Search - Kinloch, John Kitchen :: Kinloche: Scottish Keyboard Music

RULIS AND CAUTILIS FOR MR KINLOCHE

DAVID BRYSON | Glossop Derbyshire England | 10/07/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Music-lovers both amateur and professional have every reason to be grateful for the ASV Gaudeamus label and the contribution it is making to our musical enjoyment and for most of us to our musical education. I don't know a lot about the economics of the classical music industry in this day and age except that it seems to be struggling, so let me add my personal thanks and appreciation to the various Maecenases of my native Scotland, here identified as the Scottish Arts Council and Dr James Reid-Baxter, for what they did in enabling this completely gripping and absorbing production.



The names of the pieces alone had me in transports before I heard a note of the music. I could not wait to hear `Kinloch his pavane' followed by the `Gailliard of ye Lang Pavan foresaid set be Williem Kinloch', with `Jhonstounis delyt' to follow that. The first thing any newcomer needs to know is that Kinloch is a composer of considerable stature and originality in his own right, and that this is a set to buy for the music, not just for historical interest. In that ultra-political era he appears to have been an agent for Mary Queen of Scots and Catholicism, a point in history when the Scottish musical tradition, strongly encouraged under various earlier monarchies, seems to have been repressed generally in the louring ambience of Calvin and Knox. There is a generally helpful liner, taking us through the compositions by hand without being condescending, but slightly confusing in matters of the historical background if one looks at other sources. None of it greatly matters from the point of view of musical appreciation, but once one is exposed to the scholarly issues even superficially, some basic instincts kick in with some of us and we need a few issues resolved. In particular - is the `Duncan Burnett's Music Book' referred to the same book of scores as was brought to light in 1934 at Panmure House near Forfar?



Two of the pieces here are anons, generally attributed to Burnett, and I think you would know they are not by the effervescent Kinloch. The harpsichord and virginal used by Dr Kitchen are 16th-century instruments, and the tuning used is the pre-Bach `meantone' tuning, which is to say roughly that intervals of the major 3rd were accurate and the intervals in between did the best they could. Without special measures being taken, this meant that only music in some half-dozen keys sounded tolerable, but special keyboards were devised to get round the problem, and one of these survives on the virginal used in # 4,6,7 and 12. One really has to be rather grateful that the greatest (probably) composer there ever has been took the trouble to write 24 preludes and fugues and a chromatic fantasia to establish the practical man's solution to the problem, plus another 24 preludes and fugues some years later just in case there was any backsliding.



Nearly all the music here is above a ground-bass, but I don't blame the record-producers for naming the disc `Kinloche his Fantassie', which non-strict form was described by Thomas Morley (organist of St Paul's) in his `Plaine and Easy Introduction to Practicalle Musicke' as `the most principal and chiefest kind of music which is made without a ditty'. It shares this exceptional status with the big battle-piece that ends the selection, a piece longer than most first movements by Beethoven. Throughout John Kitchen delights (as they used to say) by his enthusiasm, legerdemain and patent empathy with the music. As I was just saying, most of the music is above a ground-bass, and really after the first few dozen times I had got that point and Dr Kitchen could maybe have toned down his bass a little. Further hearings may revise my opinion on that. They are not likely to revise my opinion that this is an outstanding issue of marvellous music, notably well recorded."