{"id":3134,"date":"2016-08-15T08:43:37","date_gmt":"2016-08-15T07:43:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.larkreviews.co.uk\/?p=3134"},"modified":"2016-08-15T08:43:37","modified_gmt":"2016-08-15T07:43:37","slug":"brighton-connections-summer-season-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/?p=3134","title":{"rendered":"Brighton Connections Summer Season 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brighton Unitarian Church, 14 August 2016<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The central plank and final work in this enjoyable hour-long concert, focusing mainly on the work of young composers, was Haydn\u2019s String Quartet in B flat Op 1 No I. One of the earliest of all string quartets, its symmetrical five movement structure consists of two minuets sandwiching an adagio (warmly played by this group) and flanked by a presto at either end. It\u2019s a delightful piece, brought joyfully to life by Roland Roberts, violin, and his colleagues especially during the first minuet when the texture splits into a typically Hadynesque question and answer sequence between the two violins in \u201cconversation\u201d with viola and cello. The rapport was nicely highlighted.<\/p>\n

Three works preceded the Haydn. Mozart\u2019s three movement String Divertimento, also in B flat major, \u00a0(K137) opens with a first violin lead \u2013 Roberts is an unshowy but assertive player \u2013 into the sonorous andante, which was thoughtfully explored. There was some fine work in the sparky, colourful finale too.<\/p>\n

Two of Dvorak\u2019s Zypressen (Liebeslieder) made an interesting contrast to the classical world of Haydn and Mozart. Originally written as songs for voice and later adapted by the composer these are intensely tuneful. The first opens with the melody \u2013 lyrically played by violist Morgan Goff and then passed lovingly round in an attractive performance of an appealing work.<\/p>\n

An even greater contrast came with Fuzon (String Quartet in two movements) 2012<\/i> by John Hawkins who lives in Lewes and was present in the audience. This was certainly the most challenging, and probably the most satisfying, work in the programme for the players. At one point I could feel Roland Roberts counting (and he has my sympathy). Inspired by Blake\u2019s poetry the first movement depicts the elderly sterile Urizen and the second Fuzon, the embodiment of fire who opposes him. The quartet managed the contrast dynamically and played with real clarity and precision in the busy, rapid second movement particularly during the rhythmic \u00a0harmonics which conclude the piece.<\/p>\n

The Unitarian Church in New Road has a fine acoustic for chamber music which sounds both crisp and resonant therein. With the doors closed you feel sealed in with the music.\u00a0 Even the sound of Street Brighton noisily enjoying itself outside on a summer Sunday afternoon seems a long way away.<\/p>\n

Susan Elkin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brighton Unitarian Church, 14 August 2016 The central plank and final work in this enjoyable hour-long concert, focusing mainly on the work of young composers, was Haydn\u2019s String Quartet in B flat Op 1 No I. One of the earliest … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3134"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3135,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3134\/revisions\/3135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}