The next meeting of the Society is on Monday 5 October – usual time, usual place. It is entitled 1911 – New music of a sunset year and will be given by Barry Conaway. It will include music by Mahler, Delius, Sibelius, Elgar and Nielsen. We look forward to seeing you there.
Category: Group news
New season kicks off at the end of the month
The new season kicks off at the end of this month with Ed Tinline playing music by
Sibelius. This is on 21st September at the usual time of 7.30. Ed is currently researching his presentation and where else but Finland itself at the 150th anniversary festival?
Copies of the programme are to be found in the Collector’s Room in Endless St; Oxfam upstairs; the Tourism Information Centre and the Library. You can also download it here:
Don’t forget you can see us on Twitter now and you can find us at @salisburyai.
On a sad note, members will be sorry to hear of the death of David Phillips who passed away on 25th of August after a short illness. David was a loyal member for many years although he wasn’t able to attend recently. Our thoughts are with his family.
Hope to see you on 21st.
#Programme for 2015/16 now being finalised
Members and supporters might like early sight of the new provisonal programme for 2015/16. We have continued the recent innovation of having a live performance even though we are called the ‘recorded’ music society. We have some speakers who are familiar as well as some new faces so there should be plenty to interest music lovers. You will find the pdf version clearer for technical reasons.
2015 16 programme (pdf)
| Date | Speaker and title |
| 2015 | |
| September 21 | Ed Tinline. Music from Sibelius 150th Anniversary Festival, Lahti, Finland |
| October 5 | Barry Conaway. ‘1911 – new music of a sunset year’ including Delius, Elgar, Mahler and Sibelius |
| October 19 | Peter Curbishley ‘… but I don’t like modern music’. Music by Schoenberg, Shostakovich and other ‘moderns’ |
| November 2 | Christopher Guild. ‘The music of Roland Center (1913 – 1973) and the influence of Britten, Shostakovich, Ravel and Vaughan Williams on his work’ (provisional title) |
| November 16 | Alastair Aberdare. ‘A Berlioz Miscellany’. Lord Aberdare is a member of the Berlioz Society |
| November 30 | Members’ Evening |
| 2016 | |
| February 1 | TBA |
| February 29 | A Baroque Evening. David Morgan, Sue Wyatt, Sally Reid and David Davies will bring their baroque instruments to give a live performance, including music by Corelli, Gottfried Finger and Handel |
| March 14 | Anthony Powell. ‘A personal musical journey – 60 years of discovery, including works by Beethoven, Mahler, Vaughan Williams, Britten and Butterworth |
| April 4 | Robin Lim. Title to be confirmed |
| April 18 | TBA |
| May 9 | Members’ evening |
| May 23 | Jon Hampton. ‘The art of the arranger’. To include works by Boccherini, arranged by Berio, Bach by Elgar and Schubert by Britten |
Please note that some elements may change so it is always worth coming to this site to get the up to date position. We are always looking for new presenters and if you would like to volunteer that would be appreciated. If you are nervous about being on your feet then someone else can do the presentation for you if you prefer. We look forward to seeing you in the autumn.
Sad news
It is with great sadness that we have to record the death on Sunday of Ron Seaman. Ron was born in Bristol in 1933 and pursued a career as an accountant. He was one of the founder members of the Society and has been a loyal supporter for all that time. Recently he was the treasurer and was once the chair. Ron had made a number of presentations the most recent being on Pietro Mascagni in April. His unfailing courtesy and quiet wit will be greatly missed. Our thoughts are with Jan. Funeral was on 17th.
Final meeting of the season takes place on 1 June
The final meeting of the season takes place on 1 June at the usual place and usual time. It is a change to the programme 
and will be a presentation by Ian Lance entitled ‘A critic’s choice, 2014’.
This has been an interesting year and members have heard a range of unusual pieces, some by rarely heard composers and some lesser played works by famous composers. The new programme is in preparation and will be available later in the summer. If you have any ideas for inclusion in the programme, or you know of someone who could present something, we would be delighted to hear from you.
Member’s evening
This is a reminder that the next meeting is a member’s evening and will be on Monday 18th at the usual place. There should be a wide selection of titles so we look forward to seeing you there.
Pietro Mascagni
The last meeting of the Society took place on Monday 20 April. It focused on the Italian composer Pietro Mascagni. He was the son of a baker in Lavorno and studied at the Milan Academy. He lived from 1863 to 1945 and in the 1930s and during World War II worked reluctantly, and with difficulty, under Mussolini’s fascist regime. He wrote 15 operas and one operetta.
In England we tend to remember him only for his one-act opera Cavalleria Rusticana, the piece that made him famous overnight and gave him financial security for the rest of his life. At its first performance it received no less than 60 curtain calls. In his native Italy and elsewhere in Europe his works are better remembered and the presenter Ron Seaman played us some examples. He was seen as the heir to Verdi but as time went on, it was Puccini who wore that mantle. Among the pieces played were Mein ester Walzer, my first waltz; the Apotheosis of the Stork; and the ballet music for Fiori del Brabante. We also heard extracts from Cavalleria including the final scene; Intermezzo and the Easter Hymn. We also heard extracts from his last opera Nerone.
He is a composer who made it big early in his life and yet did not quite follow it up as he matured. Listening to the range of his work it was perhaps surprising that he never composed film scores as some of his compositions, which had strong melodic lines, could have been adapted.
It was interesting to hear some works not often performed to gain a wider perspective of this composer.
Nino Rota
The last meeting of the Society was a presentation by Robin Lim of the music of Nino Rota. He was born in 1911 in Milan and showed early musical talent with an oratorio composed when he was 12. He followed this up with a cello concerto aged 14 and a musical career clearly beckoned. After early training in Italy he came to the notice of Arturo Toscanini in America who arranged for him to further his training in Philadelphia. Whether it was the influence of his dominant mother or for other reasons, he did not finish his training there but returned instead to Milan.
Robin played examples of his compositions which included: a Clarinet Sonata; the overture; Il Cappellodi Paglia di Firenze; Concerto Soiree and excerpts from Il Gattopardo. All the music had strong rhythm and some good melodic interest but perhaps a problem was a lack of a clear ‘voice’ of the composer. One kept hearing echoes of other composers such as Neilsen, Dvorak and even Bruckner. Indeed he was criticised by critics for this but of course ‘borrowing’ themes from other composers is not unknown even by the greats.
It was to film music where he found a degree of fame and success. An early composition was the score for the Glass 
Mountain and we saw and heard an excerpt from the film. Others included Juliet of the Spirits; 8 1/2 and La Dolce Vita. Altogether, he wrote some 150 film scores. But the one which will bring him immortality and the music just about everyone can whistle or hum the main theme to, is the score to the Godfather series. It was the highest grossing film of all time. Amazingly, he did not get an Oscar for the score but after an outcry, he did get it for Godfather II but did not attend the ceremony to receive it.
It was an interesting evening and showed again the difficulty of making the leap from prodigy to an established artist. There are so many who show early precocity but developing that to become an original composer (or artist or author) can be the hardest thing.
Next meeting
The last meeting of Salisbury Recorded Music Society, took place on Monday 30th March at 7.30pm, in our usual venue, when Robin Lim presented: Nino Rota – the Chameleon composer. Fuller report soon.
In preparation for the Members Evening on 18th May, Ron Seaman will be asking members for details of a piece you wish to bring and have played at the Members Evening.
Looking ahead, can I take this opportunity to remind you that in order to avoid Easter and Bank Holidays the dates for last three sessions of this season are more spread out.
They are on: 20th April, 18th May and 1st June.
Note programme change:
We have a change to the programme on 1st June. This will now be given by Ian Lace who will present A Critics Choice 2014, as unfortunately Barry Conaway will be unable to come.
Looking further ahead to next year we are now putting together the programme for 2015-16 and invite offers to present an evening, or part of an evening. Please contact me or a committee member with any offers or suggestions.
I hope to see you on Monday.
ET
Meeting
The last meeting of the Society was on Monday, March 2nd. We were pleased to welcome a speaker from EM Records, based locally at Blandford Forum, which is the recording arm of the English Music Festival and fulfils the EMF’s aims of celebrating and preserving overlooked works by British composers throughout the centuries. It has a strong focus on the early twentieth century: the Golden Renaissance of English music. EM Records resolves to bring this glorious music to a world-wide audience. In keeping with the unique spirit of the Festival, each disc released by EM Records will contain at least one World Première recording.
As well as learning some of what is involved in preparing, recording and producing CDs of the highest quality, we also gained an insight into the issues raised when unearthing and interpreting previously unpublished manuscripts. Recordings of better known English composers like Vaughan Williams, Holst and Stanford were interspersed with some lovely recordings of works by lesser known lights such as David Owen Morris and Henry Walford Davies, the latter being the composer of the instantly recognisable RAF March past.
This is the second time the Society has gone behind the scenes, so to speak, and heard about the process of recording a CD.
See also English Music Festival
Salisbury Recorded Music Society 