Category: salisbury

Members’ evening

November 2025

Members’ evenings always bring surprises. It is an opportunity for them to bring for the delectation of others, something that appeals to them or they have discovered recently. They are always eclectic and never with any kind of theme unlike say, a concert where the organisers try to focus on a composer say. Which sort of makes such evenings a strength because no one of knows what the others are going to bring. It is if you will, a kind of musical tapas the only difference being it’s all brought to you and you don’t have to chose.

But enough, what did we hear you ask? We started with Brahm’s second cello sonata in F, a kind of introduction to the evening. Following was a surprise and that was a quartet for saxophones by Jean Francaix (in French) where you will read he had an illustrious career and was encouraged by Ravel. The saxophone does not get much of an airing in classical music – a pity for such versatile family of instruments.

Well, we then had an addition to our evenings in the form of a DVD and a recording of Begin the Beguine performed by Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell. This Cole Porter song did not get much attention until Artie Shaw recorded a few years later on the B side of a record whereupon it shot to fame and was a huge success for him. Shaw met Porter and words were exchanged apparently because Porter rather resented his success with the number. The film performance was great to see with amazing dancing to go with the music.

We were introduced to the music of Lassana Diabaté a musician from Guinea in Africa in a performance of Sunjata’s Time for string quartet, a quite unusual piece.

Something more traditional but meaningful for the presenter was the third movement from Mozart’s Oboe Quartet in F Major K 370. The concerto (for that effectively what it is) is significant as one of his first major works having left Salzburg in 1781 and started to make his mark in Vienna.

Next was a leap to the American composer Philip Glass and the third movement of his Violin Concerto composed in 1987 and is typical of this composer with its repeated themes and modulation.

Film music doesn’t always get the attention it deserves with three examples from the Italian Job, Once Upon the Time in the West and Where Eagles Dare. It is a creation of the twentieth century with the invention of the cinema and eventually the ‘talkies. Composers have to match the music to the action although in some cases the film is edited around the music.

A wonderful film of a Chaconne from Partita No 2 BWV 1004 followed performed by Nathan Milstein. Although of some vintage, it was outstanding and a reminder of his greatness as a performer. We remarked on how young the audience was when the camera panned back. Would such a performance today attract such an audience …?

We finished with extracts from Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s best know work Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast. Born in London of West African descent he was nicknamed the ‘African Mahler’ in America but has nowadays largely disappeared. He died young aged 37 and was encouraged in his brief career by Elgar among others.

An enjoyable and informative evening. Eclectic or what?

Next meeting on Monday 17 November.

Next meeting

October 2025

Our next meeting will be at 7.30pm on Monday 3rd November 2025.
It will commence with a short Annual General Meeting followed by our Members’ Evening.  For this Robin now has almost sufficient pieces for what should be a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Any last minute ideas for possible inclusion if there is time to Robin please.

Following this on 17th November we will have a presentation entitled: “Seventh Son”  An appreciation of the work of Gordon Jacob. Written and presented by Geoff Ogram 

On 1st December at our final session before Christmas, David Davies will  present some Classical Music Signature Tunes.  To help him prepare for this, David has asked me to forward the following to members:

“The meeting on December 1 is entitled ‘Are you sitting comfortably? These words began Listen with Mother at 1.45 every weekday on the BBC Light Programme from January 1950 and on into the 60s. And every programme ended with the Berceuse from Faure’s Le Jardin de Dolly suite for piano duet. The words and the tune are still remembered fondly by a whole generation.

“But what else in radio and television (including adverts) has used classical music as a signature tune? We shall have a not-too-serious discussion on this topic, and I would appreciate your letting me know your suggestions.

You can email me at davidracheld@gmail.com
Thank you.  David Davies“

We hope you will be able to join us at these sessions.

Next meeting

October 2025

Tomorrow, 6 October is the date of our next meeting and it an exploration of

the world of Alan Hovhaness an American. A prolific composer with around 67 symphonies to his name, there will clearly be lots to chose from.

We meet at 7:30 as usual and finish at 10:00. Programmes are available in the Library and in the Tourist Information Centre.

New season starts …

New season kicks off on Monday

September 2025

The new starts on Monday 22nd at 7:30 with a presentation called intriguingly Murder, Mishap and Misfortune by Alan Forshaw. Alan’s presentations are always good value and show a deep knowledge of the subject and will no doubt contain some surprises.

The full programme is available and copies can be picked up in the Library (immediately to the right when you go in), the Tourist Information Centre in Fish Row or a pdf can be seen via this link.

If you want to try us out then the first visit is free and full season’s membership (14 evenings) for a mere £25.

Look forward to seeing you.

Peter Curbishley

New seasons programme

The programme for the 2025/26 season is published

August 2025

We are delighted to attach the programme for the forthcoming season starting on Monday 22 September at 7:30. You can see there is lots to interest with presentations of more familiar composers together with the less well-known. The strange but amazing music of Eric Satie has an outing and also Delius, a composer we have not featured for many years.

There are evenings on American music as well as from Iberia. Indeed, there is considerable variety in the programme. There are two members’ evenings where members bring along one or two of their favourites. The evenings are open to all we should add.

The Society is keen to explore some of the hidden corners of the repertoire, including pieces seldom heard in the concert hall.

The programmes have been printed and if you like a paper version, they will shortly (next week) be in the Library and in the Tourism Information Centre. If you want to give us a try your first visit is free.

PC

prog 2025 26Download

Salisbury Musick

New music event coming to the City this Autumn

May 2025

A music festival is coming to Salisbury between 3rd and 5th October. It claims that in the eighteenth century, annual three-day festivals were common in Salisbury to great acclaim. They hope to bring together local musicians and visiting professionals to provide a range of concerts. Details can be found on their website.

The music of Edgar Bainton

Final meeting focused on this somewhat forgotten English composer

May 2025

This was the last evening of the current season and we were delighted to welcome Michael Jones who enlightened us about the life and work of this somewhat forgotten English composer. Michael is an accomplished musician in his own right with a number of recordings to his name as well as his special interest in Bainton (pictured). He is developing a website which should be completed soon.

Well, you might not recognise the name but you will recognise one of his pieces And I Saw a New Heaven which was performed at Grenfell Tower memorial and at the Hillsborough memorial. First some history. His father was a Congregational minister who later moved with his family to Coventry. His musical abilities at the piano were noticed early and he made his first public appearance as solo pianist age 9, and at 16 he won an open scholarship to the Royal College of Music to study piano with Franklin Taylor and theory with Walford Davies. In 1899 he won a Scholarship to study composition with Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, and thus became one of the rising generation of British composers destined to contribute extensively to the English Musical Renaissance.

In 1901 he was appointed piano professor to the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Conservatory of Music, and after over thirty years of service emigrated to Australia to take up the Directorship of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. I should add at this point that the above biography was accompanied with photos, images of his original scores and programmes which amply displayed Michael’s erudition and scholarship. Many items were not the sort of thing you could turn up with a quick Google* search.

He composed pieces in most of the main genres. We heard for example, a tone poem Pompilia; part of The Blessed Damozel; a lovely song Slow, Slow Fresh Fount; and part of a ‘cello sonata.

To demonstrate his diversity we also heard extracts from his second Symphony, an early and most accomplished Fugue, a Viola Sonata and a movement from a String Quartet. Michael finished with a second extract from Prometheus.

This surely has to be a composer who deserves more attention. It is strange how some composers – and most artists I suppose – seem to drift out of fashion and then suddenly their time comes again. We shall see.

We were most grateful for Michael’s presentation delivered with a great deal of enthusiasm and as I say, erudition. His photos illustrated life at the beginning of the last Century.

This was the last evening of the current season and it has been another successful year. We have been pleased to welcome some new faces. A feature has been several evenings exploring the works of composers whose work – like that of Bainton – have been overlooked or who have gone out of fashion. We’ve had music from Scotland, Wales and England as well as Poland and France.

Peter Howard, our chair, thanked all those who have come and supported us during the year and promised next year’s programme will be just as good. We start again in September. A printed programme will be in Salisbury and Amesbury libraries in September and in the Tourism Information Office as well as here on line.

If you want to widen your interest in music keep and eye out here and on Facebook. We look forward to seeing you.

Peter Curbishley

*other search engines available

Memories of a clarinettist

March 2025

The presentation this month was from a retired clarinettist speaking about his life in various orchestras and more generally as a musician. Peter Jarvis started by discussing the instrument itself which is not a chromatic one so originally was quite limited in its repertoire. The instrument went through a major redesign in France at the beginning of the nineteenth century when the Boehm system was introduced. Boehm himself had little to do with the design however. This provided a range of keys and enabled it widen its range for playing. A personal note here and that is that I was taught the clarinet and my teacher had what he termed the ‘Simple’ system (possibly a simplified German instrument) with far fewer keys but he was nevertheless an accomplished player. There are many different types, sizes and pitches of the instrument – probably around 10 in all.

The instrument has a single reed and they all come from the town of Fréjus in the South of France. Peter grew up in Oxford and was fortunate to enjoy a rich social milieu. He met the late Colin Davis (later Sir Colin) who was himself a former clarinettist (they get everywhere) who encouraged him. Thence to the Royal Academy of Music. The first piece to be played was by Gerald Finzi, a movement from his Clarinet Concerto. This is Finzi’s most performed work.

Peter left the Academy to become the principle at Royal Saddlers Wells, a real accomplishment. He described how they toured a lot and a large amount of travelling was involved since performances were arranged up and down the country. In the orchestra pit in an opera house he said, the wind instruments are under the stage, unable to hear the singers which does make timing and coordination difficult. On tour by contrast, they were on the same level in front of the stage and actually see and hear what’s going on.

Touring posed its own problems because for some mysterious reason, the instrumentalists were the last to hear where the next performance was to be held. This often meant all the available accommodation was already taken. Desperate to find somewhere to sleep in Leeds, he asked the police for help and was taken to an address where he was provided with a bed. In the morning there was knock on the door and a young lady came in with a cup of tea. Next morning, the same thing happened with a different young lady. Could get use to this Peter thought, but then he discovered – it was a brothel.

The second piece was the final movement from Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet. What was special was that it was a recording made in the barn adjacent to Peter and his wife Jane’s house in the South West of France. The recording – despite being recorded on a cassette recorder – was of excellent quality. The composition was written for his friend the clarinettist Anton Stadler, as was Mozart’s last instrumental composition the Concerto, who were both members of the same Viennese lodge. The score was lost but was later believed to have been pawned by Stadler. It was written for another member of the clarinet family the Basset horn which is longer and slightly lower pitched. The ‘horn’ refers to the curved nature of the instrument’s mouthpiece. [I have heard the concerto played on this instrument at the Proms and it is significantly different experience].

Peter described his later career playing with the Liverpool Phil and in a variety of West End shows. He described working to produce what are called ‘library albums’ and these are where freelance musicians compose and record music for use in films, TV shows and advertisements. Further pieces were Mozart’s Wind Quintet, and Matthew Arnold’s Divertimento.

It was a truly interesting evening because although presenters can all play music from CDs, here was someone who was part of the CDs, who has actually created music and who’s life was about producing it for us to enjoy. We even had a short piece composed by him. The mixture of music and anecdote was a joy and must be fairly unique to the Society.

Peter Curbishley

Next meeting on 7 April and is on the music of Francis Poulenc

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. 

Music producer talks about his work

Music producer, Tim Smithies describes his work producing CDs

The first meeting of the new 2023/24 season kicked off with a fascinating talk by Tim Smithies on the problems and challenges producing music recordings for sale. Tim is a leading light of the Metronome label where he has been for 30 years. When we listen to a CD, we are not aware of the effort and time taken to assemble the artists, technical staff and instruments needed to make it all happen. An added problem for small and niche producers is that they are unlikely to have the resources needed to record the standard repertoire with big orchestras and a big name conductor and soloist.

In common with many small firms, survival often depends of locating a gap in the market too small for the heavyweight firms to consider. Metronome started with focusing on early music and the first example was music from the Plantagenet era and a piece composed by John Dunstable and played by the Orlando Consort. Another early recording was Love Affair with the Lute and a piece by John Dowland, Flow my Tears. Tim said the aim of his label was to “focus on the clarity” and this certainly shone through in this and other examples he played.

As time went on, the label got “drawn into other people’s interests” as Tim put it and that means expanding the repertoire to include other artists and genre. This is the classic dilemma for small firms: do you stay focused on your strategy or do you respond to market opportunities as they come along? As Tim explained, trying to do the former can be difficult especially in the world of artists. Opportunities arose and it was sensible to respond to them.

Things can develop from a very small start he said. He instanced the harpsichordist Carole Cerasi whom he heard at a concert playing music by Elizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre. This led to a series of recordings by her on the label.

Closer to home, Metronome has produced music sung by the choir of Salisbury Cathedral in a recording called An English Choristers Songbook.

One of the problems a small producer has – as one might expect – is poaching of artists by larger firms. But it was not all one way he said and there were examples of what he termed ‘rebound’ that is, artists who wanted to do their own thing and found the restrictions of the big labels did not allow them to do that. Christopher Hogwood was an example who wanted to record music on the clavichord, an instrument widely used by Bach for example. The problem is that it does not have that great a volume so is suitable only for intimate settings. We heard a recording of a familiar Bach piece normally heard on a piano, which sounded quite different on a clavichord. The music appears on a Metronome recording called The Secret Bach.

One of the difficulties with recordings of this nature on period instruments is that they have to be made where it is situated since they cannot be moved to a recording studio. This has its own issues of finding a room with the right acoustics. As anyone who has organised an event in such settings will know, as soon as you are poised to start, drilling will start somewhere, as if by magic, making progress impossible. As we heard at a previous Society meeting, instruments need constant tuning during the recordings.

Talking of older instruments, we even heard a piece on the theorba, a double necked lute with an extra set of bass strings.

This was a fascinating evening and a great start to the new season. Not only did we hear some interesting and for some of us, unfamiliar music, but we learned of the story behind it and gained a glimpse of the life of a small, but perfectly formed, record producer.

Peter Curbishley

Next meeting on 9 October 2023. Printed copies are available in the Library, the Tourism Information Centre and Oxfam (upstairs).