Author: welland2

English music – the third wave?

Patrick Hawes
Patrick Hawes

Is this another renaissance in British music? asked Michael Salmon in the first meeting of the Society’s new season.  British music seems to have gone through several waves with composers like Purcell and Arne in 17th Century followed by something of a lull until the first half of the last century with composers such as Elgar, Walton, Delius and Vaughan Williams.

Today there is a strong field of composers and Michael played examples by Michael Nyman, John Foulds, Patrick Hawes and Paul Carr.  The evening started with a brief extract of one of Eric Satie’s Gymnopedie — no, Satie was not an undiscovered Englishman, but the piece illustrates the minimalist and impressionistic style adopted by some British born composers today.

If there is a British style, then based on the pieces we heard, it is characterised by a frequent evocation of the countryside and powerful harmonic development.  It is also accessible.  It is probably too soon to say if the music we heard represents a ‘new wave’ but the breadth and depth of talent was impressive.

John Rutter
John Rutter

Pieces played;

  • Michael Nyman – the Piano
  • John Foulds –  April – England
  • Patrick Hawes – The Highgrove Suite; Fair Albion; Song of Songs
  • Paul Carr – Concerto for Oboe and Strings; Requiem for an Angel
  • John Rutter – The Lord is my Shepherd
  • Stuart Mitchell – Seven Wonders Suite
  • Richard Harvey – Concerto Antico
  • Nigel Hess – Piano Concerto

New season gets underway

The first evening of the new programme started on Monday with Michael Salmon asking ‘is this another English

Vaughan Williams
Vaughan Williams

renaissance?’  After the deaths of Elgar, Vaughan-Williams, Delius and Britten, new British music has often appeared to lack direction and to a certain extent quality.  However, since 1950, there has been a significant change and Michael will be looking at a group of modern British composers whose music, although always intensely lyrical, appears, in many cases to follow the 19th century French School with its harmony, impressionism and minimalism.

Note this was a change to the published programme.

A review will appear here shortly.

New season’s programme

The Society launched its new season’s programme this week and hard copies are available in the Tourist Information Office; the Collector’s Room; Oxfam upstairs; and the Library all in Salisbury. Joint chair of the society, Ed Tinline said ‘we have an exciting mix of presentations this year which includes film music, English music, Mozart, Shostakovich and Telemann – something for all tastes.’

The first session is on 22 September at 7:30.

Details of where we meet are on this site.

Programme 2014/15

New site

This is the site for the Salisbury Recorded Music Society. Welcome. You’ll find more about us in the ‘About’ tab at the top of the site. To see where we meet, look in the ‘Find us’ tab. We’ll be publishing more material here as time goes on but we have just held our last meeting of the season so it will be quiet for a while.

We are affiliated to the Federation of Music Societies.

Last meeting of the season

The Society’s current season ended in fine style with a double bill: one part on Puccini’s Tosca and the other on the English composer, Gerald Finzi. Tosca is of course a very well known opera but what is less well appreciated is how broadly similar most productions are. Vic Riches explained that this was because Puccini left detailed instructions on how it should be performed and most productions followed them. It received its premier in January 1900 at a time of unrest in Italy and the violent nature of the plot – with torture and a firing squad graphically depicted – meant a troubled start. However, it is now a much loved part of the operatic repertoire.

Gerald Finzi
Gerald Finzi
The English composer, Gerald Finzi, is by contrast less well known and yet deserves to be heard more. He is perhaps best known for his songs and we heard ‘In years defaced’ and ‘Let us garlands bring’ the latter performed by Bryn Terfel. The second movement from his Cello Concerto opus 40, performed by Raphael Wallfisch under the baton of Vernon Handley, was played together with Romance for String Orchestra opus 11. Both are fine works and worth listening to if there is an opportunity.

Ed Tinline, joint chair of the Society, said it had been a successful year ‘fulfilling the Society’s purpose of bringing generally lesser known pieces and composers to a wider public’. Members heard music by Bartok, a variety of Scandinavian composers and the French composer Dutilleux as well as more well known names such as Wagner, Ravel and Schumann. Numbers attending had increased slightly on previous years following the change to Monday evenings which is encouraging he added.