Author Archives: Admin

Bach: St Matthew Passion

Posted on by
Battle Choral Society & Orchestra
St Mary’s Battle, Saturday 19 October 2019

Bach’s St Matthew Passion is an Everest among sacred oratorios. It requires two orchestras, three choirs, six soloists, an exemplary continuo group and an enormous amount of stamina. That Battle Choral Society produced many effective moments is without doubt but in the long run the work got the better of them.

There were a number of key elements which held things together. Gary Marriott’s Evangelist was clear, gently emotional and committed throughout, his voice carrying with ease within the church. Solo tenor William Searle was equally on top of the score and produced moving and very beautiful musical lines. Michael White made a positive, and very human, impact as Jesus. The continuo work was outstanding throughout, with particular praise for Nigel Howard at the organ. There were times when the continuo alone seemed to carry items where other instrumentalists had given up. Individual instruments made a positive impression with particular praise for the solo oboe and solo cello. The ripieno choir from Battle Abbey School created a fine sound when we could hear them but could have done with double the numbers to carry over the combined forces.

The choir were at their best in the chorales, many of which were well balanced and focussed, but struggled to project some of Bach’s more complex choruses. Pitch was often insecure, particularly among the tenors. The other soloists, in good voice when secure, seemed to be unfamiliar with the whole score and there were many times when solo items fell apart and the conductor could not rescue them. This seemed to be more than a simple lack of rehearsal time.

Many moments to enjoy, then, and the final chorus brought all elements together in an impressive way, but many more that need careful thought when planning the next event.

Hastings Week Organ Concert

Posted on by
Stephen Page at St John the Evangelist, Hollington
Saturday 19 October 2019

Stephen Page mixed a range of very familiar pieces with a few unexpected items in his Hastings Week concert. He opened with Arthur Wills’ Procession with all its flare and excitement but moved smoothly on to John Ireland’s beautiful miniature Minuet from the Downland Suite. It is always good to hear pieces from the Robertsbridge Codex, and the Estampie manages to delight and challenge in equal measure.

Pairing Saint-Saens’ Danse Macabre with Sweelinck’s Mein junges Leben hat ein End was unusual and effective before the more obvious linkage of three works for Musical Clock, which allowed us to hear some of the clear upper voices of the instrument.

Two more liturgical pieces followed, Bach’s Jesus, meine Zuversicht and Tom McLelland-Young’s reflective O Lux beata Trinitas.

As is his regular custom, Stephen concluded with two popular pieces, Frederick Curzon’s The Boulevardier and Coates’ Knightsbridge March. The encore was, inevitably, Blaze Away!!

Hastings Early Music Festival – 2

Posted on by
I Fagiolini – Shaping the Invisible
St Mary in the Castle, 18 October 2019

I first came across I Fagiolini at the Worcester Three Choirs Festival in 1997 where they were singing with the Sdasa Chorale. I recall it well and still have the CD they issued at the time. Since then the group, which originated in Oxford, have had many changes of personnel but Robert Hollingworth is still very much the guiding light for the ensemble and tenor Nicholas Hurndall Smith is still with them.

Shaping the Invisible, which they are currently touring, is a departure from the conventional concert as it is based around the creative life of Leonardo da Vinci, with Professor Martin Kemp introducing the large scale projections of paintings and drawings, before Robert Hollingworth provides the links to what we are about the hear. Most of the time these links make very good sense, with some very beautiful liturgical settings by Tallis, Josquin and Victoria. There are also some surprising comic elements with Janequin’s La Guerre and Vecchi’s Daspuoche stabilao. Modern items sneak in from Howells and Rubbra, and the rich harmonies of Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur’s La Voix du Bien-Aime where religious intensity verges on the erotic.

All of this flowed effortlessly and with consummate artistry from all concerned. It was a pity that the final musical setting by Adrian Williams was so stylistically divorced from the rest of the programme. Where virtually all that we had heard required close harmony and beauty of line, Williams fragmented ideas, spoken passages and unstructured narrative seemed a strange place to leave us. As Robert Hollingworth had a slight throat problem the encore was dropped and this might have cheered us up again but by now it was too late and a fine evening left a slightly bitter taste.

I Fagiolini run workshops today (Saturday) and the final event in this year’s HEMF is at the Kino Teatr Sunday afternoon with the Consone Quartet at 3.00pm.

Hastings Early Music Festival – 1

Posted on by

17 – 20 October 2019

You can tell when a Festival has come of age when a wet and blustery Friday morning can draw substantial numbers of people to a solo Bach keyboard concert. In a very short time, Hastings Early Music Festival has established itself not only for the quality of the performers – many of them internationally recognised in their field and actively followed at live events – but for the level of audience enthusiasm which the events have raised. Not very long ago I would have had to travel to Brighton, Bath or Buxton to encounter so much early music within such a short time. Yet here we are, in St Mary in the Castle, on a Friday morning to hear Jan Rautio playing Bach.

He opens with BWV 974, the D minor concerto based on Alessandro Marcello. However he is playing a modern Steinway – about as far removed in tone as one could imagine from Bach’s own time, and distinctly different from the original instruments the night before. This itself is tellingly important, for much of the playing seems to look forward rather than backward. The sensitivity of touch on the modern piano, unlike either the organ or harpsichord which Bach and Vivaldi wrote for, allows gradations of tone and volume, of rubato and texture quite impossible on the earlier instruments. As such the slow movement of the Marcello takes on a far more romantic, almost Mozartian feel, and the final movement of the arrangement of BWV593 seems to pre-echo the intensity, if not the magisterial impact, of Beethoven. Between these two we heard the F major Italian concerto BWV971 which impressed with its sense of authority and drive. It could easily have gone on much longer.

The concert mirrored that which we had heard the night before given by the HEMF Baroque Ensemble, made up entirely of original instruments and tuning. Maintaining the egalitarian feel of the ensemble, there was no sense that it was being driven by a despotic conductor as each of the six works was led and introduced by different soloists. We opened on familiar ground with Bach’s 3rd Brandenburg concerto, through the less familiar Harpsichord concerto BWV1056, to Vivaldi’s virile Double Cello Concerto RV531. One of the most pleasing aspects of the evening was the way in which, stood most of the time in a gentle curve, the musical development could be experienced physically as ideas were passed from one player to another along the line and back again. Similarly, the twelve players were equally important to the whole; there was never any sense of a soloist pitted against a supportive body – even in Telemann’s fine Viola Concerto TWV51, which was the only work to come close to a model of the concerto we would come to recognise in the nineteenth century. It was an object lesson in sensitivity and response.

The evening ended with a glorious performance of Bach’s Double Violin Concerto, the second movement as sublime as I can recall it, with never a hint of sentimentality which modern instruments can all too easily bring to it.

This brought us half way through the four main concerts. This evening I Fagiolini at St Mary’s and then the String Quartet concert to round off the weekend at the Kino on Sunday afternoon.

Maidstone Symphony Orchestra

Posted on by

The Mote Hall, Maidstone, Saturday 12 October 2019

The new season opened in a blaze of warmth and power with Chabrier’s popular Espana. The large orchestra – close to a hundred players – were essentially there for the Strauss in the second half but it made for a large scale and highly extrovert reading of a work too often heard simply as background music to other activities.

If the rest of the evening was less familiar it was none the less welcome. Callum Smart was the soloist in Korngold’s Violin Concerto. If this is not a work which comes immediately to mind when one thinks of the concerto repertoire it certainly has considerable appeal, even though the opening is stark and often feels remote. The odd flashes of warmth display the cinematic origins of the score as does the gentle romanticism of the slow movement. The finale is all bluster and fire, with lurking pirates and historical romances hidden beneath the heroic dances and fanfares. Callum Smart’s warm sense of engagement almost convinced us it was a great work.

After the interval we had Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben released upon us in all its magnificent opulence and virility. Strauss uses the vast panoply of forces at his command to milk both the tonal and emotional palette, and frequently overwhelms with the sheer level of volume – no wonder the orchestra need the new protective shields. Yet within this score there are many hauntingly beautiful moments and many passages of fine solo playing. This highlights a somewhat strange dichotomy within the programming. The solo violin part, admirably played by guest leader Andrew Laing, is effectively a violin concerto in its own right, so that we ended up with two lengthy violin solos by two fine violinists. All very much to our benefit but unexpected if you were not ready for it.

Throughout Brian Wright had galvanised his large forces with tact and skill, particular in the rabble-rousing passages in the Strauss which raised the hair on the back of your neck.

We are on more familiar ground on 30th November when John Lill joins the orchestra for Brahms’ 2nd piano concerto, plus Schumann’s 4th symphony and Beethoven’s final overture for Fidelio.

Hastings Early Music Festival 17 – 20 October 2019

Posted on by

 

This year the internationally famous vocal ensemble, I Fagiolini, will be performing their new immersive concert ‘Leonardo Shaping the Invisible’ – celebrating the artist on the 500th anniversary of his death – at St Mary in the Castle on Friday 18th October. This critically acclaimed programme, introduced by Leonardo expert Professor Martin Kemp, will match projections of Da Vinci’s iconic art with vocal masterworks.

TICKETS AVAILABLE NOW

The Festival opens with a Concert by Candlelight also at St Mary’s on Thursday 17th October, performed by Hastings Early Music Festival Baroque, the Festival Ensemble, comprising of international period instrument specialists.

For the other events, BBC New Generation Artists the Consone Quartet perform at the Kino Teatr at the Sunday afternoon chamber music platform, and pianist Jan Rautio performs Bach In Focus at the Friday morning coffee concert.  Each concert has a parallel supporting event, including open rehearsals and a chance to speak to performers.

Full details can be found at www.hemf.co.uk and tickets are now available.

 

Hastings Philharmonic – new season

Posted on by

St Mary in the Castle, Friday 11 October 2019

To open the new season Hastings Philharmonic came together with Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition, the central work for the concert being Mozart’s Piano Concerto No23 in A with this year’s First Prize Winner, Fumiya Koido as soloist. It proved to be a winning combination, greatly helped by the full raised platform allowing the sound, in what is already a fine acoustic, to blossom and fill the space with ease and power.

 

The approach to the concerto by both pianist and conductor seemed clean and crisp at the outset, almost cool at times, with great clarity of articulation and individual orchestral voices. Real emotion evolved with the central Adagio with its gently flowing lines and suppressed intensity. The final Allegro assai sparkled into life and remained cheerfully optimistic throughout. An encore would have been nice but did not materialise.

The evening had opened with Mozart’s Haffner symphony, No35 in D. It had fine bravura in the opening movement and delicate figuration in the second. The militaristic approach to the Menuetto – I wouldn’t like to try to dance to this! – led into a fiery, fast-paced conclusion. Within St Mary’s the change in instrumentation which Mozart choses between the symphony and the concert was marked and particularly effective in underlining the change of tone and mood.

The second half brought us Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony – a work still surprisingly under-performed compared with the rest of the canon. The reserved, cautious opening gave way to an abrasive onslaught which never seems to be able to decide whether it wants to seduce us or batter us into submission. The intimacy of the opening of the slow movement brings some respite, with lovely running cello lines and wind figuration, but the returning power of the Scherzo soon puts this out of mind. Marcio da Silva takes the Finale at a hell-for-leather pace, which the orchestra are more than capable of meeting. The Mozartian figuration of the string writing is bombarded by the brass as if demanding an exultant climax, to which the strings eventually submit.

A splendid start to the season with so much more to come.

Unsung Heroine in Worthing

Posted on by
‘Unsung Heroine’ – The Telling
St Paul’s Worthing
Sunday 13 October
5.45pm doors/cafe , start at 6.15pm

 

If you missed this early music concert-drama from writer/singer Clare Norburn at the Hastings Literary Festival in the late summer – maybe your nose was deep in a recommended book! – all is not lost and gone if Worthing is on your travel radar.

This Arts Council-backed Medieval bio-fantasy has a handy start time if your journey’s a bit lengthy. It will end around 8pm and contain a short Q&A.

To find a female troubadour writing and singing songs as far as you can back in history, the first lone work of lyric and music on surviving manuscript is ‘A Chantar’, by Provençal countess, Beatriz de Dia. The song is apparently from a true heart and is reaction to betrayal, longing and a pain requiring suppression amid aristocratic court life of love, intrigue and back-stabbing.

Norburn seizes on this as another historical figure ripe for her instinctive treatment in blending fact with fiction, blurring concert into theatre, and creating another entertaining, informative and immersive experience for The Telling’s fascinated and growing audience.

‘Unsung Heroine’s’ distinctive soundtrack of Medieval harp, fiddle and bagpipes with percussion, in the hands of instrumental specialists Joy Smith and Giles Lewin, explores and juxtaposes plaintive ballads with the rumbustious dances of court life and codpiece fun beyond its walls.

The villain of the piece, in times when unhappy spouses conventionally allowed each other their dalliances, is (“Did you guess, Mr Cadfael?”) a fellow troubadour.

Norburn’s dramatic imagination places actress Anna Demetrious in the role of Beatriz de Dia while Norburn herself sings as not only various key characters but of both a confidante to the countess and a voice inside her head. Shades of the fine psychological plays by David Pountney dramatised on BBC Radio 3.

Production is by Norburn, direction by TV series and movies man Nicholas Renton, and lighting design is by Natalie Rowland.

Ticket details and further concert information – plus a trail video from its performance at Music in Oxford: https://www.facebook.com/events/386913162009827/

“Gorgeous music . . . and the story’s human, truthful and a bit funny . . .” – Read here the interview with actress Anna Demetriou who is Beatriz de Dia: https://www.thetelling.co.uk/post/interview-anna-demitriou-on-playing-beatriz

 

 

 

London Mozart Players on Sea

Posted on by

The London Mozart Players, the UK’s longest–established chamber orchestra, has announced a year–long residency at the Opus Theatre in Hastings, East Sussex. As ‘Artists in Residence’, the LMP will deliver an exciting programme of classical music concerts and outreach work to this seaside community throughout the 2019/20 season. 

Building on the orchestra’s pioneering work in Upper Norwood, London SE19, where it is firmly embedded in the local community, the LMP looks forward to building a similar relationship with the people of Hastings, developing new audiences for classical music, inspiring young people and delivering a series of world class concerts with high profile artistes. The season will include school concerts, side-by-side performances with the young musicians of Hastings, musical visits to nursery schools, children’s events in libraries and concerts at the Opus Theatre, culminating in a community performance of the long-awaited multi-faith oratorio written by Opus Theatre’s director and composer, Polo Piatti. 

The launch concert at the Opus Theatre on Saturday 30th November is a showcase for young talent as dazzling pianist and BBC Young Musician winner (2018) Lauren Zhang and gifted local flautist Daisy Noton join the LMP to demonstrate their virtuosic abilities in two challenging Mozart works – Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9 and his Flute Concerto No.1. The concert opens with Greig’s Holberg Suite, and closes with Haydn’s Symphony No. 44 ‘Trauer’. 

The first concert in this exciting residency marks a celebratory moment in the orchestra’s 70th birthday year which has seen concerts held at the Southbank’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, a birthday concert half way up the iconic Shard at the Shangri-La Hotel At The Shard and the gala re-opening concert at Croydon’s Fairfield Halls where the LMP has been resident for 30 years. 

 

Julia Desbruslais, Executive Director of the London Mozart Players commented: ‘We love taking classical music around the UK, and our ‘LMP by the Sea’ residency will give us the opportunity to inspire young musicians through our outreach work in around Hastings, and perform to music lovers of all generations at the Opus Theatre. This is an exciting venture for the orchestra and we are very much looking forward to sharing our passion for music with our new friends on the south coast.’ 

Polo Piatti, Composer/Director at the Opus Theatre said: ‘We are extremely proud to welcome the acclaimed London Mozart Players as the new Artists in Residence at the Opus Theatre in Hastings. The LMP’s residency is a dream come true, promising to become not only a great performance partnership for this iconic venue, but also a wonderful opportunity for local artistes and young musicians to perform alongside these world-class musicians.’ 

Supported by the Arts Council Great Britain, the Magdalen and Lasher Educational Foundation, Foyle Foundation, the Isabel Blackman Foundation and the Hastings Arts and Culture Scheme. 

SOUTHBANK CENTRE INTERNATIONAL ORGAN SERIES: THE QUENTIN MACLEAN LEGACY

Posted on by

RICHARD HILLS 8th October 2019 (Postponed from 24th September)

The new season of the Southbank International Organ Series opened with this celebration of The Golden Age of British Light Music. Demonstrating the way this repertoire influenced the use of concert organs and the newly emerging cinema organs, Richard Hills had put together an informative and entertaining programme pinned around one of this country’s most influential pioneering cinema organists, Quentin MacLean. From the outset he made clear that the Festival Hall organ was not designed for this repertoire but that he had willingly accepted the challenge to use it as a vehicle to display a range of music, often utilising more unusual sounds and colours to those normally heard.

This concert had been postponed two weeks previously and those of us fortunate to attend the pre-concert talk received some insight into the reasons why – a lightning strike during the afternoon. Andrew Scott, from Harrison and Harrison, who built and maintain the organ, joined the interview to talk about this particular, possibly unique, occurrence.

Richard Hills is a fine organist, at home with a variety of repertoire and different styles of organ. His love of this lighter repertoire shone through the whole evening as he masterfully presented each piece with imaginative and rapid changes of registration. His ability to clearly draw out individual lines and countermelodies was superb.

Opening with Sullivan’s Overture to Iolanthe the programme included music by cinema organists Frederick Bayco (Elizabethan Masque) and Frederick Curzon (The Boulevardier) and well-known composers including Eric Coates (London Suite) and Edward German (Three Dances from Nell Gwynn). A lovely segue beginning with the opening bars of Quentin MacLean’s own Babbling played by the composer himself before being taken up by Mr Hills was very effective. A cross-over with the more “classical” organ world came via Percy Whitlock’s Dignity & Impudence and Plymouth Suite. The final movement Toccata was particularly well executed with the brooding pedal theme building in intensity to a great climax. Robert Docker’s Tabarinage followed by a masterful arrangement of Tea for Two as an encore brought proceedings to a close.

A wonderful start to the new season, showing a very different but equally valid side to the organ repertoire and once again showing the versatility and musicality of organist and organ.

The next concert in the series takes place on 3rd February, when Gerard Brooks will perform.

Stephen Page