Robyn Stapleton Songs of Robert Burns Queen's Hall 25th January 2025 Review
Robyn Stapleton: Songs of Robert Burns at the Queen’s Hall Edinburgh was a chance tonight to not only hear these songs performed appropriately on Burns’ Night, but also to hear a singer that many people consider to be one of the best contemporary interpreters of traditional Scottish (and other) folk music today.
This concert was basically a live performance of Robyn’s 2017 album of the same name, and also brought back together some of the musicians from this one too.
There appear to be two basic approaches to performing the songs of Robert Burns. One is to take the "in an old drinking tavern" approach, and the other is as tonight’s one, how I imagine a refined evening of music in some New Town house drawing room would sound. I suspect that all too often after more than a few drinks the latter would often revert to the former anyhow. Neither approach is right or wrong, and that is perhaps the beauty of these songs and the words of Robert Burns – they are always in the eye of the beholder.
The fact that Robyn Stapleton has a unique voice that is well suited to traditional music and that she also has a great appreciation and love of the songs and words that Robert Burns left to the world was never in doubt, and her choice of songs and performance of them was obviously what this audience wanted to hear tonight.
You cannot really do a show like this one without having some of the very obvious songs in it, and “Ae Fond Kiss”, “My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose” and of course “Auld Lang Syne” were all in this set-list. There were also a few surprises too, songs that you for whatever reason do not hear performed live that often. In this list, to name but a few, “I’m O’er Young”, “Westlin’ Winds” and “The Slave’s Lament”. The last one always puzzles me a bit though as, despite the powerful words of the song, Robert Burns was a man who, had his poetry not been a success, was not once, but twice leaving Scotland to take up the position of an overseer on a Jamaican plantation.
The second set was a little bit more free in format than the first with musicians Alice Allen (Cello), Heather Cartwright (Guitar), Alistair Paterson (Piano and Harmonium), and Patsy Reid (Fiddle and Viola) having space to highlight their own individual talents. It made a good change here for proper acknowledgement being given to the original source material for many of these songs that Burns himself collected on his travels. Also credit was given to the great fiddle player of his day Neil Gow (1727 to 1807) who was a friend of Robert Burns and a source for many of the songs that he set his new words to.
One unexpected song of the evening from Robyn was “Make You Feel My Love”, which was n this set for no other reason than that Dylan is a fan of Robert Burns and Robyn simply wanted to sing a Bob Dylan Song. It would be interesting to hear someday Robyn covering more Bob Dylan songs as her voice can add something very different (judging by this one) to them.
Review by Tom King © 2025
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
This concert was basically a live performance of Robyn’s 2017 album of the same name, and also brought back together some of the musicians from this one too.
There appear to be two basic approaches to performing the songs of Robert Burns. One is to take the "in an old drinking tavern" approach, and the other is as tonight’s one, how I imagine a refined evening of music in some New Town house drawing room would sound. I suspect that all too often after more than a few drinks the latter would often revert to the former anyhow. Neither approach is right or wrong, and that is perhaps the beauty of these songs and the words of Robert Burns – they are always in the eye of the beholder.
The fact that Robyn Stapleton has a unique voice that is well suited to traditional music and that she also has a great appreciation and love of the songs and words that Robert Burns left to the world was never in doubt, and her choice of songs and performance of them was obviously what this audience wanted to hear tonight.
You cannot really do a show like this one without having some of the very obvious songs in it, and “Ae Fond Kiss”, “My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose” and of course “Auld Lang Syne” were all in this set-list. There were also a few surprises too, songs that you for whatever reason do not hear performed live that often. In this list, to name but a few, “I’m O’er Young”, “Westlin’ Winds” and “The Slave’s Lament”. The last one always puzzles me a bit though as, despite the powerful words of the song, Robert Burns was a man who, had his poetry not been a success, was not once, but twice leaving Scotland to take up the position of an overseer on a Jamaican plantation.
The second set was a little bit more free in format than the first with musicians Alice Allen (Cello), Heather Cartwright (Guitar), Alistair Paterson (Piano and Harmonium), and Patsy Reid (Fiddle and Viola) having space to highlight their own individual talents. It made a good change here for proper acknowledgement being given to the original source material for many of these songs that Burns himself collected on his travels. Also credit was given to the great fiddle player of his day Neil Gow (1727 to 1807) who was a friend of Robert Burns and a source for many of the songs that he set his new words to.
One unexpected song of the evening from Robyn was “Make You Feel My Love”, which was n this set for no other reason than that Dylan is a fan of Robert Burns and Robyn simply wanted to sing a Bob Dylan Song. It would be interesting to hear someday Robyn covering more Bob Dylan songs as her voice can add something very different (judging by this one) to them.
Review by Tom King © 2025
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
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