The second half of the season starts tonight, Monday 5 February and we are delighted to welcome Simon Coombs from the Vaughan Williams Society who is going to discuss and play music by this great English composer. Starts at 7:30 as usual and is only £3 to non-members. Parking is easy and free and details of how to find us are on the ‘Find us’ tab at the top of the site.
We look forward to welcoming existing members back also any new visitors.
Last meeting of the first half of the season tonight — 7:30 as usual
The new season kicks off on 18 September with a presentation on Busoni by Christopher Guild. Busoni was a musician of great renown at the beginning of the last century but today has been largely forgotten. He was a pianist, teacher, composer and conductor. The presentation by Christopher should enlighten us to this Italian composer’s talents.
The full programme will be available on this site soon and hard copies will be available at the Oxfam Music Room, the Collector’s Room in Endless Street, and at the Tourism Information Office in Fish Row.
We look forward to seeing you for the new season.
The next meeting takes place on Monday 8th of May and will be a member’s evening. If you have a particular piece you like or want to hear played then liaise with Anthony Powell. Usual place usual time.
The second half of the season kicks off on Monday 6 February. Further details soon.
At Salisbury Recorded Music Society we are now into our Christmas and New Year break, and will start again in February 2017 with what promise to be really excellent presentations by several very good friends of the society:
During the years 1781 – 1791 the residents of Vienna enjoyed a golden age. There was freedom of speech, the establishment of an open and tolerant society and even an end to the death penalty in the Hapsburg empire. Indeed, the enlightenment had truly arrived.
And the music: both Haydn and Mozart were alive producing between them, masterpieces at the rate of one every other month. 1791 saw the untimely death of Mozart of course (and Mozart’s last year will be the subject of a future presentation on 28th of November) and by now political events were beginning to have their effects in Austria.
Tim Rowe took us through some of these masterpieces with some carefully selected excerpts from the great works. He started with the Gran Partita by Mozart which is a serenade for 13 mostly wind instruments. Wind ensembles of various kinds were very popular at this time and the K361 is certainly the most popular.
This was followed by a Haydn string quartet, opus 33/1 played by the Casals Quartet (pictured). Haydn is considered the ‘father’ of the string quartet and the form had a profound influence on Mozart. Even though there are only 4 instruments, the form is extremely difficult to master and although Mozart could compose at great speed, modern paper studies show that he struggled to complete several of his own quartets.
Opera was hugely popular at this time and we heard extracts from several of Mozart’s pieces. These included the overture from The Marriage of Figaro, arias from Don Giovani and finally three arias from Cosi fan Tutti. For many, this is his finest opera, but strangely it was condemned by both Beethoven and Wagner.
Other pieces included part of the Mass in C minor and the piano sonata Alla Turca played on a forte piano.
A most interesting evening of a momentous period in musical history.
Apology
We must apologise to members for the problems we had with the keys to our normal venue. Unfortunately, we were given the wrong set of keys so we had to repair to Ed and Sue Tinline’s house to hold the meeting.
The next meeting is a member’s evening and is on 14 November at the usual place – assuming that is we can get in!
One might be forgiven for thinking that the only composer of note to emerge from the city state of Venice was Vivaldi. His Four Seasons is relentlessly played in shops and on Classic FM along with Eine Klein Nachtmusik by Mozart. Last night, Peter Horwood showed that in fact the Venice school produced a huge range of composers and that the city was a pathbreaker in several musical forms.
He went right back to the fourteenth century with some Gregorian chants and pieces of choral music by Marchettus de Padua, Ave corpus sanctum; Francesco Landini, motet principium nobilissime; and Johannes Ciconia, motet: Venecie Mundi Splendor. Some of this music was composed for ceremonial purposes, some for religious.
As the evening went on, it was interesting to see the development of style and the addition of orchestral instruments to the choral works. The first operas were written here and indeed some composers seem to have composed prodigious numbers of them. Monteverdi featured and included an extract from one of his operas La Favola d’rfeo and the ritornello, Dal mio Permesso amoto.
One of the composers who impressed the audience was Tamaso Albinoni and his Concerto No 2 for oboe and strings in D minor from which we heard the enchanting Adagio. The three movement concerto form which we know so well today was first developed in Venice.
The historical context was also interesting with the observation that as Venice’s economic fortunes declined by contrast, the artistic life flourished. One wondered if there could be a similar thing going on today …
Venice eventually got conquered by the invasion by Napoleon but even so, musical life went on and the evening finished with a composition by Malipiero (1882 – 1973) Gabrieliana – Allegro vivace. In modern times, composers have visited the City and composed works there. These include Wagner, Stravinsky, and Britten.
A superb presentation by Peter and fascinating to see and hear the development of style and composition over seven hundred years.
And not a note of Vivaldi …
Nest meeting of 31 October
By now, existing members will have received their invitation letter and programme for the 2016/17 season. We are pleased with what we have in the programme which includes a ‘live’ event and outside speakers on Bruckner and Delius. We have stayed away from Bruckner because his symphonies are on a massive scale but we are delighted that Terry Barfoot has risen to the challenge to give us a presentation on this important composer. Proms listeners will have had a treat this year with several of his works being performed.
If you are new to this site we hope you will give us a try and if you just want to come along to an evening – because you have a particular interest in a composer for example – then it is only £3 to help cover costs.
One of our guiding principles is to widen knowledge of the musical world and speakers will often try to introduce unfamiliar pieces, either by composers who are almost forgotten or less well known pieces by major composers.
Parking is easy with plenty of space and we are within walking distance of the town centre.
Salisbury Recorded Music Society 