list.co.uk/festival Reviews | FESTIVAL MUSIC
E V E R G G R O B O C R A M
RUDOLF BUCHBINDER: BEETHOVEN – THE PIANO SONATAS ●●●●● Intimate concerts bring Beethoven to life Bringing the Playfair Library into the EIF’s roster of music venues was an inspired idea. Not only is the date of its foundation stone contemporaneous with Beethoven’s early days as a composer, but acoustically it allows his complete cycle of piano sonatas to be heard with impressive clarity over the course of nine concerts running until 26 Aug. Viennese pianist Rudolf Buchbinder is a well- practised master at the art of performing all 32 of the sonatas in a concentrated series, having done so across the world. He is meticulous in his delivery; in Concert 2, nothing was overtly emotional, but veered more towards unfussy objectivity with the direction taken all about letting Beethoven’s genius speak for itself rather than imposing a new layer of sentiment. Gripping the capacity audience in rapt, intimate attention, Buchbinder was particularly true to the composer in the G major Sonata, Op 79, with the even better known Op 27 No 2, ‘Moonlight’ being heard in a new, reflective light in his faultlessly assured interpretation of it, although it was only in its last movement that sparks began to fly. (Carol Main) ■ Playfair Library Hall, 473 2000, until 26 Aug, 5pm, £25.
THE CHURCH OF MALCOLM ●●●●● Earnest show from uncharismatic performer GUITAR MULTIVERSE ●●●●● Nerdy guitar show touts skilful acoustic sounds
Malcolm Doherty sets out to recreate world religion in his own image, but commits the gravest festival sin of all: thou shalt not take yourself too seriously. Doherty bills an hour of original pop songs and rudderless philosophical musing as an attempt to blend the best aspects of Christianity’s separate doctrines together, using his own X Factor tearjerker tale as a sort of empathetic epoxy glue. However, fortune-cookie mysticism and misunderstood metaphysics are the least of his failures when cast alongside such bland spiritual chorus hooks as ‘say a prayer, save the world’ and our self-appointed prophet’s glaring lack of charisma, which was exposed with a tragic and hastily abandoned request for an audience singalong of ‘Hey Jude’. Despite his missionary spiel, Doherty’s sermon
appeared to be largely directed at himself and his bandmate-cum-disciples . Furthermore, an over- reliance on backing tracks and dodgy lightshow projections took away from any power that his earnest songwriting might have had.
There’s nothing less funny than a zealot who’s come to believe in their own myth, and, left waiting for a punchline that never came, I remain unconverted. (Sam Bradley). ■ Assembly George Square, 623 3030, until 23 Aug, 8pm, £8–£10.
Declan Zapala looks around the cavernous sometime church hall as if he can’t quite figure out what he’s doing here. After all, his solo classical guitar sound is large, but it isn’t quite this grand. As the young player fiddles with his own sound equipment and fills the dead air between songs, his skilful playing is somewhat offset by the sense that hosting a gig on his own is a rather new experience.
‘Growing up I was quite nerdy,’ he says, ‘and it was always my dream to play a guitar show and call it something really nerdy.’ He’s unsure of the title, but he likes the tangential fact that multiverses are theoretically created by a quantum event like a single cancer cell emerging, and that somewhere in another reality his hero Eric Roche – whose ‘Spin’ and ‘Roundabout’ he plays – didn’t die of the disease a decade ago and is playing here instead. Zapala’s playing is crisp, formal and very capable;
he performs his own music (lullabyish, and written for infant relatives), a version of Bach's 'Prelude in C' from The Well-Tempered Clavier, and Benjamin Verdery’s hypnotic ‘Keane, HI’. ‘Radio 3 said I play “the acoustic guitar you hear in your dreams”,’ he beams proudly, ‘”although it’s actually classical guitar.”’ He did say he was a nerd. (David Pollock) ■ C too, 0845 260 1234, until 31 Aug (not 22, 23), 5.45pm, £8.50–£10.50 (£6.50–£8.50).
SHIT GIRLFRIEND ●●●●● Music and storytelling exploring the concept of being ‘undateable ’
Performing and touring under the moniker She Makes War for a number of years, Laura Kidd is, first and foremost, a musician, and a very good one at that. Her Fringe debut Shit Girlfriend, however, is completely different to anything she’s done before. After a series of bad break ups, Kidd set herself the task of working out why she seems so ‘undateable’, the result of which is a charming hour of biographical storytelling and music. Like all first-time Fringe performers, her nerves are evident,
but only when Kidd is speaking. With her music, she’s a natural, creating enchanting and often haunting ‘gloom-pop’ songs armed with nothing more than a ukulele, a loop machine and her voice. No technical glitches, no hideous feedback, just perfectly executed acoustic gems with layers of hypnotic vocal harmonies. After fumbling through a brief synopsis of how the show came to be, her opening song establishes her obvious talent. Listing reasons not to date musicians, from their unglamorous lifestyle choice and egotistical nature, to their obsession with music and lack of motivation to do housework, Kidd soars through the main narrative at a rather speedy pace, using her songs as reference points. There is plenty of room for her to take things at her own leisure and, after the initial nerves have faded, this is something she’s sure to discover over the course of her residency.
She may not be a comedian but, make no mistake, Kidd is funny. Although it’s sometimes apparent she’s keeping herself right by sticking to a rough script, her natural, conversational humour shines through as she ad-libs her amusing anecdotes. As she further exercises her newfound comedy muscles, she’s sure to become as confident a storyteller as she is a musician. (Nina Glencross) ■ Fingers Piano Bar, 225 3026, until 21 Aug (not 17), 4pm, free.
13–20 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 73