Reviews

Reviews


7.30pm Friday, 19th May,2023


Tresillian Singers :


"A Tombola of Treasures"


In the penultimate concert of the 2022/2023 season,  the thirty members of the Tresillian Singers were joined by seven recorder players making up the Carrick Consort.


Although actually out-numbered, the audience showed their appreciation with loud and enthusiastic applause.  They had had a part in the programming, selecting raffle tickets from a bucket to pick twelve of the twenty-one songs available.


Most of the choir sang from memory, their eyes fixed on their dynamic and expressive conductor Elaine Tangye.
The voices blended beautifully, the intonation was true, the lyrics were crystal clear and the ensemble was tight.

More than anything it was the joy the performers clearly had from singing together that infected the listeners.


Their motto is ‘To sing for pleasure…and to give pleasure to others’. They certainly achieved that.


The random selection gave us Abba’s ‘Thank you for the Music’ just before the interval. Elaine said she would have programmed it as the finale but in that place came a rousing 'Da Doo Ron Ron'.


Particularly memorable were the spirited ‘Blue Moon’, a lovely version of Psalm 23 and the Choir’s first performance of the Flying Pickets' version of ‘Only You’ as an encore.

They were accompanied sensitively throughout by Ruth Best on Keyboard.



Giving the choir a break in each half, the Carrick Consort of one descant, two trebles, two tenors and two bass recorders provided a rich selection of original pieces and arrangements.


They started with a Pavane by Arbeau, a Jesuit priest, whose treatise on dance has been identified as the origin of classical ballet.


The spiritual ‘Steal Away’ was introduced by Helen Whomersley, the arranger and director of the group with a story about its significance as a signal for slaves escaping on the underground railway in America.


An Old Cornish Folksong and two Irish ones were also skilfully arranged for the four parts.

For those whose only experience of the recorder is the plastic Descant recorders smelling of sterilising solution that every child used to have to play at primary school,  the rich sound of the full recorder consort was a revelation.


Once again the performers commented on how much they enjoyed the intimacy and the atmosphere of the concert.


Whilst the committee is concerned that audience numbers are still not back to what we could expect pre-Covid, those who do come to Gerrans Memorial Hall, one Friday of each month from September to June,  are always engaged and delighted by the range and impact of live music the Roseland Music Society continues to offer.


We have one more concert to go in the 2022/23 series.

On Friday, 9th June we will give the same warm welcome to the wind quintet, Harmoniemusik.


There will be Celebration drinks for Members at 6.15pm before the concert – with a chance to sign up for the new season and some sneak previews of the exciting 23/24 programme in construction.


Membership is still just £15.00.   Apart from giving you the chance to support musicians and keep music live, it also gives you a discount on all concert tickets so come along and buy your Membership for next season now before a possible price increase after the AGM!


7.30pm Friday, 9th December 2022


Ruth Wall : Harpland
'Three Harps'
with Graham Fitkin,
composer


There were over 100 strings in total requiring careful tuning before, and during the concert which ace harpist Ruth Wall gave on Friday 9th December at Gerrans Memorial Hall.


Ruth’s programme took as its broad theme Migration and she chose a remarkable variety of strands to captivate the audience – the programme was both highly creative and a spur to the imagination.


There were four distinctive harps she played, the traditional clearsach, the bray harp, electro-acoustic harp, and a lever harp.


While Ruth Wall lives in Cornwall she has mined the stories and music from her native Sutherland, and in particular the Highland clearances for the thread that she wove through this programme.


Her partner, the composer, Graham Fitkin who was accompanying her adapted tunes from bagpipe music books and these were then interwoven with looping techniques to create new sound worlds.


For example;  A recording of the natural sounds of Skuas who have a distinctive cry and have been known to migrate in their thousands over Uist were included with a traditional pipe tune captured by Graham for Ruth to play.


If you ever travel up on the Paddington train from Cornwall and sit in the Quiet carriage, beware if you begin to chatter!

There may be a composer in the carriage picking up thematic ideas.


Ruth and Graham’s concerts always provide surprises and, in addition to reprising Steve Reich’s “Clapping Music”, they performed a short work by Graham which included snatches of teenager overheard in the Quiet Carriage - backchat using rhythmic body percussion, elements of dance and words.


Review Copyright : Tim Smithies



"Cornwall Cello Voices"      11th February 2022























Barbara Degener:  Leader

Liz Brazier

Susanna Campbell

Ben Hoadley

Tim Pratt


Giovanni Gabrieli                Canzona Seconda  arr. Nick Halsey

Henry Purcell                     Fantasia no 3 arranged by D. Moore

J.S.Bach                            Three movements From Suite in G major

                                        Prelude - Sarabande - Gigu

F. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy   Andate for organ arr O Mandozzi

Franz Schubert                  Allegro moderato from Sonata for Four Hands

G. Valensin                       Menuet:  arr G. Piatigorsky

4 American Folksongs        arr, Wendy Bissinger

A. Villoldo                         El Chachoritto  arr. W.Birtel


J.S. Bach                         Chorale "Der Christ"  arr. J.Navascues

D. Popper                        Requiem op. 66

D. Johnstone                    Argencello 

Marie   Dare                     Elegy

G. Gershwin                     I've Got Rhythm

A. Piazzola                       Libertango

J.S.Bach                          Chorale "Der Christ" arr J Navazcues

D. Popper                        Requiem op.66

D.Johnstone                    Argencello 


An appreciative and large audience enjoyed this concert featuring five cellists of the group Cornwall Cello Voices who played an entertaining rich and varied programme of music for cello ensemble and various combinations among them.


The band is made up from among the professional cellists in Cornwall who come together each year for a week's residential ensemble playing in January and this concert was one of three they gave following the "workout".

This annual event was set up by Liz Brazier (among the evening's performers not only on cello but also on piano) and is now led by Barbara Degener - whose has a teaching practice in north Cornwall. 

 

The concert started with music of two of the great composers of the 17th century, Giovanni Gabrieli, whose sonorous Canzona Seconda warmed the eaves of the Memorial Hall with wonderful counterpoint and glorious sound;  and  Henry Purcell, whose Fantasia no 3, in a subtle arrangement for the instruments sounded as if it had been scored for 5 cellists originally.   Ben Hoadley introducing the piece, reminded the audience of  Purcell's somewhat precarious lifestyle and early death, not detracting from the justified claim he is probably England's greatest ever composer.  


Barbara Degener then gave a performance of three movements of the G Major Solo Cello Suite by Johann Sebastian Bach - the incomparable Prelude has she thinks been the fount of such  hope and  optimism for those who lean on this music for meditation in the recent pandemic.  A beautiful and agile performance.


Other notable pieces were the celebrated three cello Requiem op 66 by David Popper - one of the great cellists of the 19th century and whose oeuvre for cellos is a large treasury of cello repertoire much loved (and, dare I say, feared) by cellists for its technical demands as it  sometimes requires from cello virtuoso performers.

It is a salutary reminder of just what giants of the cello have preceded us. This performance of the Requiem by Barbara Degener, Tim Platt and Susanna Campbell was delivered with serenity beauty and wonderfully accompanied on the society's piano by Liz Brazier who dedicated the performance to all those whose loss we feel from the past two years' pandemic outbreak.


The programme also included a lot of fun though!  With a zippy and atmospheric series of arrangements of the wonderful music of Bizet's Carmen..... particularly memorable the interlude around the Lilias Pastias Cafe near Seville.  Four American folksong arrangements including Aaron Copland's  by Wendy Bissinger. 


There was also a decidedly Latino flavour to the programme with a wonderful tango by the Argentine Angel Villoldo who was one of the pioneers of the Tango.  He was a guitarist and harmonica player who played in bars and other dives in Buenos Aires.

He created a modern method for learning the guitar which he published and then, as a composer, he published Cantos Ciollos (folk songs).  As a result of his touring with a band to France, the music was some of the earliest recorded and the Tango began to circulate in European-made recordings back in Argentina.

Here they played his work "El Cachoritto" an arrangement commissioned by the Argentine Cello Community in Spain.   The concert concluded with sizzling performances of Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm" and Astor Piazolla's sycopated masterpiece Libertango 


Further details of the Cornwall Cello Community can be found on Facebook @CornwallCelloCommunity.
Barbara invited any aspiring or beginner cellist to talk to any of the members of the band about starting to learn the cello. Her own experience included a starter player who began the cello at 79 years old.  So it is a pursuit for all.


The next concert takes place on 11th March and is a recital on the Theorbo by Dutch lutenist Fred Jacobs. 



Review copyright Tim Smithies 2022.
You can find more on Music In Cornwall


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Graham Fitkin’s Lecture Recital     9th October 2021

Reviewed by Tim Smithies


It's not often you get to hear a composer talk about his or her music with such clarity and sincerity as Roseland Music Society heard from Graham Fitkin in their first music event since lockdown, on Saturday 9th October.   This was a rocket fuelled launch to a season of 8 Concerts the Society has lined up until July 2022. 


An increasingly engrossed audience  experienced a huge range of creative ideas performed with illustrations from the piano,  recordings of concert work (from the Proms, Tokyo, the USA) featuring unusual combinations of instruments introducing new sound worlds e.g. for three marimbas,  sampled music with vibraphone, but also full symphony orchestras and memorably a cello concerto (for YoYo Ma) inspired by one note…B flat.


After a rapid trot through his Cornish musical education (his mother taught piano in West Penwith and he is fulsome about the variety and scope of  musicmaking opportunities available to him when young in Cornwall):  he began dabbling in piano, violin (set aside), clarinet and percussion,  leading to studying composition at Nottingham University and subsequently at The Hague with Louis Andriessen…..A common denominator which Graham explained began to shape his own musical identity as composer,  was employing formal mathematical  and rhythmical structures, stripped down economy of expression, layering of with Stravinsky and minimalists like Steve Reich as critical influences.  


At that point the audience  had a live performance by Graham and his partner Ruth Wall (happily on hand) in Steve Reich’s classic Clapping Music (1972).   We were stunned and clapped too (albeit not quite so rhythmically)..


A lively Q&A session then took place with the audience keen to know more about the realities of being a composer. 

The talk ended with Graham’s account of the development of his latest commission, (from Cornwall’s  Three Spires Singers) to be performed in Truro Cathedral on 20th November…with narrator Sam West, multiple choirs ……and the title “Humphry Davy…the Age of Aspiration”.   The Cornish engineer’s self-experiments with hazardous gases and  breathing apparatus and experimentation was Graham’s  starting point . . . . . . .


Now posting after that premiere, a superb cast including Countertenor Rory McCleery, narrator Samuel West, - the Three Spires Singers who are to be congratulated for such a bold commission for their 40th Anniversary with young people’s choir Cornwall County Choirs, directed by Angela Renshaw, were all conducted by Christopher Gray, Three Spires Music Director in a spell-binding performance of the new work with "inspiration” as its motif.