{"id":850,"date":"2014-06-03T10:42:20","date_gmt":"2014-06-03T10:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/revival-fiddle\/?p=850"},"modified":"2014-06-03T10:43:03","modified_gmt":"2014-06-03T10:43:03","slug":"mr-menuhins-delight-edinburgh-1985","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/revival-fiddle\/2014\/06\/03\/mr-menuhins-delight-edinburgh-1985\/","title":{"rendered":"Mr Menuhin’s Delight, Edinburgh 1985"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Queens<\/a><\/p>\n

Well, here is an interesting photograph, by Antonia Reeve, of an event at the Edinburgh International Festival in 1985 that brought together a range of Scottish fiddlers with Yehudi Menuhin and my own group the Whistlebinkies. That’s me in the light shirt seated in the middle. Ron Gonnella is over my shoulder.<\/p>\n

Reviewing the concert in the New Statesman on 25 August 1985 Angus Calder wrote:<\/p>\n

[Hugh] MacDairmid wished Scottish culture to live in a modern and international ambiance. One afternoon at Queen\u2019s Hall, Yehudi Menuhin met the Whistlebinkies, a folk band, and six fiddlers expert in different styles. Mr Menuhin\u2019s Delight triumphed because it was so nearly a cockup. Audience and performers were delighted by a common fear of disaster. The Beeb [BBC], recording the event, had failed to provide technology to ensure that Menuhin\u2019s conversations about technique with other artists could be heard in all sections. The compere kept fluffing and some of the fiddlers looked frightened by the occasion. But they played gloriously. Ron Gonella\u2019s suavely beautiful tone contrasted with Bob Hopkirk\u2019s bagpipe-influenced style and the great Aly Bain\u2019s fierce Norse-Shetland virtuosity. The occasion became historic when Edna Arthur played with supreme skill and intensity a magnificent pibroch dating back to 1526, transcribed for the fiddle in the late 18th century.<\/p>\n

Whistlebinkies\u2019 flautist. Eddie McGuire, is also Scotland\u2019s leading avant-garde composer (and left-wing with it). The final item was a new slow air and reel written by him for Sir Yehudi. All the performers assembled to participate. The great man, due to lead off, fluffed on the first note, said sorry, and lunged on at once like a small child performing at its first school concert. The piece was fine, the applause was tumultuous; Menuhin played much better in the encore. I felt I was hearing the feudal past being ferried across to the socialist future. Elated, I went out into another torrential downpour. God really doesn\u2019t like to see Scotland getting too big for its boots \u2013 or, rather, growing into bigger ones.<\/p>\n

I’m sure there is a sound recording of the day out there and I’m on its trail. I have the original programme note somewhere which I will post here. I’ll also capture some others’ memories of the day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, here is an interesting photograph, by Antonia Reeve, of an event at the Edinburgh International Festival in 1985 that brought together a range of Scottish fiddlers with Yehudi Menuhin and my own group the Whistlebinkies. That’s me in the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/revival-fiddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/revival-fiddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/revival-fiddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/revival-fiddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/revival-fiddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=850"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/revival-fiddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":852,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/revival-fiddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850\/revisions\/852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/revival-fiddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/revival-fiddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/revival-fiddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}