Edward is a trombonist, writer and critic based in Reading. He has an interest in small-scale arts projects and assists with a number of grassroots music groups. He is a supporter of amateur music and participation at every level.
Can you imagine being a concertgoer in the early years of the 18th century, when Corelli, Vivaldi, Bach and Handel were all writing new music and performers were being pushed to find new ways of playing?
Christoph von Dohnányi yields to the Romanticism of Ein Heldenleben after a delicate, ornate rendering of Beethoven's Piano Concerto no.1 from Martin Helmchen.
The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra's visit to Reading featured music by Mozart, Brahms and Elgar, and the crowds of schoolchildren in attendance seemed entranced.
The early 1950s were marked by the world premières of Prokofiev’s Symphony no. 7 (1952), Poulenc’s Piano Concerto (1950) as well as his Stabat Mater (1951). The most recent offering of The Rest is Noise series at the Southbank Centre encouraged us to place these pieces not just in the 1950s, but also in a wider political and cultural context.
When a programme is well put together and nicely themed, it is quite easy to turn one’s attention away from the sound of music, and onto the history of music. PCM 4 at Cadogan Hall was breezily introduced by the BBC compere as a programme marking Britten’s centenary, exploring his relationship with his peers, and celebrating his friend Lutoslawski. Yes, it did all that.
Concert programmes at the Proms often lean toward music of significant scale and heft. The requirement to fill the huge Royal Albert Hall, as well as capturing listeners’ attentions across the airwaves and in many different countries, means that huge expeditions, such as this year’s Ring cycle, are a perfect fit for the festival. Prom 44 was massive too, in its own way.
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group is celebrating its 25th anniversary this season, and as it does so it is marking the anniversary of Benjamin Britten’s birth. BCMG is touring a programme of Britten’s early compositions, the second stop of which was at Turner Sims in Southampton.John Woolrich, BCMG Artist-in-Association, was introduced as a “master programmer” by the Turner Sims representative.
The intimacy of Schubert’s Lieder almost guarantees that no words can be missed. In comparison to say, a 100-strong choir competing with a full orchestra, the poetic element of Lieder is unmissable, and thus it occupies a larger part of the concertgoer’s attention. Schubert of course recognised this, and selected his wordsmiths carefully.
Inspiration for a composition can come in many forms; a letter from Clara Schumann, the brutality of Stalin's police, growing deaf or hearing birdsong. The final concert of John Adams’ short residency at the Barbican focused on a more reverent strain of influence, however: the peculiar tendency for living composers to want to reference dead ones.
Seasonal concert programmes come in all shapes and sizes. Reflecting the many sides of Christmas, they range from the commercial to the spiritual, from bombastic celebrity endorsement to the simplicity of choristers by candlelight.
Music fans love to get the whole picture. We consume box-sets, bootlegs, alternate takes, and artist interviews – all in the name of completeness. Some people say a good CD library should have at least three Eroicas and five Fifths to be complete, while music magazines might recommend more. Of course, live music venues have their own shot at completeness when they schedule a “cycle”.
The Wihan Quartet was formed in 1985 in Czechoslovakia. Since then they have developed an impressive international career, often visiting the UK and being broadcast on its airwaves. Among their achievements is a published recording of Dvořák’s String Quartet no. 11, and it was this recording, not their continued and celebrated presence in the UK, that first brought them to my attention.
The Borodin String Quartet has been playing serious, heavyweight programmes since 1945, making it the quartet world’s most senior ensemble, and giving it a global reputation for high technical standards and musicianship.
It is a cliché in music commentary to say that youth orchestras bring vitality, fearlessness and chutzpah to the programmes that they play. But as with most clichés, it does appear to be based in truth, and that is perhaps one reason why the BBC Proms continue to give such support to young players as well as young composers.
It’s a fairly poor show that I hadn’t been to a Prom in years. Since it is all online and on the radio, there is the tendency to stay home and listen – but this concert was a reminder of quite how worthwhile it is to attend concerts in person. The power of live musical performance was exemplified by this varied programme, performed in a most varied and adaptive way.
Baroque music is pretty old, isn’t it? But the great thing is, you don’t have to have the advanced years of a Brandenburg Concerto to put it on. The Oxford Philomusica has been active for little more than a decade – and they rushed through the pouring rain to play at the similarly young St George’s Bristol.
The Elektrostatic Concert Series has been one of Bristol’s most reliable sources of contemporary classical music events in recent years. This year, the curators have been working with Arcomis, an arts commissioning organisation, and have successfully arranged a pair of highly ambitious concerts, each dedicated to a single instrument.
