The Edinburgh Guide review in June 2024 of Debussy's Romantic Piano is briefly summarised thus: ‘Matthew Shiels’s eloquent performance expresses a dramatic, emotional mood from sad and sorrowful to light-hearted and lyrical, oozing a joyful sense of romantic love’.
So it’s marvellous to see that Matthew Shiel has launched a series of Moonlight Concerts by Candlelight in Scotland and London over the winter season, including Beethoven, Gershwin, Vivaldi and Christmas music.
‘Moonlight creates immersive classical music experiences, in collaboration with writers, visual artists and filmmakers to blend conservatoire performance standards with experimental attitude …to make classical music accessible for all’.
On this dark November evening, the chapel is warmly lit by dozens of candles for this recital of enchanting music by Ludovic Eunadi, Philip Glass, Erik Satie, François Couperin, and begins with One Summer’s Day, by Joe Hisaishi from the animation movie ‘Spirited Away’.
This is a coming-of-age story exploring Chihiro’s anxieties and fears through symbolism and fantasy. From gentle tinkling of keys, a sweet melody softly develops into a lyrical, recurring refrain, evoking a memory of a beautiful day, lost in time.
The Poet Acts is from the soundtrack of the 2002 film The Hours composed by Philip Glass, based on the novel by Michael Cunningham. This brilliantly interlinks three characters and their lives across different time periods: the writer, Virginia Woolf, 1923, a housewife, Laura Brown, 1951 and New York artist Clarissa Vaughan in 2001.
The music is elegiac, moody, melancholic which shimmers in a dreamlike misty haze on a theme of life, love, the passing of time. Virginia thanks Leonard for loving her: "Always the years between us. Always the years. Always the love. Always the hours."
Matthew plays another hauntingly beautiful piece from ‘The Hours’ - I am going to make a Cake. The music is dark and brooding with a key change from A minor to F, driving towards a lilting, regretful theme. In the movie, Laura and her young son Richie make a cake for her husband’s birthday, trying to keep cheerful despite feeling trapped in an unhappy marriage. ‘Laura: We're baking the cake to show him that we love him. Richie: Otherwise he won't know we love him?. Laura: That's right.’
Sitting in the flickering shadows of the chapel, this is a mesmerising masterclass performance of Glass’s dramatic music, shifting in emotion from slow and thoughtful to an expression of anger and despair.
Ludovico Eunadi's, Le Onde. (The Wave) seamlessly picks up this musical thread of nostalgia with a soulful, soothing tempo, and is based on ‘The Waves,’ a novel by Virginia Woolf. The composer explains that it’s ‘set on a long beach without beginning or end .. the story of a man who walks along this shore and perhaps never meets anyone’. Eunadi’s music reflects how we ride the calm and treacherous waves of life.
Emma Shen is a Chinese visual artist in Edinburgh who has collaborated with Disney and other global companies, and her paintings exhibited internationally. As artist in residence with Moonlight concerts, she presents calligraphic illustrations – budding flowers, leaves or ocean waves - illuminated on the stained glass window beyond the altar; a magical connection between the flow of musical notes and sweep of brushstrokes.
The programme also features two pieces by Erik Satie - Gnossienne No.1, (a ritual dance of ancient Greece), with minor chords denoting a melancholic tone but also a sense of hope following Satie’s experimental style of rhythm and structure.
Gymnopedie No. 1 is one of three piano solos inspired by the poetry of his friend Patrice Contamine de Latour. Performed according to the score’s note,Lent et douloureux (slowly with grief), its bittersweet melody rises and falls like ocean waves creating a sense of floating through time.
Interspersed with the music, Matthew reads ten short Haiku-style poems, ‘Zen Stages of Enlightenment: The Ten Bulls’ - the earliest known version is 1,000 years old.
‘ …in the pasture of the world,
I endlessly push aside the tall
grasses in search of the Ox.
Along the riverbank under the trees,
I discover footprints.
Even under the fragrant grass,
The river flows tranquilly on
and the flowers are red.
I am ever blissful.
I use no magic to extend my life;
Now, before me, the dead trees
become alive.
The concert ends most appropriately with The Merry-go-round of Life by Joe Hisaishi from ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’, to complete the recurring theme of a meandering journey from birth to death, nostalgic and upbeat with the whirling tempo of a graceful waltz.
Matthew Shiel has once again curated a truly enlightening selection of music sharing a languid, lyrical style and emotional mood, each piece complemented by Emma’s illuminated painterly patterns for moments of quiet meditation.
The audience was indeed 'spirited away' in a meditative, theatrical ambience of calm reflective light, art, poetry and music.
Showtimes:
This performance took place on 9th November, 2024.
The concert, with the same or similar programme, will be performed at St. Vincent’s Chapel. Edinburgh on 30th November and St. Brides, Glasgow on 7th December.
For a full list of further concerts by Matthew Shiel, check out the Moonlight Concerts website