“Not only do they sing Dowland better than Sting, but they sing Sting better than Sting!”

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Better than Sting

Posted by Keith Bruce, the Herald at 7.29pmon Mon 11 Aug 08 on Filing from the Festivals        

Basking in the glory of a five star review from Rowena Smith in today’s Herald , Polish Chamber Singers Affabre Concinui brought another audience to its feet at the end of what was, sadly, their penultimate concert.  The sextet have impressed everyone with their authoritative early music performances and their winning way with a pop song.  Not only do they sing Downland better than Sting, they sing Sting better than Sting.  In their crisp suits and matched striped ties, red ones today, it was blue for their opening gig on Friday), part of the delight is the mismatch between their appearance and the way they respond to the more contemporary repertoire with flourishes of air guitar.  Although today’s programme as the same as previously, the group have relaxed and are camping it up more with each performance.  Another week and they’d have been shimmying downGeorge Streetfrom St Andrew’s andSt. George’sforcing leaflets into the mitts of punters queuing for tickets for comics at the Assembly Rooms.  Sadly tomorrow’s performance, from4.30pm, is the last in their short series.  Be there if you can-and haste ye back, chaps.  

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Review by Rowena Smith, the Herald

Affabre Concinui (literally “ideally harmonised”) must bePoland’s answer to the King’s Singers. With tight, close harmony that any barbershop group would envy and the easy ability to swing a jazz rhythm, the six-man a cappella ensemble is perfectly at home in the pop side of the repertoire. Yet the group’s expertise doesn’t stop there, extending back to the scholarly realms of renaissance polyphony and the more obscure corners of the early music repertoire.

For its Edinburgh Fringe debut the group has brought a pot pourri programme, something like a sampler of their capabilities and range. There’s an incredible amount packed into an hour-long programme, which starts with some Polish Renaissance polyphony and moves, via madrigals and vocal arrangements of Vivaldi and Bach hits and Schubert song arrangements, to covers of classic pop and jazz numbers.

In truth there seems to be a full-length concert here just dying to get out. It would be interesting to hear more of the alluring, melancholic music of Waclaw z Szamotul, a Polish contemporary of Palestrina to judge by his polyphonic style. Both here and in the more familiar madrigals both English and Italian, Affabre Concinui’s immaculately blended and pitch-perfect delivery was the equal of anything heard in the polyphony series at last year’s International Festival. Then, in the second half of the programme, the group reveals a completely different side to its repertoire with a set of jaw-dropping cover arrangements: everything from Fields of Gold and Stand by Me to what sounded like a vintage Polish pop ballad. Half the fun lies in the incongruity of smartly suited performers delivering these songs in their ever-so-serious fashion, complete with additional musical effects. To finish, there’s a breathtaking version of an orchestral classic; definitely not to be missed.

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