March 2025
Tonight’s meeting (10 March) is an exploration of the Welsh composer William Mathias to be given by Lindsay Dannatt. Starting at 7:30 as usual. Mathias composed a huge range of works and no doubt we shall sample a few this evening.
PC
Author: welland2
Next meeting
February 2025
The next meeting is on Monday 24th as usual starting at 7:30. It is called A Walk in the Woods which may sound bucolic but it is a programme of music focusing on woodwind. Wind instruments, based on vibrating reeds, add colour and texture to an orchestra and composers gradually added them to their compositions.
In the nineteenth century, there were many improvement to their design with more keys added to enable the range to be widened and more fluid playing.
The second half of the season has got off to a brilliant start. At our first meeting in January, Peter Horwood delved into the Polish music scene and came up with a number of hidden gems few of whom any of us had heard before.
Last meeting was given by Ute Schwarting who focused on Brahms and related his music to her life story. Two fascinating talks with quite different themes.
PC
Next meeting
February 2025
The next meeting is this evening, 10 February at 7:30 as usual. It will be on the subject of Brahms and Ute Schwarting will be talking about her personal journey with the composer. Many people have a personal attachment to a composer which sometimes comes from having their eyes opened to classical music by one of their works. Brahms of course needs no introduction but listening to Ute’s reflections will be interesting.
PC
Next meeting: tonight
January 2025
Our first session of 2025 will be tonight, Monday 27th January 2025 when Peter Horwood will present “A Polish Panorama” – a summary and brief survey of Polish composers from medieval times to the 21st Century.
Following that on 10th February, we shall welcome Ute Schwarting to tell us about her personal journey with the music of Johannes Brahms.
We look forward to seeing you there.
Christmas Quiz!
December 2024
The first half of the season ended in cracking style with a quiz ably put together by Ruth Barlow. Music you won’t be surprised to learn, formed the basis of the questions which taxed the team’s knowledge. We had to guess both composer and piece with some questions on what linked the different compositions. There was a round based on photos of musicians. A challenging round was guessing the end of compositions. It was very much enjoyed and were very grateful for the work and cunning that Ruth had put into compiling the questions.
It brings to an end the first half of our season which has been a great success with a varied and interesting programme. We start again in the New Year on 27 January with an interesting first session enabling us to polish up our knowledge of Polish composers.
PC
Christmas Quiz!
Next meeting will be our Christmas quiz
November 2024
Our next meeting on 2nd December will be our last before Christmas, and we will be holding our Christmas Quiz. This will be our second such classical music Quiz and, as previously, conducted again by Ruth Barlow So don’t be put ORFF, come BACH for more!
In the New Year we will resume on Monday 27th January 2025 when Peter Horwood will present “Polish Panorama” – a summary and brief survey of Polish composers from Medieval times to the 21st Century.
We hope to see you on 2nd December, and in the New Year.
Recent meetings
November 2024
The Society’s two recent meetings on 21 October and 4 November had a range of interesting music. The first was a members’ evening where members bring along pieces which have interested them or they have discovered for themselves.
This was preceded by our agm which went smoothly enough. The Society is holding its own at present with adequate funds and a healthy programme of events. Indeed plans are afoot for the 2024/25 season with some potentially interesting ideas. The Chair of the society said in the context of reduced funding for the arts that ‘we were keeping the flame of great music alight’.
Members brought a range of pieces one of which was an extract from Gloria Coates’ Symphony number 14. Gloria was from Wisconsin but spent a great deal of time in Europe. She died last year.
Gerald Finzi is a somewhat neglected British composer and few of his works appear on the repertoire these days. One composition which gets an outing now again is his clarinet concerto the first movement of which – an allegro – was played.
The Argentinian violinist Manfredo Kraemer performed an unusual Peruvian piece on the viola di gamba.
One most surprising piece was a Beethoven string quartet played on saxophones by the Sinta quartet. This really worked and shows that compositions can work in different genre and provide fresh insights.
We ended with a performance of a movement from Bruckner’s Symphony No 8. There are many recordings of this great work but this was by von Karajan dating from 1944. Many of these recordings disappeared into the Soviet Union after the war after prolonged negotiations, many have tricked out. As ever with a von Karajan it is a remarkable rendition all the more remarkable bearing in mind the circumstances in Berlin at the time. The recording is incomplete.
4 November
Due to the speaker being unwell, this was a change to the published programme. We were fortunate that Jeremy Barlow stepped into the breach and provided a programme which was both erudite and enjoyable. Entitled Theme and Variations, he explained the importance of variations in the musical world and gave examples of different types.
The standout recording was the chaconne from the partita for violin by Bach played by Victoria Mullova. You may be familiar with this piece but as Jeremy said, the phrasing of her playing made this an outstanding performance. It is thought that it was composed following Bach’s return home to find his wife had died during his absence.
Another piece was the Adagio from Beethoven’s quartet in E minor which has six variations (I think!) some of the breaks between them difficult to spot.
Other pieces included Brahms’s variations on a theme by Paganini, a composition by William Byrd and a movement from Vaughan Williams’ 6th Symphony.
It was an extremely interesting evening and members were grateful to Jeremy for putting it together at short notice.
The next meeting is on 18 November.
Peter Curbishley
Meeting this evening
The next Society meeting is this evening 21 October and is a members’ evening so if you are a member and haven’t sent your contribution to Robin – there’s still time. It will be preceded by a short agm. Same place and same time. Programmes are in the TIC by the way.
Scottish piano music
Christopher Guild plays piano music from Scottish composers
October 2024
The Society was delighted to welcome back Christopher Guild who played a selection of largely unfamiliar piano music by Scottish composers. Many will remember his previous visit where he discussed the problems of producing recordings during the Covid lockdown.
One wonders whether the course of Scottish music might have taken a different turn if a certain Alexander Grieg had decided to stay in Scotland. Instead, he went to Norway and married a Norwegian girl who gave birth to a certain Edvard Greig – note the change in spelling – who put Norwegian music on the map. Just think what might have been …
Christopher is an accomplished pianist and has played at the Wigmore Hall and at St John Smith Square. He has also appeared on Radio 3. He has made a number of recordings and some of these were played this evening. Indeed, the Society was the first to hear one recording, a ‘world first’ in St Ann St, Salisbury no less.
A key influence is a form of music called ‘Pibroch’ an exact definition of which is a little challenging unless your Gaelic grammar is up to scratch and you have downed a few glasses of Scotland’s finest. A not altogether accurate summary is an extended compositional form for pipes – which effectively means bagpipes – with a number of variations. It is in contrast to shorter forms such as dances and reels.
We started with Eric Chisholm’s Piano Concerto No 1. Scottish born, he was highly regarded by fellow musicians and a number of his compositions were published and recorded. He is sometimes compared to Bartók, whom he encouraged to come to Scotland, and it was indeed possible to hear his influence in the piece. He was keen to encourage contemporary music.
This was followed by pieces by Francis George Scott and David Charles Johnson. We heard the latter’s Prelude No 6 which included an impressive fugue based on a Scottish folk song.
William Wordsworth, distantly related to the poet, had a somewhat troubled compositional history and was not always in favour. He was born in Surrey and moved to Scotland. We heard his Valediction.
Ronald Center, from Aberdeen, did not have a big compositional output – one symphony and a quantity of chamber music and solo piano works. The last composer was another Ronald, Ronald Stevenson who was born in Blackburn but spent most of his life in Scotland. Christopher introduced us to his work nine years ago. Much influenced by Grainger, he composed many works and was a teacher working in South Africa and New York. There is a society: https://ronaldstevensonsociety.org.uk
It was a pleasure to have an evening presented by someone with knowledge and enthusiasm for his subject. Here was a varied collection of pieces by a range of composers some, sadly, seldom heard. The Chair of the Society said it was an ‘ear opening’ evening.
The next meeting is on 21 October and is a members’ evening. Please let Robin know what your favourite piece is.
New season about to start
September 2024
The new seasons gets underway on Monday 23rd September starting at 7:30 as usual in the Guides Centre St Ann’s St (entrance and free parking at rear). The first evening will be about Elizabeth Schumann a fine opera singer in her day, who left a legacy of recordings some of which no doubt we will hear on the night.
The programme for the year is published and copies have been deposited in the Library and soon in the Oxfam music shop upstairs. Copies will be in the Tourism Centre in Butcher Row soon. You can also access the programme here:
We are always pleased to welcome new members and we were pleased to welcome several new people last season.
If you want to come along to just one evening it is a modest £5 and full membership is only £25.
The programme is eclectic with some familiar names and others less so. The strength of the Society is that we are able to explore forgotten (often undeservedly so) names and bring them into the light. We look forward to seeing you.
Salisbury Recorded Music Society 