March 2025
Our next meeting will be tonight, Monday 24th March, when we shall welcome Peter Jarvis who will be reminiscing about his life in the orchestra pit as a clarinettist.
At the following meeting on 7th April Peter Curbishley will be discussing the somewhat overlooked French Composer Francis Poulenc.
I hope we can welcome you to one or both of these evenings.
PC
March 2025
One of the puzzles of musical life is why some composers seem to disappear from the repertoire. One thinks of Bruckner who enjoyed great popularity in his day at the end of the nineteenth century then was forgotten for many decades. He began to be appreciated again in the 60s. Bach no less suffered a long period of silence until Mendelssohn brought him out of the shadows.
Last evening we heard a range of compositions by the Welsh composer William Mathias. Unknown to several us, he composed a wide range of material including symphonies, concerti, choral and an opera. Lindsay Dannatt provided several examples from his compositions many of which were accomplished and of great interest. It is true that some have entered the repertory such as the Harp Concerto from which we heard an extract, the Piano Concerto No 3, likewise and the Organ Concerto.
Other works were extracts from Symphony No 1; the Horn Concerto and Divertimento for String Orchestra. Choral works included This World’s Joie and Songs of William Blake.
Mathias’ musical language embraced both instrumental and vocal forms with equal success, and he addressed a large and varied audience both in Britain and abroad. He was widely honoured in the academic word being awarded an Honorary DMus by Westminster Choir College, Princeton USA in 1987 and he was made CBE in the 1985 New Year’s Honours. He was honoured in Wales, his home country as well. He died in 1992 at a relatively young age.
Although some of the references to him, in Groves for example, refer to the influence of Bartok and Hindemith, he had a definite ‘voice’ and was not in any way derivative.
We were enormously grateful to Lindsay for bringing this composer to our attention and for an informed selection of his works.
Peter Curbishley
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.
The Society’s penultimate meeting takes place tonight, Monday 29th April, and is entitled The curse of the ninth. Some symphonic composers have reached nine but not quite managed, or finished, a tenth. Alan Forshaw examines the myth that of why nine composers couldn’t or wouldn’t write a tenth symphony.
Starts at 7:30 as usual.
January 2024
Last night: review shortly.
The second half of the Society’s season starts on Monday 29th at 7:30 as usual with a presentation by Chris Cope posing the question ‘is there more to Gustav Holst than the Planets?’ Holst was a reticent man and the fame which followed the success of the Planets was not altogether welcome. Much of his music was unknown but there has been something of a revival since the ’80s and hopefully we will hear more during Chris’s presentation.
[This event may appear in the Salisbury Journal’s What’s On page and even though it was posted with the correct date, the confirmation was returned with Friday shown and I have been unable to change it. To confirm: the meeting is on Monday 29th].
PC
The Society’s new season started in September and we have an interesting programme again this year. We have a wide ranging series of evenings including music by Puccini, Gustav Holst, the best of the 20th Century and on why so few composers managed a tenth symphony. We also have two members’ evenings and a Christmas quiz.
You can download the programme here or printed copies will be in the Library, Oxfam (upstairs) and the Tourism Information Centre next week.
The Society meets once a fortnight on a Monday evening starting at 7:30 and we aim to finish at 10 pm. It meets in the Guides’ Centre in St Ann Street although access is from the rear off Friary Lane. Parking is free and it is accessible for people with mobility difficulties.
If you want to speak on the phone then contact Ruth on T: 01722 782387 or M: 07759 785760
NOTE: please note that the first meeting does not take place tomorrow, 12th September as printed in Music in Salisbury. We had to change our programme at the last minute due to unforeseen circumstances. The first meeting is on 26th. We are sorry for this sudden change.
The new season gets underway soon and the programme is printed and will soon be in various locations around town. A pdf version is below. It is a varied and extremely interesting programme so we look forward to seeing you again on Monday 26th September for a presentation of music from Ukraine. We look forward to seeing you again or welcoming new members.
The new programme for 2022 – 23 is available and the print version can be found in the Library, TIC, and the Oxfam music Room. We have some outside speakers including someone from the Scriabin Society and old friends returning with new topics.
There will be a coupon in the programme entitling you to a free evening* for those who are curious about what we do. Keep an eye on this site – better still put it into your favourites – and we look forward to seeing you when we kick off again in the autumn.
*can only be used once
Our next meeting is tonight, Monday 28th March when Robin will be presenting: “Women composers who won the Prix de Rome”.
I hope you will be able to attend.
Note that we have a range of CDs for sale at a £l each or less as well as a selection of books for sale including biographies of Mahler and Ben Britten as well as other books on musical topics. All at bargain prices!
The next meeting, the last before Christmas, will be on Monday 6 December at 7.30 when Ruth Barlow will present Classical Music in Animations and invite us to join her in an end of term scamper through some cartoons with great classical music, including considering whether Fantasia was Mickey Mouse’s finest hour and listening to Tom and Jerry playing Liszt.
As before, we ask all attending to follow the Covid safety measures we have in place including signing in and sanitising procedures on arrival, well spaced seating, wearing a mask, minimising moving around and maintaining social distancing. From recent government announcements, it would seem that provided we follow our current practice this will fit within the latest Covid guidelines, so we plan to go ahead with the meeting on Monday, but if anyone feels uncomfortable and decides not to attend we shall understand.
After Monday we have a break until 31st January 2022 when we shall be delighted to welcome John Challenger to explore the highs and lows, the delights and difficulties of commercial recording on one of the greatest cathedral organs in the country: Salisbury’s own Father Willis Organ
We hope you will be able to come and feel comfortable on Monday 6th December
Salisbury Recorded Music Society 