Duart Castle on the island of Mull will be reverberating to the sound of its own terrifying and bloodied past at the premiere of a new musical tonight.

Stephen Montague's concert piece, Apparitions, will mix music, costume and drama to take its audience on an extraordinary journey through the castle's 700-year history.

“The isolated nature of the castle should help capture the surreal and I hope the audience will find it intriguing and uplifting,” Montague said.

“I came to Mull last year to look at a number of castles where we thought we might put on Apparitions and Duart appealed to me immediately. It was love at first sight. It seemed to me exactly right for the sort of experience I'm trying to create.”

Led by mysteriously dressed guides, the audience will walk around the castle - the ancestral home of Clan MacLean - listening to Montague's music. One of the strangest sounds they will hear will be the bellow of a carnyx, a war trumpet in the shape of a boar's head that was used by the tribes fighting the Roman invasion.

Montague has a track record of creating unusual musical experiences in the most unlikely settings. For the 2007 British Superbike race at Brands Hatch, he created his Bennetts Bike Concerto for eight motorbikes, symphonic brass ensemble, two drummers and piano.

This time around, he is using video and other installations to create a suitably ghostly atmosphere. Most importantly of all, Montague is relying on the skills of his players, young professional musicians who have been taking part in the Mendelssohn on Mull festival this week.

The ancestral home of the Clan MacLean, Duart has seen its fair share of battles, murders and gruesome events, most infamously in 1523 when the 11th chief tried to drown his second wife by leaving her stranded on a rock within sight of the castle. In 1588, the officers of Florida, a Spanish galleon from the Armada, were jailed in its keep, after their ship was blown up in Tobermory Bay. The castle was burnt down by the Duke of Argyll in 1691, and then confiscated after the Battle of Culloden.

“You can't imagine doing this in a big city. This place does remind you of a longer shadow of history than we are currently casting,” Montague said.

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