{"id":4061,"date":"2018-01-21T19:27:28","date_gmt":"2018-01-21T19:27:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.larkreviews.co.uk\/?p=4061"},"modified":"2018-01-21T19:27:28","modified_gmt":"2018-01-21T19:27:28","slug":"musicians-of-all-saints-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/?p=4061","title":{"rendered":"Musicians of All Saints"},"content":{"rendered":"

St Luke\u2019s Church, Brighton, Saturday 20th<\/sup> January 2018<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

This season has been based around less familiar works by Gustav Holst and if the third concert seemed a little tenuous, with the opening work an orchestral suite arranged from Purcell\u2019s incidental music for The Virtuous Wife, <\/em>it was nonetheless convincingly warm in its approach and frequently sounded more like Holst than Purcell! The lovely Slow Air <\/em>had a melancholy feel closely related to Dido<\/em> and a final Hornpipe<\/em> which could comfortably have come from the same work.<\/p>\n

By contrast, Gerald Finzi\u2019s beautiful Eclogue<\/em> was ravishingly well crafted both from the string orchestra and pianist Rachel Fryer. It is a shame that a work of this quality, presumably because of its short duration, is so rarely heard live. There is a real sense of narrative progress within it and gentle hints of Dies Natalis <\/em>surface along the way. After this even Mozart\u2019s Divertimento K137 seemed rather pedestrian no matter how succinctly structured and played here with considerable bite.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The main challenge of the evening, for all concerned, was Bela Bartock\u2019s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta.<\/em> In his regular introductions to these concerts, Peter Copley had stressed the need to approach the work from the heart rather than the head and not get too carried away by academic analysis, useful as this can be. In this he was certainly right for the work is an emotional tour-de-force and very demanding of its listeners. For those who don\u2019t know the work, and it was obvious many in Brighton were hearing it for the first time, there is an austerity and fierceness to the writing which can be difficult to grasp. It has the tension we find in many of Shostakovich\u2019s symphonies, linked to outbreaks of wildness and ecstasy which seem to come from nowhere. The second movement Allegro <\/em>is edgy in its attack but dissolves into dancing, while the Adagio\u2019s <\/em>fluid opening gives way to a visionary expansiveness, like Elgar\u2019s great bronze doors, only to cut back and be reduced to silence. All of this is caught up in the fire of the final Allegro molto.<\/em><\/p>\n

It is a very demanding work and there were moments it seemed to almost slip away from even the best of the string players but Andrew Sherwood managed his forces with considerable skill, keeping tempi realistic and clarity always to the fore. This was a daring undertaking, well worth the effort and highly commendable in outcome – would that more ensembles took this sort of risk with challenging scores. The string orchestra were joined by Adam Bushell leading the percussion, harpist Alexander Rider and Rachel Fryer returned for the piano part.<\/p>\n

The next concert is on Saturday 3rd<\/sup> March when the orchestra return to All Saints Centre in Lewes for works by Holst, Vivaldi, Mendelssohn and John Hawkins. Details at www.mas-lewes.co.uk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

St Luke\u2019s Church, Brighton, Saturday 20th January 2018 This season has been based around less familiar works by Gustav Holst and if the third concert seemed a little tenuous, with the opening work an orchestral suite arranged from Purcell\u2019s incidental … 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\/4061"}],"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=4061"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4063,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4061\/revisions\/4063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}