October 2026
Our next meeting will be on 12th October when Alan Doel will present ‘Steve Reich at 90’ and take us a pulsating journey from Minimalism. Starts at 7:30 and parking is free to the rear of the Guides Centre.
Author: welland2
My life and music
Title of the first meeting of the new season
Apology: the committee would like to apologise for those who were unable to make entry last evening. The main gates are usually left open for us but were securely locked last evening. We hope this will not happen again.
September 2026
I suspect for most people, their musical tastes evolve through their lifetime. Early experiences are likely to be from more popular sources with memorable tunes and lyrics which may chime in with experiences you were having at that time in your life. As time goes by, your tastes change and new composers or songwriters enter your life sometimes quite suddenly. Music you may have heard before and meant nothing, suddenly strikes a chord and a new vista of listening opens up. Music – and other art forms – have this capacity to touch us at an emotional level and as we go through life, our affinity to different composers and musical forms changes with us.
It was these themes which Roy Bexon (pictured) touched on with his presentation last evening. Like many people of a certain vintage, they have lived through some exciting times on the musical front. This applies to the technology – stereo, the development of the LP, then hifi – all have had their effects on people’s ability to enjoy music, and to the range and styles of music being created. Recently there have been CDs and now streaming.
Roy took us through his life of music. He is president of the Salisbury Music Society and has been so for a number of years.
As you can see from the playlist below it is an eclectic list to say the least. Roy is a keen singer and he spoke of his participation in concerts here and in Germany.
He spoke of his first experience, the Walt Disney piece from Pinocchio and played Paul McCartney’s Eleanor Rigby composition with the Beatles: an early if not the earliest, example of pop groups using orchestral strings. His gradual appreciation of Mahler and Bach is also evident.
- Leigh Harline, Ned Washington – “When you wish upon a Star” from the soundtrack of Pinocchio – Cliff Edwards and the Disney Studio Chorus
- John Lennon, Paul McCartney – “Eleanor Rigby” – The Beatles
- Judy Collins – “Albatross”, from the album “Wildflowers”
- J.S Bach – “Kyrie Eleison” from Mass in B minor BWV 232
- Gustav Mahler – Symphony No. 3, 5th Movement (beginning) – “Bimm Bamm”)
- Claudio Monteverdi – Vespers of 1610 – No. 7 – Duo Seraphim
- Vaughan Williams – Suite for Viola and Orchestra (1934) – Ballad
- Benjamin Britten – War Requiem (excerpt)
- Tylman Susato – Danserye (excerpt) – David Munrow
- Nigel Westlake – That’ll Do Pig, That’ll Do, from film “Babe” (1995)
- Jay Ungar & Molly Mason – Ashokan Farewell
Interval
- Giuseppe Verdi – Tuba Mirum from the Messa da Requiem
- Richard Stilgoe – “Mrs Beamish”
- David Fanshawe – Call to Prayer (Kyrie) from African Sanctus (1972)
- Vaughan Williams – Alleluia from “The Pilgrim’s Progress”, Act IV
- Ieuan Rees-Davies – Close Thine Eyes – The Treorchy Male Voice Choir
- J.S Bach – “Dona Nobis Pacem” from Mass in B minor BWV 232.
It was a hugely enjoyable evening which nearly wasn’t with the gate problem. It is one of the distinctive features of the Society that we can enjoy such a wide range of interesting material from a speaker like Roy who has had a keen interest in the subject during his life.
The next meeting is on 12th October and is around the highly original American composer Steve Reich.
PC
New season gets underway
New season starts Monday
September 2026
Our first meeting in this new season will be at 7.30 on Monday 28th September 2026, when we shall be very pleased to welcome Roy Bexon of Salisbury Music Society who will present “My life and music”.
For existing members of the Society at this meeting our annual membership fee of £25 will be due. This is unchanged from last year. It will be gratefully received in cash or by cheque payable to SRMS. We regret cannot accept payment by card. For visitors it will be £5.
The programme is available on our previous post and hard copies are in Salisbury, Wilton and Amesbury libraries and in the Tourism Office in Butcher Row. If members who live elsewhere know of other places to display them, space copies will be available on Monday.
Last year was a great success and we were pleased to welcome some new members. This year’s programme is equally interesting …
PC
New programme available!
Programme for 2026/27 season now available
We are pleased to publish our programme for the new season which contains lots of interest for listeners to classical music. The printed version will be in the Library and in the Tourism Centre in Salisbury soon.
You can see it is an interesting programme with a wide variety of topics and speakers on a diverse range of themes. We have a large screen in the room so we can display visual material as well.
Copies of the programme are in the TIC, Salisbury, and the libraries in Wilton, Amesbury and Salisbury.
At £5 – less if you sign up for the whole season – it is a good value evening. We kick off on 28th so we may see you there …
Peter Curbishley
Latest posts:
Programme 2026/27
Next season’s programme is in the final stages of preparation and will be posted here soon. Copies will also be in the Library and the TIC in Butcher Row.
Probably this week!
Review of the year
June 2026
The chair of the Society, Peter Horwood, has written a brief review of the 2025/26 season just ended. He says “the Society continued to offer its members and visitors a hugely varied and entertaining programme across its fourteen evenings. Spanning centuries and genres, subjects included the music and life of Delius, Gordon Jacob, Eric Satie and Alan Hovhaness. Themed evenings including a mixed selection of music for wind ensemble, a fascinating lecture on Black musicians in England 1500-1800 and the music they played, and an interesting evening on Iberian music. The latter provided a reminder of the fine, but unaccountably neglected music of the Portuguese composer, Jolly Braga Santos.
“A particularly memorable evening was provided by professional cellist Catherine Wilmers, who along with her selection of recorded music themed on cello and piano music by British women composers, took up her cello and played some memorable encores. Catherine’s career included playing with several leading London orchestras and the Society was privileged to be visited by such a talented artist.
“In addition, the Society held two members evenings where members were encouraged to bring along music to share and relate what they found particularly appealing about their chosen pieces.
“Another highlight from the season included an intriguing presentation titled ‘Murder, Mishap and Misfortune’ that related, with musical examples, the strange and unexpected deaths of lesser-known composers. Bizarrely this apparently grisly subject offered some moments of great amusement!”
New season
The programme for the new season is all but complete with just a few text additions waiting finalising. It kicks off on Monday 28th September. It has a diverse range of presentations on music for brass, Steve Reich, 21st Century music, Schubert and much else. The addition of a screen in the Guide’s Centre means presentations can include visual material which adds interest and background.
We look forward to seeing you again in the Autumn.
Last meeting of the season
Iberian music was the subject of our last meeting
Another successful year completed
May 2026
The Society’s last meeting of the year ended on a high note with an evening devoted to music from the Iberian peninsula. But before discussing that, a few words about the season and the Society.
It has been a successful year with a diversity of interest and new discoveries. Although we are a ‘recorded’ music society we did actually have a ‘live’ recital this year when the celebrated ‘cellist Catherine Wilmers brought her instrument and played some pieces for us.
The Society can do what concerts find hard to do which is to explore the by-ways of the music scene, playing long-forgotten music by sometimes undeservedly long-forgotten composers. We can also focus on a single composers bringing to life some of their lesser known work.
We have a mixture of home grown presenters who gave excellent and well researched evenings about American composers, the English composer Delius and Eric Satie, the eccentric Frenchman. Others spoke about wind ensembles, Black musicians and an intriguing evening discussing the unexpected deaths of some composers. We welcomed guest presenters who spoke on the Ballets Russe and the work of Gordon Jacob.
Presentations have been helped in the last couple of years with a screen which enables visual presentations linked to our hi-fi. It broadens what we can play and allows us to watch and listen to an historic performance. It has had a definite and positive effect on the scope of our presentations.
We have welcomed new members this year and which bodes well for the Society in the coming years. So back to the last evening…
Iberian music
We were delighted welcome back Simon Coombs (pictured) who devoted his presentation around the Iberian peninsular with music from Spain and Portugal. Listeners to Classic FM will undoubtedly be aware of the Rodrigo’s Concerto Aranjuez which – if it were possible to wear out a CD – would be on its last legs by now, but other works by that composer seldom get a look in: a pity. We heard his Concerto Andaluz which is worth listening to.
Albeniz is another composer who gets occasional air time as of course does Manuel de Falla. But their ‘lesser’ or should we say less familiar works, often don’t get played. We have noted before that some composers have a handful of compositions which can drown out other pieces of their oeuvre.
Few, one suspects, have heard of Braga Santos and the extract from his 4th Symphony was a revelation. The full play list is attached.
As ever, Simon has used his deep knowledge of music to explore the by-ways and bring to life and to our attention work which is frequently overlooked. We were delighted with his presentation and a worthy coda to the season. The full playlist is below.
Next season
We are well advanced with the new season which starts at the end of September. It us a full programme with a number of special evenings. We will be producing the printed programme in July or perhaps August and will be available here and printed copies in the Tourism office and Salisbury Library.
Like all clubs and societies, we depend on volunteers to help run things so if you do have some time to come on to our committee, we would be pleased to see you. We have divided up the various functions so individual tasks do not take up much time.
Previous posts:
Final meeting
Final meeting of the season tomorrow, 11th
Well, another season comes to an end and we are delighted to welcome back Simon Coombs who will entertain us with the music of the Iberian peninsular.
It has been an excellent year with a wide range of topics (see previous posts) and although we call ourselves the ‘recorded’ music society, we have had a live performance this year and much greater use of the big screen now available in the Guides’ Centre. This has enabled us to explore some historic performances captured on film and broaden our experience of the music. We have been pleased to welcome several new members this year.
The programme is all but finalised for 2026/27 and will be published sometime in the summer – August probably. On we go …
PC
Erik Satie
Eccentric French composer the subject of this evening’s presentation
April 2026
If you said ‘strange’ or ‘eccentric’ in the context of a composer, like as not you would settle on the name of Erik Satie the subject of the penultimate presentation in the 2025/26 programme. Presented by Society member Tim Rowe with able assistance from Alan Doel, we heard a range of music from this composer.
Born Eric Satie in Honfleur northern France, his mother was English and his father French. He went to the Conservatoire in Paris but left without a diploma it was said because he was the ‘laziest student’ there. The first two tracks Tim played were extracts from the Gnossiennes numbers 1 and 5. Some of this music was incorporated into one of Peter Seller’s last films Being There. These pieces are very much in the Satie style.
Similarly the most famous and recognisable of his compositions Gymnopédie No 1, a solemn, sad and thoughtful piece instantly recognised as a Satie composition. First was the original piano version but then we heard an arrangement for trumpet and orchestra which ‘worked’ and gave it a different dimension. It is probably a reflection of the sparse style the composer had adopted that a different arrangement could be a success.
Satie was never it seemed what we would today call ‘worldly wise’ and lived most of his live in poor surroundings. Friends were never invited to his home. He was however a success as a cabaret performer which should have yielded a good income but spent his money as it came into his hands.
He had a second go at a musical education by entering the Schola Cantorum as a mature student and studied under Vincent D’Indy. He was influential in the musical circle which became known as Les Six which included fellow composers such a Poulenc and Milhaud. They were a reaction to the romanticism and adopted a more sparse style of composition.
Some of his compositions were extreme, one being Vexations an endless repeated theme which can last many hours, over 9 in fact. It is controversial to this day over a century after its composition. We heard just a few moments. Other unusual pieces included Musique d’Ameublement designed not to be listened to. Was Satie the inventor of musak, the curse of so many restaurants and cafes?
We watched a brief extract from a ballet Parade which premiered in 1917 in Paris. Conceived by Jean Cocteau and sets designed by Pablo Picasso, it resulted in audience uproar and has not had many performances since.
Satie was influential and paved the way for composers we now refer to as modernist. He seem to fall out with most of his friends at some point in his life. Clearly eccentric he never listened to the radio and never used a phone. We saw a brief extract from a silent in which he appears.
Tim (pictured) expanded our knowledge of this composer playing pieces which are seldom heard today. A fine evening in the tradition of the Society to inform its members about composers, in this case certainly not forgotten, but to an extent overlooked.
Peter Curbishley
The Playlist:
- Gnossienne No.1 Ólafur Arnalds & Nils Frahm, Piano
- Ogive No.1, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano
- Ogive No.4. Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano
- Gymnopedie No.1, Khatia Buniatishvili piano
- Gymnopedie No.3 Alison Balsam, trumpet, with instrumental ensemble
- Le Fils d’Etoiles incidental music – Prelude – Alexei Lubimov, piano
- Modéré (1893) – Christina Agnano, piano
- Prière (1895) Reinbert de Leeuw, piano
- Pièces Froides Nos. 1 – 3 – Reinbert De Leeuw, piano
- Je Te Veux. Chanson – Patricia Petibon, soprano; Susan Manoff, piano
- Vexations 1893 (excerpt – live recording) Alexei Lubimov, piano
- Messe des Pauvres- (Mass for the Poor) for piano, chorus & organ (1892-1895) – Kyrie Eleison: Choeur René Duclos conducted by Jean Laforge, with Gaston Litaize, organ
- Désespoir Agréable – Pleasant Despair – Jean Yves Thibaudet, piano
- Petite Sonata – Sladjana Gajić, piano
- Parade – ballet (excerpt) – Europa Danse
- Socrate, Symphonic Drama – Part 1 – Julia Cavallaro and Charles Blandy, piano
- Furnishing Music (Musique d’ameublement) – Unknown ensemble
- Nocturnes 2 and 3, from 5 Nocturnes – Pascal Rogé, piano
- Tendrement – sung by Régine Crespin, with Philippe Entremont, piano
Our final meeting takes place on 11 May and will focus on Iberian music and we are pleased to be welcoming back Simon Coombs to present.
Tonight!
April 2026
Tonight, Monday 27th April, we will now have, postponed from February, Tim Rowe and Alan Doel will present: “Eric Satie: Gymnopediste!” 7:30 start as usual.
Erik Satie was born May 17, 1866, Honfleur, Calvados, France and died July 1, 1925, Paris). He was a French composer whose spare, unconventional, often witty style exerted a major influence on 20th-century music, particularly in France.
Satie studied at the Paris Conservatory, dropped out, and later worked as a café pianist. From 1898 he lived alone in Arcueil, a Paris suburb.
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