By Rachael Unsworth
When Kenneth Wilson opened his cello case to practise for his next ‘Poetical Cellist’ event, maybe he caught a whiff of meadow flowers and grasses. On Saturday 22 June he entertained an appreciative audience at Lucy’s Barn on a Lake District fellside.
The performance, in aid of bereavement charity ‘Cruse’, combined Irish folk music, movements from Bach cello suites and a selection of poems from his recently published collection ‘The definitions of kitchen verbs’.
He took us from the springtime of ‘Hope’, with a charming Irish melody melting into a tender Sarabande, through the high summer of fulfilment:
‘You are the dew to my grass,
And the salve to my sore,
The moat to my castle,
And the beam to my face’
Followed by the perfect harmonious sweetness of the famous opening of the first cello suite. But that use of ‘moat’ and ‘beam’ might make you guess that for Wilson, love is a many-layered thing. ‘Happily ever after’ is so obviously not the end of the story, nor of the show.
Sure enough, the chill air of ‘Doubts’ is followed by tempests of disappointment. Young love seemed so simple. But there’s so much of life beyond the freedom of souls and bodies awakening to each other, beyond ‘I do’ to the reality of domestic strife when we can ‘Sink so low’ and then feel so alone. The solo cello that lulled and charmed can also disturb to the core.
But the show must go on and after the interval we found ourselves in various versions of ‘downhill all the way’. Wilson continued to draw different tones from his strings, from his gut as well as his heart. Sublime melodies and bitter words, timeless Celtic wistfulness, baroque elaboration of simple themes, and humour. He always has a wry perspective, an edge to his bow. We’re never quite sure how much he is telling his own story and how much is from vivid imagination, but this is an arresting, varied blend of wisdom, wit and the wordless eloquence of his cello.
The Poetical Cellist will be at The Edinburgh Fringe.
