </b>Scottish composer Jay Capperauld, Scottish Chamber Orchestra's associate composer - <a href="https://www.planethugill.com/2025/02/bruckners-obsession-with-death-scottish.html">interview</a></span></span></li><li><b style="font-family: verdana; 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