East Lothian’s Lammermuir festival is not all string quartets in pretty rural churches – although those are still available. On Tuesday afternoon, festival artist-in-residence and harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani brought a programme of 20th- and 21st-century music to the magnificent acoustic of the festival’s main venue in Haddington with works by Louis Andriessen, Oscar Jockel, Toru Takemitsu and Luc Ferrari.
The French musique concrète pioneer Ferrari’s Programme Commun combines tone-generator drone and throb with fast-fingered, miked-up improvisatory keyboard playing on an instrument that is just 30 years old – rather than 300 – and so able to sustain a forearm smash.
