** Positive Notes about Various Concerts **
Season - 2019/2020
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So that's it for this season ! Covid 19 Corona Virus has put a firm end to all live music and severely affected amateur and professional musicians. Nothing more to say!
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Corona Virus - A Real Live Performance !
( Photograph: Julie)
In these strange times your reviewer is missing socialising down the pub and live music (both as a performer or a listener) in equal (large) amounts.
As a result of this, on 10th May 2020 at 17:30 hours a performance of Richard Bissill's "Lone Call and Charge" took place outside your reviewer's home, with neighbours pre-warned with the following notes:
Today (Sunday 10th May 2020) I intend to perform this short piece for unaccompanied french horn (duration less than five minutes) outside, standing in our driveway, starting at 17:30 hrs.
If you happen to be interested, feel free to open your window or stand in your doorway to listen. Please do not do anything that contravenes government guidelines on social distancing.
Background
I had the pleasure of playing with Richard Bissill in the Leicestershire Schools Youth Orchestra whilst at school, many years ago. He went on to become principal horn with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (for over twenty years) whilst I continued as a humble but enthusiastic amateur horn player. As well as being a top London horn player Richard is a fine composer with an ear for interesting harmonies. The piece was commissioned as a test piece and was written in 1994. As it’s title suggests it is in two distinct sections.
The sheet music can be purchased from the publishers at Warwick Music
Several neighbours braved cool gale force conditions to listen. This may not have been the best ever performance of this excellent piece but it might have been the windiest.
Click here
to watch (and listen to) the performance as recorded in the wind!
During the performance two cars and a (slightly bemused?) jogger passed down the road. The low quality PC microphone makes the neighbours sound closer than they actually were. They did all stay in their doorways up and down the road.
( Photograph: Julie)
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7th March 2020 - 19:30 hrs - Helix Ensemble -
Adam Summerhayes (Musical
Director, Composer & Violin)
St Andrews Church, Countesthorpe, Leicestershire
Under the promotional umbrella of the enterprising Countesthorpe Active Arts, a spring concert by the Helix Ensemble has become a regular event looked forward to by both players and audience.
The full house were dazzled by conductor Adam Summerhayes' complex colourful shirt (surely outdoing even the biblical Joseph?). But it was a completely appropriate dress code, matching the wearer's complex and definitely colourful composition "A Fiddlers Tale".
Wisely avoiding long pretentious programme notes the composer drew the audience into the work with a completely assured performance of challenging violin technique. One felt glimpses of traditional folk fiddling, Eastern harmony, classical violin concerto writing and disconcerting changes of rhythmic pulse. Yet the piece never sounded either derrivative or pastiche in nature. A remarkable achievement.
The work was the culmination of a long commissioning process by the Ensemble. All contributors to the project deserve to be proud of the result. Perhaps the ensemble got more than they bargained for in terms of the orchestral parts, but they rose to the challenge (as always) and excelled, greatly helped by the underpinning of completely secure and sensitive timpani playing by Tim Neale.
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6th March 2020 - 19:30 hrs - Fidelio
The big role of Leonore was made to look easy by Lise Davidson. She is on stage virtually throughout (mostly disguised as Fidelio).
Fidelio contains much to enjoy from a horn player's perspective. The players in the pit were (wisely) restrained by maestro Antonio Pappano (ensuring the singing was always audible) but still demonstrated playful agility where it mattered.
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The Seaton Gateway, Seaton, Devon
Three colourful performers demonstrated the wide variety of repertoire for the violin, clarinet and piano trio from the 20th century. They took every opportunity to vary the sound quality and style to suit each chosen piece; there was no danger of the audience becoming bored here!
Charlotte Maclet (violin) in particular was prepared to be very earthy and gutsy in music loosely derived from a gypsy folk idiom but captured the serenity and slightly other-worldly nature required by Charles Ives' 'Largo'.
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The Minster, Axminster, Devon
Roger Swann = horn
A Sunday afternoon concert on the weekend of "Storm Dennis" might be expected to get a poor sized audience. In fact people of all ages (great to see some younger children and teenagers in the church) turned out in good numbers to hear the Axe Vale Orchestra tackle some classics of the 18th and 19th Centuries.
The St Anthony Variations of Brahms (op 56a) and Mozart's Haffner Symphony (K385) are both pieces that benefit from deft light accurate tasteful playing and in some respects this makes them ambitious choices for an amateur orchestra. Some of the fast passages may not have shown the orchestra in the best light but under Arturo Serna's sympathetic guidance much of the playing served the composer's reasonably well.
The string parts (all sections) are particularly problematic in places and the Axe Vale Orchestra musicans did a great job. Guest leader, Jane Bultz, deserved her bouquet of flowers, presented at the end of the concert.
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31st Jan 2020 - 19:30 hrs - La Boheme
A wonderfully joyous account of Puccini's justifiably well known opera. The colour and action on the stage matching the masterful orchestration being played to perfection by an orchestra who "know the work backwards" under a conductor very keen to let every phrase ebb and flow (Emmanuel Villaume). The precision of every entry across the pit was breathtaking.
As always at Covent Garden quality singing was in evidence throughout the cast. A good production to take anyone you know who thinks opera is "stuffy"!
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21st Dec 2019 - 19:30 hrs - ISCA Ensemble
- Roger Hendy - Joel Munday (violin)
Sidmouth Parish Church, Sidmouth, Devon
Roger Swann = horn
A very varied programme: Handel, Delius, Mozart, Mendelssohn complete with Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride as an encore all served up with mince pies ! Definitely something for everyone.
Joel Munday enjoyed contrasting his virtuosic cadenzas with Mozart's more understated but sensitive writing in his G major concerto (no. 3, K 216). This slightly incongruous juxtoposition is the sort of thing a young enthusiastic performer can get away with at the start of their career!
The very well matched oboe section (Joe Sharp and Ben Edmonds) deserved their moment in the spotlight during Handel's "Arrival of the Queen of Sheba".
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The Point (ie Outside the Beech Pub), Exmouth, Devon
Boldly taking on the Devon winter weather the East Devon Rock Choir (all clad in santa hats) were going great when wagnerian thunder, lightening and hail moved in and forced both audience and singers to flee the scene.
This was a great shame. The two carol arrangements they did manage to perform before the down pour were both enjoybably funky arrangements.
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The Seaton Gateway, Seaton, Devon
Dominic Childs can play quietly with a silky tone and complete control (even in the upper register) on his alto saxophone. He can also do the "lots of wavering notes, flight of the bumble bee" stuff very well.
This concert featured much french music and much of the fast note flurrying style. But the enjoyable moments were when he played a simple but lyrically phrased melody, such as in Amy Beach's Romance Op 23, originally for violin but arranged for saxophone by Timothy Roberts.
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23rd Nov 2019 - 19:30 hrs - ISCA Ensemble
- Roger Hendy - Raddon Stephenson (trombone) - Robert Millington (organ)
Sidmouth Parish Church, Sidmouth, Devon
Roger Swann = horn
Raddon Stephenson made a good enough job of Ferdinand David's Concertino for trombone and orchestra (op 4) but the music was overshaddowed by an energetic and exciting rendering of Copland's Rodeo Suite (good swagger in the Buckaroo Holiday trombone solo played by Nick West) and in the second half the excitement and glory that is Saint-Saens Organ Symphony (Op 78).
Rarely can these two pieces have been given with such extrovert but accurate piano playing as here (pianist Alex Wilson).
Isca Ensemble Horn Section: Left to right: Sue Durrant, Roger Swann, Mike Oganovsky, Hannah Rice (principal)
( Photograph: Michael Gluyas)
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21st Nov 2019 - 19:30 hrs - Axminster Musical Theatre
- Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Axminster Guildhall, Axminster, Devon
A very witty script (Jeffrey Lane and David Yazbek) and a plot that moves at a fast pace kept us entertained from start to finish.
Strong acting by all the lead roles matched by musical director Joseph Binmore's tight control of his band meant that director Nick Lawrence's production was slick as well as being colourful.
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20th Nov 2019 - 19:30 hrs - The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
- Bournemouth Symphony Chorus - David Hill - Jennifer Johnston (mezzo) - Jennifer Davis (soprano) - Gareth Brynmor John (baritone)
The Lighthouse, Poole, Dorset.
David Hill knows the Brahm's German Requiem inside out and is very skilled at getting the best from his singers. From the hushed opening bars this performance benefited from both these factors, with each of the sublime arches in Brahm's work unfolding with a confident certainty that emphasised the architecture of this great work. In short: a good gig!
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The Seaton Gateway, Seaton, Devon
An impressive performance by this quartet (founded in 2003) started with a very characterful piece by Britten: Three Divertimenti. The four players captured the amusing quirky nature of this curiousity in a delightful way.
Seaton Music had commissioned an eight minute long quartet by Gary Higginson (his 5th quartet, impressively presented as opus 191). With the title "Memories of Spain" the piece was skillfully written, unpretentious in nature and had an especially enjoyable 'conversation' between the first violin and the viola based on a mourneful spanish gypsy tune the composer had heard being played by a busker in Seville.
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13th Nov 2019 - 19:30 hrs - The Mask of Orpheus - conductors: Martin Brabbins & James Henshaw.
The first performance of Harrison Birtwistle's huge and hugely influential work was at ENO in 1986. Here it is given a vivid new make over by director Daniel Kramer with outrageous costumes by Daniel Lismore and some stunning lighting and video by Peter Mumford.
The result is an overwhelming array of activity, all of which still is overshadowed by the sounds coming from the orchestra pit (no strings, added electronics), Birtwistle's often angular music played perfectly by the ENO musicians.
At times, when your reviewer felt he was drowning in the overpowering visual enslaught, refuge was achieved by marvelling at the skill of the three "aerialists" (as described in the programme) Led Hedman, Alfa Marks and Matthew Smith who combined significant body strength with flexibility, grace and control.
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31st Oct 2019 - 19:30 hrs London Symphony Orchestra
Gianandrea Noseda - Denis Matsuev (piano)
The Barbican Concert Hall, London
What a tight band the LSO are! This concert was full of complex music and completely free of any sign of shaky ensemble (and from the audience Gianandrea Noseda doesn't always look the easiest conductor to follow).
The chilling opening high string writing in Britten's Four Sea Interludes was amazing and the playing stayed at this top level throughout.
Denis Matsuev deserved his standing ovation. The energy and vivacity he put into Prokofiev's fiendish Piano Concerto No. 2 was stunning.
As well as all this perfect team work going on special mention must be given to the picolo solo of Diomedes Demetriades in Shostakovich 6 and also the lyrical viola solos from Rachel Roberts.
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19th Oct 2019 - 19:30 hrs - Maria Gilicel (violin) - Tolga Atalay Un (piano)
St Andrew's Church, Colyton, Devon
A brilliant concert presented by the enterprising "Friends of St Andrew's". Maria Gilicel chose to briefly introduce each piece; she was both charming and informative and had an endearing giggle which won the audience over before she even moved her bow.
The pair played as one throughout the concert. Real passion and power was present in the sonata by Cesar Franck, sardonic wit in four preludes by Shostakovich (arranged by Dmitri Tsyganov) and both sublime lyrical playing and virtuosic harmonics in Wieniawski's Faust Fantasy Op 20. The church was filled with glorious music making.
Both players knew exactly what they wanted to do with each piece, had the instinctive musicianship (and stunning technique) to achieve it and clearly enjoyed the process of sharing this with their appreciative audience.
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17th Oct 2019 - 19:30 hrs Seaton Music Concert:
Emmanuel Bach (violin) - Jenny Stern (piano)
The Seaton Gateway, Seaton, Devon
Emmanuale Bach is a violinist who plays all the right notes in the right order and in tune.
Pianist Jenny Stern did her best to inject some music into the evening. There were definite moments where she was leading rather than accompanying.
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16th Oct 2019 - 20:00 hrs - Zauberland
The Linbury Theatre, The Royal Opera House
, Covent Garden, London.
Starting with Schumann's Dichterliebe, Librettist Martin Crimp and composer Bernard Foccroulle added additional poetry (in English) and music.
With dymanic piano playing from Cedric Tiberghien and great facial acting (those eyes!) along with fine singing from Julia Bullock the dream like (and at times nightmare like) world of the libretto was vivedly presented.
As an exercise in stage/prop management this was a demonstration of the highest order.
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14th Oct 2019 - 15:00 hrs - The Axe Vale Orchestra
- Arturo Serna - Nicholas Brown (piano)
The Feoffees Hall, Colyton, Devon
Roger Swann = horn
Starting slightly late because of the need for additional chairs (later arrivals being forced to sit on the stage) there was already an exciting "buzz" in the atmosphere before a note was played.
Nick Brown's touch in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 (op 37) did not disappoint. Pushing the instrument (borrowed from St. Andrew's Church) to the limit he wasn't frightened to let forth accented power where required yet had a lightness of touch in many passages that is an essential part of any good Beethoven performance.
Mendelssohn's Scottish Symphony challenged the orchestra's technique. Conductor Arturo Serna wisely chose slightly relaxed tempos but still coaxed some exciting playing from his players.
Audience enjoyment can only have been further improved with the generous helping of delicious cakes available after the concert.
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25th Sept 2019 - 19:45 hrs - The Intelligence Park
The Linbury Theatre, The Royal Opera House
, Covent Garden, London.
The second ever production of Gerald Barry's first opera (with the first dating from 1990) proved to be a very colourful but very confusing affair. The narrative matched the libretto (Vincent Deane) in terms of failing to lead in any coherent direction. The audience felt dazed by the onslaught. Excellent singing was a little overpowered by the high quality but overloud London Sinfonietta - surely due to the lack of control by conductor Jessica Cottis.
The programme notes suggest that the absence of plot coherence is a deliberate Gerald Barry intention. He was very successful but one is forced to question if Opera is really the right medium for this approach.
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21st Sept 2019 - 19:30 hrs - The English Baroque
St. George's, Bristol
Your reviewer's first visit to this landmark concert venue was a very comfortable experience with well spaced out chairs and a bright acoustic, perfect for the small ensemble on stage.
Much of the orchestral playing felt as if it had been rushed together on one pre-gig afternoon rehearsal. Entries were tentative and ensemble was often poor. Guest soloist Sarah Poole (soprano) at least managed to communicate with the audience but she did seem to have chosen a pair of rather dreary arias.
Eleanor Turner (harp)
proved to be the one beacon of sophistication and polish of the evening. She gave the music space to breath and understood the delicacy and precision required to allow Handel's music to come alive.
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15th Sept 2019 - 15:00 hrs - Players of the Isca Ensemble
The Music Room, Sidholme Hotel, Sidmouth, Devon
A string quartet and quintet drawn from the Isca Ensemble provided an enjoyable afternoon's music making in the splendid Music Room at the Sidholme Hotel.
The playing really came alive in Schubert's Quintet in C major, D956. The power and beauty of this piece was communicated to the audience (full house) with great effect, with the rhythmically solid 'cello playing (Tirke Linnemann and Catherine Bradley) providing the necessary secure foundation.
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