ORCHESTRA OF ST JOHN ASHMOLEAN PROMS
OSJ Prom: Mendelssohn and Mahler, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 15 November 2016
The programme of the OSJ Prom in the Ashmolean Museum on 15 November consisted of two groups of four of Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words for pianos arranged for instrumental ensemble by conductor John Lubbock and, by Mahler, arrangements of the song cycle Kindertotenlieder and of the fourth movement of his Symphony no 9. The instrumentalists were the OSJ Players consisting of string quartet plus double bass, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn trumpet and harp. The mezzo soprano was Anglo-Italian Francesca Saracino.
The instrumentation added a new dimension to the Songs without Words. The melody was given to one of the wind instruments, flute Alison Hayhurst, oboe Chris O’Neal, clarinet Ian Scott or bassoon Gavin McNaughton, each exquisitely played. Similarly, Kindertotenlieder was given an unusual sonority with a single string to each part. Oddly, the very sensitive singer was situated to the rear of the orchestra so came over as part of the ensemble and not as a soloist.
After the interval, Jon Whiteley illustrated a short talk on the history of the figure of Death in art since the fourteenth century with Death and the Judge by Hans Lützelburger from the Museum’s collections.
The final item, the finale of Mahler’s 9th Symphony, was less satisfactory. Despite persuasive arrangement and performance, taken out of the context of the whole symphony it appeared discursive and formless, with many false endings before it finally stopped.
The instrumentation added a new dimension to the Songs without Words. The melody was given to one of the wind instruments, flute Alison Hayhurst, oboe Chris O’Neal, clarinet Ian Scott or bassoon Gavin McNaughton, each exquisitely played. Similarly, Kindertotenlieder was given an unusual sonority with a single string to each part. Oddly, the very sensitive singer was situated to the rear of the orchestra so came over as part of the ensemble and not as a soloist.
After the interval, Jon Whiteley illustrated a short talk on the history of the figure of Death in art since the fourteenth century with Death and the Judge by Hans Lützelburger from the Museum’s collections.
The final item, the finale of Mahler’s 9th Symphony, was less satisfactory. Despite persuasive arrangement and performance, taken out of the context of the whole symphony it appeared discursive and formless, with many false endings before it finally stopped.
OSJ Prom: Mozart and Grieg, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 4 October 2016.
The OSJ Prom on 4 October was devoted to the works of two composers, Mozart and Grieg, with a vocal work and a work for strings from each. It was given by another fine singer, Brazilian tenor Wagner Moreira, with the eleven-piece OSJ Strings, conducted by John Lubbock.
They opened with an elegantly phrased performance of Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, a work I have not heard in the concert hall since I was a teenager, when it instantly became my favourite piece of music – very nostalgic! It was followed by the very dark concert recitative and aria Misero! O sogno … Aura, che intorno spiri. This describes the lament of an incarcerated prisoner, starving to death and addressing his last words to the woman he adores. (It predates by some twenty years Florestan’s impending fate in Fidelio.) It received an impressive sombre interpretation from the singer.
Following the interval (with refreshments available) there was the usual short talk. Jon Whiteley chose as his topic a relief from the Ashmolean collections Pierino da Vinci: Ugolino and his Sons in the Tower Famine, undergoing a similar fate.
After the interval, we heard Edward Grieg’s Six Songs Op 48, with the piano part transcribed for string ensemble by John Lubbock. This was another enjoyable and accomplished performance by the singer but one missed the intimacy of the voice and piano duo. The concert concluded with a spirited performance of the Holberg Suite, another work rarely heard in the concert hall.
Once again we left the Museum feeling privileged to have been part of the small select audience able to enjoy music-making of such quality.
They opened with an elegantly phrased performance of Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, a work I have not heard in the concert hall since I was a teenager, when it instantly became my favourite piece of music – very nostalgic! It was followed by the very dark concert recitative and aria Misero! O sogno … Aura, che intorno spiri. This describes the lament of an incarcerated prisoner, starving to death and addressing his last words to the woman he adores. (It predates by some twenty years Florestan’s impending fate in Fidelio.) It received an impressive sombre interpretation from the singer.
Following the interval (with refreshments available) there was the usual short talk. Jon Whiteley chose as his topic a relief from the Ashmolean collections Pierino da Vinci: Ugolino and his Sons in the Tower Famine, undergoing a similar fate.
After the interval, we heard Edward Grieg’s Six Songs Op 48, with the piano part transcribed for string ensemble by John Lubbock. This was another enjoyable and accomplished performance by the singer but one missed the intimacy of the voice and piano duo. The concert concluded with a spirited performance of the Holberg Suite, another work rarely heard in the concert hall.
Once again we left the Museum feeling privileged to have been part of the small select audience able to enjoy music-making of such quality.
OSJ Prom: The Angell Trio with Katherine Broderick, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 11 July 2016.
This concert, given by soprano Katherine Broderick with The Angell Trio, was another piece of imaginative programme building typical of this series of OSJ Proms at the Ashmolean combining old and new, familiar and unfamiliar music. They chose to play, In the first half, two works for the unusual combination of soprano voice and piano trio by Shostakovich – Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok- and the world premiere of Songs Without by the young English composer Jordan Hunt. After the interval and the customary short talk, we heard Brahms’ B minor piano trio.
The soprano voice of Katherine Broderick first attracted my attention some ten years ago in a BBC Radio3 lunchtime broadcast, before her award of the Kathleen Ferrier prize in 2007. I had the radio on as background when my attention was grabbed and held by this extraordinary voice. Since then her voice has developed further and I last heard her as one of the outstanding Valkyries in Opera North’s recent Ring Cycle. It is now a very powerful instrument which took a little time to adjust to the scale and the acoustic of a chamber performance in the Randolph Gallery of the Ashmolean Museum.
The Shostakovich songs were written in 1967. The instrumentation is extremely ingenious, starting with cello alone in Ophelia’s Song, followed by fortissimo piano, then both strings. The climactic fifth song The Tempest, vividly depicting the build-up and onset of the storm followed by the dying down and restoration of calm, very reminiscent of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, is assigned to violin and piano; the cello joins in at the end of the storm and the final songs are played continuously. The work left a strong and lasting impression.
The five Songs Without written to the composer’s own words inspired by his life experiences were written for and dedicated to Broderick. Very similar in style and intensity to the Shostakovich, of which the composer became aware during the composition, they held their own in the company of the two other composers in the programme.
The Angell Piano Trio, Frances Angell (Piano), Jan Peter Schmolck (Violin) and Sally Pendlebury (Cello) has been a regular visitor to Oxford for very many years, playing at the Sunday morning Coffee Concerts. No opportunity to hear them should be missed. They make an interesting contrast to the slightly senior Florestan Trio, also regular visitors before their last concert in 2012. Whereas the Florestan played under the direction of pianist Susan Tomes, sitting almost side-saddle on the piano stool, the Angell seem to play as individuals with little apparent contact. Nevertheless, the ensemble playing is impeccable, aided by the perfect match in timbre of the stringed instruments. Their sound is more intimate, less extrovert than that of the Florestan.
On this occasion, the audience was drawn deep into their interpretation of Brahms’ Trio No 1 in B major, Opus 8. This work was composed originally in 1854 at the composer’s age of twenty- one, but is usually played today in the revised version of 1889. It remains one of his most powerful chamber works, with bold themes, subjected to extensive development. The performance did it full justice.
The long gestation of the final version of the Trio inspired the interval talk given by the Museum’s Projects Officer Harry Phythian-Adams, making a tenuous connection to the history of his chosen object The Great Bookcase (1856-1862) by William Burges.
The OSJ Proms play to a capacity audience of loyal followers. The capacity, limited by the size of the Gallery, gives them a special aura. They have introduced us to some brilliant young musicians, as well as, as on this occasion, enabling us to hear established ensembles in both familiar and unfamiliar works.
15 July 2016
The soprano voice of Katherine Broderick first attracted my attention some ten years ago in a BBC Radio3 lunchtime broadcast, before her award of the Kathleen Ferrier prize in 2007. I had the radio on as background when my attention was grabbed and held by this extraordinary voice. Since then her voice has developed further and I last heard her as one of the outstanding Valkyries in Opera North’s recent Ring Cycle. It is now a very powerful instrument which took a little time to adjust to the scale and the acoustic of a chamber performance in the Randolph Gallery of the Ashmolean Museum.
The Shostakovich songs were written in 1967. The instrumentation is extremely ingenious, starting with cello alone in Ophelia’s Song, followed by fortissimo piano, then both strings. The climactic fifth song The Tempest, vividly depicting the build-up and onset of the storm followed by the dying down and restoration of calm, very reminiscent of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, is assigned to violin and piano; the cello joins in at the end of the storm and the final songs are played continuously. The work left a strong and lasting impression.
The five Songs Without written to the composer’s own words inspired by his life experiences were written for and dedicated to Broderick. Very similar in style and intensity to the Shostakovich, of which the composer became aware during the composition, they held their own in the company of the two other composers in the programme.
The Angell Piano Trio, Frances Angell (Piano), Jan Peter Schmolck (Violin) and Sally Pendlebury (Cello) has been a regular visitor to Oxford for very many years, playing at the Sunday morning Coffee Concerts. No opportunity to hear them should be missed. They make an interesting contrast to the slightly senior Florestan Trio, also regular visitors before their last concert in 2012. Whereas the Florestan played under the direction of pianist Susan Tomes, sitting almost side-saddle on the piano stool, the Angell seem to play as individuals with little apparent contact. Nevertheless, the ensemble playing is impeccable, aided by the perfect match in timbre of the stringed instruments. Their sound is more intimate, less extrovert than that of the Florestan.
On this occasion, the audience was drawn deep into their interpretation of Brahms’ Trio No 1 in B major, Opus 8. This work was composed originally in 1854 at the composer’s age of twenty- one, but is usually played today in the revised version of 1889. It remains one of his most powerful chamber works, with bold themes, subjected to extensive development. The performance did it full justice.
The long gestation of the final version of the Trio inspired the interval talk given by the Museum’s Projects Officer Harry Phythian-Adams, making a tenuous connection to the history of his chosen object The Great Bookcase (1856-1862) by William Burges.
The OSJ Proms play to a capacity audience of loyal followers. The capacity, limited by the size of the Gallery, gives them a special aura. They have introduced us to some brilliant young musicians, as well as, as on this occasion, enabling us to hear established ensembles in both familiar and unfamiliar works.
15 July 2016
OSJ Prom: Ashmolean Voices, John Alex Heley, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 15 May 2016.
The OSJ Prom given in the Ashmolean Museum on 5 May featured the Ashmolean Voices in a programme of unfamiliar twentieth and twenty-first century music, accompanied by John Alex Heley on the cello. Two of the Voices, sopranos Hannah Frazer-MacKenzie and Taya Smith sang solos. John Lubbock conducted.
OSJ Ashmolean Voices is an ad hoc group of twenty-one voices formed in 2011 to perform at the Ashmolean Prom series. On this occasion they sang works by Richard Rodney Bennett (1936-2012), Latvian Eriks Esenvalds (born 1977), Ola Gjeilo (born 1978) from Norway, Peter Machajdik (born 1961) from Slovakia and John Tavener (1944-2013). In addition, Heley played from the Bach Suites for Cello Bourrées 1 and 2 from no 3 and Sarabande from no 5.
The very moving Farewell to Arms by Rodney Bennett opened the programme. Reflecting on life after war, the cello plays the role of the voice of the old soldier while the choir sings verses by Ralph Knevet (1600-1671) and George Peele (1558-1597). In this Lubbock demonstrated his complete control over the singers as he has shown with instrumental forces, producing a beautiful sound.
John Tavener’s music has always seemed to me to be pretentious pastiche; Svyati performed here proved no exception. However, the works by living composers were very interesting and would bear a second hearing. Especially effective were the works Eriks Esenwalds with solo singers and chorus; in O salutaris hostia with one soloist at each end of the chorus. The concert concluded with a major work by Ola Gjeilo Unicornis captivator. This was preceded by Jon Whiteley’s interval talk on a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci A Maiden with a Unicorn from the Museum’s collections.
The Bach solos came across as poorly prepared with very little phrasing in the Sarabande; this was in contrast to the sensitive accompaniment of the choral music.
I shall be away for the nest OSJ Prom on 7 June, the Derek Paravicini jazz quartet but the Angell Piano Trio with soprano Katharine Broderick on 11 July is not to be missed.
OSJ Ashmolean Voices is an ad hoc group of twenty-one voices formed in 2011 to perform at the Ashmolean Prom series. On this occasion they sang works by Richard Rodney Bennett (1936-2012), Latvian Eriks Esenvalds (born 1977), Ola Gjeilo (born 1978) from Norway, Peter Machajdik (born 1961) from Slovakia and John Tavener (1944-2013). In addition, Heley played from the Bach Suites for Cello Bourrées 1 and 2 from no 3 and Sarabande from no 5.
The very moving Farewell to Arms by Rodney Bennett opened the programme. Reflecting on life after war, the cello plays the role of the voice of the old soldier while the choir sings verses by Ralph Knevet (1600-1671) and George Peele (1558-1597). In this Lubbock demonstrated his complete control over the singers as he has shown with instrumental forces, producing a beautiful sound.
John Tavener’s music has always seemed to me to be pretentious pastiche; Svyati performed here proved no exception. However, the works by living composers were very interesting and would bear a second hearing. Especially effective were the works Eriks Esenwalds with solo singers and chorus; in O salutaris hostia with one soloist at each end of the chorus. The concert concluded with a major work by Ola Gjeilo Unicornis captivator. This was preceded by Jon Whiteley’s interval talk on a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci A Maiden with a Unicorn from the Museum’s collections.
The Bach solos came across as poorly prepared with very little phrasing in the Sarabande; this was in contrast to the sensitive accompaniment of the choral music.
I shall be away for the nest OSJ Prom on 7 June, the Derek Paravicini jazz quartet but the Angell Piano Trio with soprano Katharine Broderick on 11 July is not to be missed.
OSJ Prom: Dvorak and Butterworth, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 15 March 2016.
The OSJ Prom held at the Ashmolean Museum on 15 March was an imaginative juxtaposition of works by two composers, the Czech Antonin Dvořák and the British George Butterworth. Both were heavily influenced by the pastoral folk music of their lands; both were represented by an instrumental piece followed by a work for baritone and strings. The concert was given y eleven string players from Orchestra of St John’s under the baton of John Lubbock, joined by baritone Morgan Pearse.
The first half of the programme opened with five love songs from a collection of twelve Cypresse, in an arrangement for strings written when the composer was twenty-four. Youthful in spirit these were very evocative of lost love, There followed seven Biblical Songs, from a collection of ten settings 9f Psalms. Written in the United States, these were inspired by the deaths of composer Tchaikowsky and conductor von Bülow and his father’s serious illness in the winter of 1894. From his first entry the voice of Australian baritone Morgan Pearse took authority over the proceedings. The divine declamatory pianissimo with which he opened grabbed our attention and held it throughout. He has a very expressive voice and wide dynamic range. He is singing Figaro in ENO’s Barber of Seville and will sing Messiah for OSJ in various places. Worth hearing!
At the end of the interval the Museum Director gave the customary short talk, this time on pastoral landscape painting, illustrated by Samuel Palmer Pastoral Scene from the Museum’s collections.
The second half of the programme likewise contained one work for strings and a vocal work, both by the quintessentially English composer George Butterworth, both inspired by AE Housman’s A Shropshire Lad. First, the familiar A Shropshire Lad Rhapsody, arranged for strings received a moving performance. It was followed by six songs from the twenty-three comprising two Shropshire Lad song cycles. Morgan Pearse showed himself to be master of this genre too.
The next Ashmolean Prom will be given on12 April by Tabea Debus, recorder, followed by Ashmolean Voices on 12 May.
The first half of the programme opened with five love songs from a collection of twelve Cypresse, in an arrangement for strings written when the composer was twenty-four. Youthful in spirit these were very evocative of lost love, There followed seven Biblical Songs, from a collection of ten settings 9f Psalms. Written in the United States, these were inspired by the deaths of composer Tchaikowsky and conductor von Bülow and his father’s serious illness in the winter of 1894. From his first entry the voice of Australian baritone Morgan Pearse took authority over the proceedings. The divine declamatory pianissimo with which he opened grabbed our attention and held it throughout. He has a very expressive voice and wide dynamic range. He is singing Figaro in ENO’s Barber of Seville and will sing Messiah for OSJ in various places. Worth hearing!
At the end of the interval the Museum Director gave the customary short talk, this time on pastoral landscape painting, illustrated by Samuel Palmer Pastoral Scene from the Museum’s collections.
The second half of the programme likewise contained one work for strings and a vocal work, both by the quintessentially English composer George Butterworth, both inspired by AE Housman’s A Shropshire Lad. First, the familiar A Shropshire Lad Rhapsody, arranged for strings received a moving performance. It was followed by six songs from the twenty-three comprising two Shropshire Lad song cycles. Morgan Pearse showed himself to be master of this genre too.
The next Ashmolean Prom will be given on12 April by Tabea Debus, recorder, followed by Ashmolean Voices on 12 May.
Royal Academy of Music String Ensemble, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 16 February 2016
The first of the 2016 OSJ Proms at The Ashmolean was given on 16 February by young string players from the Royal Academy of Music with soloists soprano Hannah Frazer-Mackenzie and harpist Gwellian Llyr and conducted by John Lubbock. The string players were the Fitzroy String Quartet and the Royal Academy of Music String Orchestra. The Quartet, with added double bass, accompanied the singer in songs by Quilter and by Britten; the String Orchestra, with six first and second violins, violas and cellos (with two alternate sets of cellos) and three double basses played works by Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Debussy and Britten.
The concert was given in the long Randolph Sculpture Gallery with the players aligned along the long wall. The programme began with the short slight Sospiri by Elgar giving a foretaste of what was to come, revealing the rich full string tone, remarkably disciplined and responsive to the conductor. There followed Three Songs by Roger Quilter, familiar but not in this setting. The singer clearly had difficulty in adjusting her voice to the acoustics of the gallery and unfortunately her words were barely audible. Nevertheless she received a warm reception, as did her performance of Four Folk Songs by Benjamin Britten in the second half of the concert.
The first half of the concert concluded with Vaughan Williams Five Variants on. Dives and Lazarus for harp and strings. This was a tour de force of controlled string playing of top professional quality from these young musicians. In the third variant there was a breath-taking long crescendo from pianissimo to fortissimo and back down again.
Equally impressive, in the second half of the concert, was a performance of Dances for Harp and Strings by Debussy. It was a shameful oversight that the harpist Gwenllian Llyr did not receive a credit on the front of the programme and no biographical details. On googling her I was warned off the direct link to her website by my anti-virus but managed to establish that she graduated from the Juillard School last May, has won many awards and is rapidly gaining an international reputation which must be well-deserved. She is currently on the Advanced Diploma course at the Royal Academy of Music. We were privileged to be able to hear her playing.
The concert ended with a spirited performance of Britten’s Simple Symphony, concluding another from these outstanding young students. Although an ensemble effort it was impossible not to note the individual contributions of Stefano Mengoli, leader of the Fitzroy Quartet, Madeleine Pickering, leader of the orchestra, and Annabelle Oomens who led one of the cello groups
A final word of credit must go those responsible for the impeccably smooth rearrangement of chairs, music stands and the harp between numbers.
18 February 2016
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The concert was given in the long Randolph Sculpture Gallery with the players aligned along the long wall. The programme began with the short slight Sospiri by Elgar giving a foretaste of what was to come, revealing the rich full string tone, remarkably disciplined and responsive to the conductor. There followed Three Songs by Roger Quilter, familiar but not in this setting. The singer clearly had difficulty in adjusting her voice to the acoustics of the gallery and unfortunately her words were barely audible. Nevertheless she received a warm reception, as did her performance of Four Folk Songs by Benjamin Britten in the second half of the concert.
The first half of the concert concluded with Vaughan Williams Five Variants on. Dives and Lazarus for harp and strings. This was a tour de force of controlled string playing of top professional quality from these young musicians. In the third variant there was a breath-taking long crescendo from pianissimo to fortissimo and back down again.
Equally impressive, in the second half of the concert, was a performance of Dances for Harp and Strings by Debussy. It was a shameful oversight that the harpist Gwenllian Llyr did not receive a credit on the front of the programme and no biographical details. On googling her I was warned off the direct link to her website by my anti-virus but managed to establish that she graduated from the Juillard School last May, has won many awards and is rapidly gaining an international reputation which must be well-deserved. She is currently on the Advanced Diploma course at the Royal Academy of Music. We were privileged to be able to hear her playing.
The concert ended with a spirited performance of Britten’s Simple Symphony, concluding another from these outstanding young students. Although an ensemble effort it was impossible not to note the individual contributions of Stefano Mengoli, leader of the Fitzroy Quartet, Madeleine Pickering, leader of the orchestra, and Annabelle Oomens who led one of the cello groups
A final word of credit must go those responsible for the impeccably smooth rearrangement of chairs, music stands and the harp between numbers.
18 February 2016
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OSJ Prom: Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Mussorgsky, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 17 November 2015.
Camille Pissarro{ The Tuilleries Gardens, Rainy Weather, Ashmolean Museum
The OSJ Prom at the Ashmolean of music arranged and conducted by John Lubbock on 17 November was given by the talented local Japanese pianist Maki Sekaya, with a thirteen piece band of players from the Orchestra of St John’s. The Atrium with its perfect acoustics is no longer available for music so the concert was given in the long Randolph Sculpture Gallery where the acoustics are nearly as good.
The concert opened with four dances from the Nutcracker Suite. This was hugely enjoyable enhanced by the unusual timbre of the orchestra with six strings to seven wind. A feature was the marvellous flute playing of Alison Hayhurst, which, starting with incredible fortissimo at the beginning of Danse de la Fée-Dragée, was maintained throughout the concert. There followed Five Preludes by Sergei Rachmaninoff sensitively played by Maki Sekiya. Two were familiar, the rest less so. She opened with Op 3; No 2 in C sharp minor, the one everyone knows, played with extreme use of the pedal to give special effect. Op 12; No 5 which I studied with Reginald Paul when still at school. (By association this brought back a terrifying long-buried memory of turning over for that pianist at a live BBC broadcast of a Beethoven Violin Sonata from a tatty score which kept collapsing and negotiating a cable-strewn floor to turn over from the violinist too!) The first half ended with a recent arrangement by Lubbock of a piano piece by Tchaikovsky, again with some divine flute playing.
The second half of the concert was devoted to Lubbock’s arrangement for piano and orchestra of Mussorgsky’s mammoth piano work Pictures at an Exhibition. This should rather be called an arrangement for orchestra with piano. Just as in Messeain’s Turungalila Symphonie, the piano is treated as part of the orchestra, its sound rarely distinguishable from the rest of the noise. This was a realistic tour round an art gallery. The Promenade started in a blaze of trumpet and horn and by the end, with increasing fatigue, reduced to a few strings. The pictures were individually and descriptively drawn, by imaginative orchestration, and the tour ended in spectacular fashion with an exhilarating depiction of The Great Gate of Kiev.
The interval talk by Jon Whiteley was illustrated by Camille Pissaro: The Tuilleries Gardens in rainy Weather from the Museum’s collections, the nearest one could come to Hartmann’s Tuileries: Dispute d'enfants après jeux, having none of that artist’s paintings.
20 November 2015
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OSJ Prom: Samuel Barber, Dvorak. Young Musicians from Royal Academy of Music, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 14 April.
The OSJ Prom
held at the Ashmolean Museum on 14 April 2015 was given by another set of
brilliant young string players from the Royal Academy of Music. The Fitzroy
String Quartet with baritone Henry
Neill at present studying on the RAM opera Course performed Samuel Barber’s
setting of the opening of Matthew Arnold’s Dover
Beach and The Academy String Orchestra played Barber’s Adagio for Strings and Serenade
for Strings, Op 22 by Antonin Dvorak (I follow the programme in omitting
accents). The programme was very pleasant laid back easy listening for a spring
evening.
The Academy String Orchestra consisted of twenty three elegantly black-clad musicians, students of the Royal Academy of Music but including three OSJ ‘side-by-side’ players to give stability. The playing, under the baton of John Lubbock, was immaculate with violins and violas standing. The excellent acoustics of the Atrium had a sufficiently dry character to bring out the careful preparation and uniformity of each group of instruments, producing a beautiful mellow contrapuntal sound in both works.
Dover Beach received likewise a carefully prepared enjoyable performance. In it Barber sets the opening lines of Arnold’s poem descriptive of the beach omitting the metaphysical musings which follow. In the usual interval talk, it was compared to another Gilman picture from the Museum’s collections by Curator Colin Harrison– Seascape: Breaking Waves.
23 April 2015
The Academy String Orchestra consisted of twenty three elegantly black-clad musicians, students of the Royal Academy of Music but including three OSJ ‘side-by-side’ players to give stability. The playing, under the baton of John Lubbock, was immaculate with violins and violas standing. The excellent acoustics of the Atrium had a sufficiently dry character to bring out the careful preparation and uniformity of each group of instruments, producing a beautiful mellow contrapuntal sound in both works.
Dover Beach received likewise a carefully prepared enjoyable performance. In it Barber sets the opening lines of Arnold’s poem descriptive of the beach omitting the metaphysical musings which follow. In the usual interval talk, it was compared to another Gilman picture from the Museum’s collections by Curator Colin Harrison– Seascape: Breaking Waves.
23 April 2015
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OSJ Prom: Schubert, Whitley, Woolrich, Angell Trio, Matthew Rose, Ashmolean Museum Oxford, 10 March 2015
The latest OSJ Prom to be given in the Atrium of the Ashmolean Museum consisted of four sections, two of Schubert and two devoted to the second performances of two new works for bass singer and piano trio which had received their first performances at Aldebrugh the previous Sunday. The artists were the Angell Trio with Matthew Rose (Bass). The new works were by John Woolrich (b 1954) and Kate Whitley (b 1989). (It was good to see the abandonment of the gender-discriminatory convention of not giving the ages of female musicians.) Whitley, composer, pianist and artistic director was mentioned several times in BBC Radio 3's weekend devoted to music by women which was formed a background to weekend activities (occasionally demanding full attention, as did the mind-blowing Concerto for two Pianos, Choir, Saxophones and Orchestra by Germaine Tailleferre (1898-1983) the only woman member of Les Six). Kate Whitley substituted for the indisposed eponymous pianist Francis Angell, a mentor. The programme on tour to various venues, sponsored by Sir Martin and Lady Smith and Ian and Caroline Laing.
It has to be said at the outset that the Yamaha piano hired for the occasion was completely inadequate and unworthy of the quality of the performers and of the discerning audience.. Thin in tone and with a plangent timbre, it marred full enjoyment of some marvellous playing.
The Voices for Bass and Piano Trio by John Woolrich is a song-cycle setting of a specially-written free English translation of nine poems from 1902 of Rainer Maria Rilke. These represent 'the voices' of socially disadvantaged characters - the idiot, the beggar, the blind man, the leper and so on. The music is percussive rather than lyrical, Although rather limited in dramatic range, it does distinguish the different gaits of the blind man, the drunkard, the dwarf, and the loneliness of the widow. Matthew Rose sang with the utmost clarity. He has an enormous voice which he adapted well to the acoustic of the Atrium giving a very persuasive performance. In the customary interval talk on this occasion the new Director of the Museum Alexander Sturgis talked about a small picture from an upper gallery by Harold Gilman, near contemporary of Rilke, entitled Cave Dwellers, Dieppe depicting a similar group of social misfits seen from a similarly detached point of view.
This is my Love Poem to You is the setting of a tender love poem by Sabrina Mahfouz, good friend of the composer Kate Whitley. In a similar musical style to the Woolrich, it is quite short. It is a very appealing piece, beautifully performed and one looks forward to an opportunity to hear it again.
Two adjectives which characterise much of Schubert's chamber music, particularly his writing for piano, are limpid and discursive. The music should sound as if carried along by a flowing stream, not plodding on dry land, even when it consists of a sequence of repetitive chords. One thinks of the opening of the F minor Fantasie for piano duet, the piano accompaniment to The Shepherd on the Rock and the second, slow, movement of the B flat Trio. Discursiveness is a knife-edge. On one side it can be tedious and boring (even in Schubert); on the other it can be divine so that one wishes the sound would go on for ever, regardless of repetition. This is what interpreters should strive for. The last movement of this Piano Trio is a supreme example. Matthew Stone performed two well-known songs from Schwanengesang: Aufenthalt and Standchen with Whitley at the piano. These were enjoyable performances which fitted well into the programme but as a duo did not match the best we have heard at the Lieder Festival.
The Trio which ended the programme, played by Whitley with Jan Schmolck (violin) and Sally Pendlebury (cello), although not perfect captured the spirit and enraptured the audience. The slow movement was lacking in limpidity but the finale could have gone on forever.
17 March 2015
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It has to be said at the outset that the Yamaha piano hired for the occasion was completely inadequate and unworthy of the quality of the performers and of the discerning audience.. Thin in tone and with a plangent timbre, it marred full enjoyment of some marvellous playing.
The Voices for Bass and Piano Trio by John Woolrich is a song-cycle setting of a specially-written free English translation of nine poems from 1902 of Rainer Maria Rilke. These represent 'the voices' of socially disadvantaged characters - the idiot, the beggar, the blind man, the leper and so on. The music is percussive rather than lyrical, Although rather limited in dramatic range, it does distinguish the different gaits of the blind man, the drunkard, the dwarf, and the loneliness of the widow. Matthew Rose sang with the utmost clarity. He has an enormous voice which he adapted well to the acoustic of the Atrium giving a very persuasive performance. In the customary interval talk on this occasion the new Director of the Museum Alexander Sturgis talked about a small picture from an upper gallery by Harold Gilman, near contemporary of Rilke, entitled Cave Dwellers, Dieppe depicting a similar group of social misfits seen from a similarly detached point of view.
This is my Love Poem to You is the setting of a tender love poem by Sabrina Mahfouz, good friend of the composer Kate Whitley. In a similar musical style to the Woolrich, it is quite short. It is a very appealing piece, beautifully performed and one looks forward to an opportunity to hear it again.
Two adjectives which characterise much of Schubert's chamber music, particularly his writing for piano, are limpid and discursive. The music should sound as if carried along by a flowing stream, not plodding on dry land, even when it consists of a sequence of repetitive chords. One thinks of the opening of the F minor Fantasie for piano duet, the piano accompaniment to The Shepherd on the Rock and the second, slow, movement of the B flat Trio. Discursiveness is a knife-edge. On one side it can be tedious and boring (even in Schubert); on the other it can be divine so that one wishes the sound would go on for ever, regardless of repetition. This is what interpreters should strive for. The last movement of this Piano Trio is a supreme example. Matthew Stone performed two well-known songs from Schwanengesang: Aufenthalt and Standchen with Whitley at the piano. These were enjoyable performances which fitted well into the programme but as a duo did not match the best we have heard at the Lieder Festival.
The Trio which ended the programme, played by Whitley with Jan Schmolck (violin) and Sally Pendlebury (cello), although not perfect captured the spirit and enraptured the audience. The slow movement was lacking in limpidity but the finale could have gone on forever.
17 March 2015
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OSJ Prom: Young Performers from RAM, Ashmolean Museum Oxford, 18 June 2014.
This concert was given by young string players from The Royal Academy of Music and by newly graduated soprano and Leeds maths graduate Sophie Pullen in the Atrium of the Ashmolean Musuem. The intriguing programme was of music for strings by Mendelssohn sandwiching songs by Rachmaninov and Richard Strauss.
The concert opened with Mendelssohn’s string symphony no 9, written in 1823 when the composer was fourteen. It was played by thirteen OSJ Young Performers, eighteen year old first year undergraduates at the RAM conducted by John Lubbock, 'side-by-side' with three players from OSJ itself. Mostly standing, they gave a performance of appropriately youthful enthusiasm without sacrificing precision.
The concluding work was the Octet of 1825, only two years later but displaying far greater maturity, which also received a scintillating performance by two student string quartets both formed in 2011 at the Royal Academy of Music.
The Delmege Quartet was named after the late John Delmege, well-known among amateur chamber music players in the Oxford area for his enthusiasm, persuasiveness and eccentricities. His family endowed the Quartet to study with the Maggini Quartet. Himself a violist, he was dreaded among local pianists for his keyboard instrument, an ancient square piano, an octave short and with G rather than middle C in the centre of the keyboard –incredibly disconcerting. He lived at the end of a long unmade-up single track drive which usually meant a long reverse for one of two cars trying to pass (I never figured out the etiquette)! The Alauda Quartet - 2013/14 Fellows in chamber music at the Academy - are mentored by Jon Thorne (Badke Quartet) and Oliver Wille (Kuss Quartet) and perform regularly throughout the UK and internationally. The performance was brilliantly led by Tom Aldren first violin of the Delmege, who kept firm control of the eight instruments.
Sophie Pullen sang two songs by Rachmaninov and two by Srauss with string accompaniment. She sang well but seemed to have difficulty of adjusting her obvious power to the acoustic of the Atrium. Outstanding, though, was her performance of Rachmaninov’s wordless Vocalise. During the interval Jon Whiteley gave another of his insightful short talks, this time on the way the same landscapes which had inspired nineteenth century painters also influenced the poets and lieder writers.
16 July 2014
Bach, Handel, Purcell 16 April 2014
It is extraordinary how one can go on discovering strands of music-making in Oxford of whose existence one was unaware or only vaguely aware. The case in point is the series The OSJ Proms at the Ashmolean, now in its fourth year, held usually in the unlikely venue of the atrium of the Ashmolean Museum. In spite of the strange ambience of white walls, pillars surmounted by greater than life-size statues and irregular shape, this proves to have almost perfect acoustics for the performance of chamber music and small-scale ensembles. The audience space can accommodate just a hundred seated on chairs and thirty on cushions. Doors are open at 6.30pm with a start at 7.30, enabling the taking of refreshment in the nearby cafeteria beforehand. Thus the atmosphere is more redolent of Myra Hess’ wartime National Gallery concerts rather than of the Promenade Concerts at the Albert Hall. An additional feature is a five-minute discourse at the end of the interval.
OSJ, the Orchestra of St John’s, was founded by its present Director John Lubbock, while still a student, in 1967 as OSJ Smith Square. It soon gained an international reputation which it has maintained. For many years now, although its activities are widespread, they are now centred on Dorchester Abbey in Oxfordshire. Its ethos is to provide musical activities for the community. It has specialised in concerts for the autistic through the charity Music For Autism, founded by Lubbock’s wife in 2002, and for sufferers from dementia.
The concert I attended on 15 April contained five show-pieces by Purcell, JS Bach and Handel given by ten string players plus harpsichord and double-bass continuo – real ‘baroque rock’ - with young soloists and conductor. Before the interval we heard a Chaconne by Purcell introducing the conductor Karin Hendrickson who graduated from the Royal academy of Music in 2013 though already with wide international experience. This was a meticulous performance, bringing out the full counterpoint of the variations on the basic ground – not the equal, but close to it, of the Bach for solo violin. The next item was sensational! This was a performance of Bach’s Cantata 51 Jauchzet Gott in Allen Landen with soprano and trumpet obligato. This is one of the most joyful works ever written. It has been played here every year for forty years immediately after seeing in the New Year in a recording by Teresa Stich-Randall with Maurice André (trumpet) (except for two years in France where we had to make do with a CD Emma Kirkby with her characteristic beauty of sound but complete absence of emotion.)
The soloists on this occasion were twenty-three year old Austrian soprano Christina Gansch currently studying at RAM and trumpeter Darren Moore also at RAM. The amazing thing was that it could have been a live performance by Stich-Randall with the same qualities of riding over with apparent ease the formidable difficulties of maintaining the line, both in the slow recitatives and the florid opening Aria and final Alleluia with the excitement of the trumpet’s entries. After this, the second half of the concert could have been an anti-climax but the level was maintained. Following a thumbnail history of the trumpet by Jon Whitely, recently retired but with delivery skills in no way diminished, the second half opened with a Trumpet Sonata by Purcell, followed by an interesting transcription for string orchestra of Bach’s Concerto for Three Harpsichords – useful if the three instruments are not readily available but lacking the plangent keyboard sound to hold the attention. Finally there was another sensational performance: Handel’s Let the Bright Seraphim from Samson sung by Gansch with trumpet joining in. This came over as a rehearsal for an eventual Last Night of the Proms, once the singer has fully developed her vocal power. I was immensely impressed.
18 April 2014