Brighton Year-Round 2025

Eugenia and Quentin Russell Recital St Nicholas Church, Brighton

Eugenia Russell and Quentin Russell

Genre: Live Music, Music

Venue: St Nicholas Church, Dyke Road, Brighton

Festival: Brighton Year-Round

Low Down

Review

A singular, intriguing and ultimately unique recital from a multi-instrumental duo at St Nicholas. Quentin Russell on guitar and piano and Eugenia Russell on piano, cello and voice.

Though the earlier part of this recital this might initially suggest a 18th century cross between say Fernando Sor, Mauro Giuliani and Nicolai Paganini – all of who married guitar with another instrument – this has roots in the same period but different genre: traditional and folk as well as original composition by Robert Burns who invoked both.

Hank Snow’s ‘Yellow Roses’ sets up the general air of melancholy and regret. It’s a gentle and touching series of stanzas: Initially in the same timbre and tone. The American gives way in its kilt to a Scottish one where Burns’ ‘As Fond Kiss’ is a musical setting of his own poem. Again the tempo and tone shift every little and the two appear welded as a unit of sympathetic tonal wistfulness. Eugenia’s tone is small and dark favouring a middle alto range. It’s ideal against the two instruments.

The traditional ‘Sailor’s Song’ has more tempo and tang and an underlying narrative. These are all sung by Eugenia with a fine sense of how they should sound in the nimbus of folksong. She also lays the cello in between verses as Quentin accompaniment throughout in guitar. Their duetting is the real delight though. Eugenia’s Cello is nicely exposed to a register more often head in the viola. It’s beguiling and unique in my experience.

Two instrumental numbers follow. The ‘St Louis Blues’ and Gershwin’s ‘Summertime’. Quentin nudges both of these to syncopations certainly not in the Gershwin original. Three are exactly in keeping with the spirit of the age in which they were written. Improvisatory, riffing, agogic hesitations and fantastic rubato. Teased out here they make a bewitching and welcome interlude. A tonality essential after the generally downbeat songs.

The traditional ‘Lord Randall’ is a return to folk. Sung by Eugenia it’s a tale of a young man confessing to his mother his rejection by a young woman which has caused him mortal hurt. He literally dies of heartbreak. This narration is one of patient unfolding. The mother’s questions are eerie. She keeps asking what he will leave her. And his brothers. It’s bitter end cries against the burden song well caught here.

A striking setting of Wilde’s ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol is by both soloists is haunting and original. It’s not so much a setting but a series of settings with different melodies. It’s been designed we find out, for a potentially larger cast and has been performed with a chorus.

Eugenia’s introduction sets the scene. I’m not sure we need quite so detailed a prolegomena. It concerns the hanging of a soldier who his killed his girlfriend who accepts his fate: “that fellow’s got to swing.” Eugenia sings the famous lines around the burial and recollection of the murder. Quentin produces a few evocative, separate chords.

The two artists proceeded to different registers and indeed instruments as the narrative moves with guitar and then a more developed melody on the piano. This time Eugenia accompanies herself in the piano as Quentin plays guitar chords. Eugenia’s developed melodies sound as if composed with a lassitude to deliver and wind round the exigencies of the moment.

There’s a welcome variety in time with sudden alla marcia passages and different pressure of singing as well as different melodies (variations of one or two in tonal shifts). Some invoke the world of English folk and occasionally an American twang out of Peter Seeger and Woody Guthrie. It’s quite unique.

More of this is welcome. Possibly more might be made of this central performance as indeed has been planned. It’s curiously interrupted with more brief commentary. The end, unaccompanied, is a coup.

Finally that perennial traditional piece ‘Scarborough Fair’s with its encounter and conveying of impossible requests to the woman who “once was a true love of mine” is extraordinary in the marvellous plangency of the song undercutting the very cutting nature of the verses. It’s a man bitter in emotional dilemma

What has the woman done? If she left him why would she undergo impossible tasks to win him back? If he jilted her, why is she making it so impossible if she still wants him? Why bother at all?

It’s a strange work, more remarkable and unique the more you look at it. The Duo lend it a new haunting, which is what we need. This version follows the one popularized by Simon and Garfunkel. There’s been others recently on the scene which tamper with the original tempi but this is still the best. Quentin’s guitar though enjoys memorable rhythmic cells a new and lovely refrain; and Eugenia really comes into her own on the cello.

Seemingly niche but nicely judged and worth 45 – in fact 53 – minutes of a lunchtime away from the burly world.

Published April 23, 2025 by Simon Jenner