Daily Archives: 8 December, 2014

Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra

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J Bradbury

The Dome, Brighton

Sunday 7 December

 

Barry Wordsworth may be basking in the delights of the Antipodes but that has not stopped the season from providing exceptional music-making. On paper, yesterday’s concert looked somewhat odd. Most programmes hang themselves on one or two key items but here we had eight shorter works reflecting a composer’s response to the life and landscape of the country as a whole.

In one sense they were all national composers for even Mendelssohn came to be seen as an English composer in the same way that Handel had done. His Hebrides Overture set the tone for masterly reflection on the impact of the sea. This was followed by Butterworth’s hauntingly subtle vision of A Shropshire Lad. In the opening passages the dawn eases in before the sun rises, but this is not the cathartic explosion we experience in Strauss but the gentle warming of an English summer sun. The structure was very finely caught by conductor Richard Balcombe who seems to have an innate sensitivity towards English music.

John Bradbury is far too rarely heard as a soloist. His magnificent New Year’s Day concert a few years ago remains firmly fixed in the memory, but his superb playing was very much in evidence for Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending. Rarely have I sensed the various levels of the open-air as in this reading. While the woodwind provide hints of the bird life close to the ground and the cheerful folk melodies of the people below them, the lark sores above dipping and diving until at last it disappears not just from view but from our aural perspective. This certainly was a blithe spirit reflecting on the spiritual life of the world below. A masterly performance – when we will hear him again as soloist?

By contrast Hamish MacCunn’s youthful overture Land of the Mountain and the Flood seemed rather prosaic if easy to assimilate.

Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance has little to do with Cornwall but the overture proved a cheerful opener to the second half before the more demanding Norfolk Rhapsody from Vaughan Williams. Though not as popular as the Lark its subtle beauty charmed us with ease.

The final two items were unarguably popular. Malcolm Arnold’s brief Four Cornish Dances have rather more to do with Cornwall than the Sullivan but they are distinctly tongue-in-cheek, particularly the rousing third dance in homage to Sankey & Moody. Then we came to Eric Coates and his London Suite, concluding with a rousing rendition of the Knightsbridge March. Most of us in the audience recalled this only too easily from In Town Tonight, but it was none the less nostalgically very welcome.

The next concert is the New Year’s Day Viennese Gala on 31 December, followed by a programme of Brahms and Beethoven on 11 January.

Bexhill Choral Society

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carols

St Augustine’s, Bexhill

Saturday 6 December

 

Christmas Concerts seem to come around all too quickly these days – or is it just that I am getting older? The key features of Bexhill Choral Society’s programme of Carols and Christmas Music was the gentle tension between the three very prominent arrangers. David Willcocks was represented by a number of traditional carols in a pleasantly familiar format, in contrast to John Rutter’s more modern and at times more challenging settings. Over-arching all of these was Kenneth Robert’s own arrangements, many involving Cinque Ports Brass Ensemble and even, in the last item, himself on clarinet.

This all made for a highly convincing programme which ranged from some exquisite early music by Praetorius and cheerfully sung Bach, to contemporary carols. Throughout, the choir was joined by baritone Peter Grevatt who was called upon far more than usual, not only to sing with the choir in The Boar’s Head Carol and Gaudete, but to provide solos. He gave us the first part of The Trumpet Shall Sound – most ably supported by solo trumpeter Andy Gill – and a rollicking version of Sterndale-Bennett’s The Carol Singers.

Nigel Howard was kept busy moving from organ to keyboard, and was joined by Robert Aldwinckle at the piano in some items.

As is customary, we were encouraged to join in six of the carols, which we did with enthusiasm, and to relax a little more towards the end when we heard Walking in the air, Let it Snow and Santa Claus is coming to Town.  These concerts always leave us asking for more, but then it is only 52 weeks until the next time!

 

 

Buxted Symphony Orchestra

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Sophie Pullen

St Margaret The Queen, Buxted Park

Saturday 6 December

St Margaret The Queen in Buxted Park is a fine venue for a concert and its acoustic adds a bloom to the orchestra even on a very cold winter’s afternoon. The programme brought us two rarely performed English works and a familiar Beethoven Symphony.

Though I have heard Finzi’s Dies Natalis a number of times over the years it is infrequently performed given the spiritual sensitivity of the writing and the clarity with which the text can carry through the lush string sounds. Sophie Pullen proved to be an ideal soloist, enthusiastic and engaged with Traherne’s mystical text, her line floating easily above the orchestra. Finzi’s string writing is often complex and divides into nine parts on occasion across the string ensemble. Given the small numbers in the Buxted Symphony Orchestra this meant that at times desks would be playing by themselves, a difficulty for a fully professional orchestra and approached here with considerable skill. Julian Broughton maintained a firm sense of pace throughout which moved the score forward to its gentle speculative conclusion.

Elgar’s Romance for Bassoon and Orchestra is even less familiar than the Finzi. A short work, first heard in 1911, it has a drifting, haunted quality well captured by the Portuguese soloist Susana Dias.

Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony is possibly less well known than the rest of the canon but was given a highly convincing reading with firmer intonation from the strings and a tighter sense of ensemble throughout. Pacing was crisp and clear, with a bravura sense of attack in the final movement.

The concert was well supported, and enthusiastically received – such encouragement well justified by the standard of music presented.