ZRI, Lammermuir Festival review - 'vivid, vibrant and provocative'

It was a journey across locations, times and musical styles, and just the kind of ambitious, visionary project that East Lothian’s Lammermuir Festival consistently pulls off so well. British-based group ZRI – or Zum Roten Igel – is named after the Viennese tavern where classical composers encountered music from the east: gypsy tunes, fiery Hungarian rhythms, even Jewish klezmer. And ZRI takes a radical approach to core classical works, taking them back to their trad roots in a raucous folk-style ensemble of strings, clarinet, accordion and santouri, a hammered dulcimer, and injecting pungent folk pieces in among their better-behaved melodies.

This year’s Lammermuir festival saw ZRI doing their stuff across three classical pieces in three of East Lothian’s village churches. The results were vivid and vibrant, certainly provocative, but ultimately revelatory.

Tampering with Schubert’s String Quintet – one of the classical repertoire’s most cherished pieces – might have seemed like sacrilege to some. And while the ZRI players played it (mostly) with respect and insight in the first of Saturday’s concerts, in Humbie’s tiny Parish Church, there was still a raw pungency to the rearrangement’s howling clarinet and jangling santouri that transported the music to an entirely fresh sound world. That’s without even considering the folk tunes that ZRI wove into Schubert’s music – four of them gleefully invading the opening movement, and a wailing Moldovan tune snuck into the middle of the sublime slow movement. Most arresting of all was baritone/cellist Matthew Sharp’s veer sideways into a sparse, icy account of Schubert’s chilling ‘Der Leiermann’ in the Quintet’s otherwise furious scherzo.

The ZRI quintet demonstrated miraculous, joyfully versatile musicianship, zipping nimbly between styles so that you’d often end up somewhere new without even noticing. Their klezmer-infused Brahms Clarinet Quintet and a raw, powerful Janáček ‘Kreutzer Sonata’ Quartet in Stenton and East Linton later in the day were just as inspirational. It was a typically pioneering, stimulating project that shows yet again how vital the Lammermuir Festival’s offerings are to Scottish music.