Tag: Bach

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.

Christmas meeting

Successful evening despite change to the programme

Due to unforeseen circumstances the last evening of the year was a success with four of the committee members stepping up with their selections of music with a Christmas theme. Not surprisingly, Bach featured in two of the presentations: first with the Christmas Oratorio BWV 248 intended for performance during the Christmas period.

Second, we had the rather unusual Mrs Kennedy’s adaptation of ‘A Christmas Carol‘ with the voice of Bernard Miles among others. This is available on YouTube .

Thirdly, were two extracts from L’Enfance du Christ by Berlioz. This piece grew slowly following a tune which popped into his head at a card game. This became the well known Le Choeur des Bergers. He added further pieces bit by bit eventually shaping into the final work which was a huge success.

Grieg is one of those composers who is well known for a small handful of their output – in his case the piano concerto comes to mind – the rest of their oeuvre can often remain unperformed appearing fleetingly on Radio 3. We heard his Sonata for violin and piano Opus 45. This is the last of his sonatas for violin and was composed in 1887 a little before he began to enjoy some fame.

Finally, more Bach with some selections from the Christmas Cantatas including BWV 63; 91; 40 and 110. This is part of the major effort by the conductor, John Eliot Gardiner, to record all the extant Bach cantatas, many of which, regrettably have been lost.

Coincidentally, both Bach selections and the Berlioz were by Eliot Gardiner who has stepped back from conducting following an unfortunate incident surrounding the performance of les Troyens at the Proms. We must hope he returns to the music scene soon.

Merry Christmas to our readers and we restart on 29 January 2024 when we welcome a speaker from the Holst Society who, like Greig, is largely know for one piece is in his case the Planets Suite. The title appropriately is ‘Is there more to Holst than solely the Planets?’

Peter Curbishley

Stokowski

Many older readers may well have come to classical music via the Disney film Fantasia in which a visual story was accompanied by various classical pieces. The last presentation via Zoom and YouTube looked at the life of the conductor of the music, Leopold Stokowski and featured other performances he conducted and an interview with him.  An extremely interesting programme carefully put together by the chair of SRMS, Peter Horwood. 

Stokowski was actually English with a Polish father and Irish mother and he died near Salisbury at Nether Wallop in Hampshire.

As well as the Rite of Spring (from Fantasia), we heard the Adagio by Samuel Barber, an orchestral version of Bach’s Air on a G String and Ave Maria. 

Not as good as meeting in person of course but these sessions have their own value in that we can watch performances and interviews via YouTube.  New and existing members are welcome and to get details of the next meeting on 22 March, please leave a message here, on Facebook, or contact a committee member if you know one of them.  We look forward to seeing you. 

PC

Members’ evening

A members’ evening following the agm doesn’t sound like a barrel of fun but in fact it was an outstanding evening with some interesting pieces.   We must thank Robin for assembling the programme for the Society.

First up was the first half of Brahms’s magisterial Piano Concerto No1 played by Stephen Kovacevich.  This can be ‘overplayed’ and I have been to concerts where the pianist seems determined to put the concerto to death but what we heard of this version was finely balanced and it was a pity we could not have heard the whole of it.

Second up was Joseph Kosma’s Les Feuilles Mortes sung by Gigi Marga – a version with the composer can be seen here: https://youtu.be/12BRQQd7myM

Few may have heard of Ginette Neveu, a French violinist but her playing is quite distinctive and, at the risk of sounding like a Classic FM announcer, extremely smooth.  The sound was somewhere between a violin and a viola, quite magical and the adagio from Sibelius’s Violin Concerto was wonderful.

Beatrice and Benedict was Berlioz’s last opera and had some success in Germany.  He wrote it soon after the Trojans disaster and we heard Je vais le voir – Il me revient fidèle in a performance by the LSO and conducted by the late Sir Colin Davies.

The first half ended with the amazingly difficult Violin Sonata in G minor – 3rd movement “Devil’s Trill Sonata” by Tartini the inspiration for which supposedly came to him in a dream.

In the second half we had a audio-visual presentation of Gigue Fugue BWV 577 by JS Bach, played on the organ and which was the music played at the presenter’s marriage.  This mode of playing music was the first for the Society.

Few will have heard of the woman composer and pianist Guirne Creith not least because although not prolific, many or her compositions were lost after her death.  She had a very varied life, not just as a musician but – following her move to France – as a food writer under the name of Guirne van Zylen.  Her best known work is a Violin Concerto from which we heard the Adagio.

After Andantino from Sibelius’s 3rd Symphony, The Man I Love by Gershwin played by Don Shirley.  Shirley was a precocious musician who was the subject of the 2018 film Green Book.  Being black, he had to take a bodyguard with him when he performed in the southern states of the USA.

A most interesting and varied evening with a mixture of the well known and some more or less completely unknown works.

Peter Curbishley

The next meeting is on 11 November and is a presentation on some less well known British composers. 7:30 start as usual.

Members’ evening

Members’ evening had a wide range of interesting pieces

Last night’s members’ evening had a wide range of music – eclectic even – from the traditional, to some pieces with jazz influences and a rarity from South America.

The traditional selections were from the Well Tempered Clavier by Bach and the chosen pieces were from Book 4 – the most difficult to perform.  Angela Hewitt was the pianist and her recordings show great skill and fluidity.  The other traditional selection was of Mozart’s first violin concerto the K207.  Composed when he was probably 17 it is one of five that he composed although there are possibly two more.  Paper analysis suggests an earlier date than originally supposed.

Completely different was Michael Torke’s Javelin one of a series of pieces exploring the relationship between music and colour.  Termed a ‘vitally inventive composer’ by the Financial Times, Javelin is a ‘sonic Olympiad composed for the Atlanta Olympics.

Jazz influences were clearly at work with two acoustic guitar compositions by Clive Carroll The Kid from Clare and Black Nile.  Guitar phenomenon Clive Carroll’s masterful compositions, coupled with his versatility and unparalleled technical virtuosity, have rendered him one of today’s most admired and respected guitarists.

Diego José de Salazar is largely unknown and in writing this it was hard to find anything much about him.  If you do know something, Wikipedia would like to hear from you I am sure.  Bolivian, born in 1659 and his music is classical in style but quite unique.  We heard Saiga el torillo hosquillo this was one of the hits of the evening.

Bantock’s The Frogs of Aristopanes would get the prize for the most curiously name piece of the evening but not only that, it was a version performed with a brass band, in this case the Grimethorpe Colliery band, said by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies to be ‘the finest band in the world’.  They are performing in Sturminster Newton in Dorset in June.

The first half ended with Victoria de Los Angeles performing Piu Jesu from Faure’s Requiem.

The mystery piece turned out to be an orchestrated version of one of Debussy’s preludes by Colin Matthews.  Two arias by Caruso, one from Rigoletto and the other from Othello, the latter sung with Tito Ruffo followed and the evening ended with Lark Ascending  by Vaughan Williams from a poem by George Meredith.

A truly amazing selection of pieces and the chair thanked Anthony for skillfully assembling them especially as he would have been unfamiliar with some.  Evenings such as this can be a collection of hackneyed favourites with little that is unfamiliar.  Although there were some well-known items, the unusual ones added considerable interest.

Peter Curbishley

Next meeting on May 13th

Second half gets underway

The second half of the season gets underway on Monday 4th February at 7:30 as usual with a presentation on organ music.  We have not had such a presentation in recent years (if at all) and yet there is a large corpus of music written for this ‘king of instruments’.  The music will included works in the 17th century and some written in modern times.  At least one recording was made with the Cathedral’s organ.

Hope to see you there.

Bach and the Leipzig cantatas

This was the title of a presentation by Tim Rowe at the Society’s last meeting where he played a selection of the cantatas composed by JS Bach during his time in Leipzig.  He was Kantor at the Thomas church.

Born in Eisenach in 1685, Bach had a difficult childhood being orphaned by the age of 10 and spent his early years living with one of his brothers.

Tim explained that despite his enormous output and his amazing genius, very little in fact is known about him as a person.  Almost no letters survive and there is no contemporary biography.  There is even some doubt about what he looked like.

Focusing on the Leipzig years, upon being appointed, Bach set about composing music for the full Lutheran liturgical year.  This was an enormous task.  Tim provided a circular calendar explaining the timetable for the various cantatas.  They were produced in an almost production line process, starting on a Monday, finished by Thursday, copied on Friday, rehearsed on Saturday and then performed on Sunday.

The performances were quite unlike the concert halls of today.  There was considerable noise and confusion as people and animals came and went.  Churches would employ a whipper to keep control of the dogs.  Services lasted hours.  People were segregated according to class.  It’s a wonder in all the confusion that he music was heard at all.

We use the word ‘cantata’ to describe these works yet it is not the word used by Bach himself.  Often pieces had ordinary generic words to describe them such as ‘church music’ or ‘church piece.’  216 of his compositions survive from this period as regrettably, many manuscripts were lost, indeed, it has been estimated that 40% are missing.  Part of the problem might have been paper since this was a valuable commodity at the time, still being produced by hand.

Bach’s modern reputation – his ‘unfathomable genius’ as Tim put it – owes a lot to Felix Mendelssohn who worked hard to revive him.  Had it not been for Mendelssohn, his music may have continued to languish in obscurity.  Mendelssohn was distantly linked to the Bach family through his maternal grandmother who was taught harpsichord by one of Bach’s sons and who collected his manuscripts.

Tim played a range of the cantatas all performed by the English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi choir under the baton of John Eliot Gardiner.  These were recorded in the year 2000, the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death.

This was a splendid evening listening to some wonderful works by this great composer.

Peter Curbishley

The next meeting is on 5 March

 

 

 

Members’ evening

UPDATE: 23 November

If you have arrived here having read the report in the Salisbury Journal, welcome.  Our next meeting – the last this year – is on Monday 27th and you would be very welcome to come.  £3 for non-members.

The last meeting was a members’ evening where each will present and play a piece which they particularly like and want to share with others.  A wide variety of pieces were performed:

  • it was probably the first time in some years we had heard Wolf-Ferrari and in this case it was the last 2 movements from the Jewels of Madonna
  • Mozart followed with a rare outing of Varrei Spiegarvi o Dio, an aria interopolated into another, now lost opera.
  • we do not often hear the bassoon as a solo instrument but a piece by Weber – andante and Hungarian rondo showed the instrument off well.  It can sound strained in the higher registers but the soloist managed to avoid this
  • back to Mozart and a movement from a quintet K593 he composed around a year before he died
  • Alec Roth has almost certainly never been played before and is a composer with a slight Salisbury connection.  We heard an excerpt from string quintet #2
  • this was followed by some Schubert songs – always a favourite
  • Bach and two cantatas from his time in Leipzig – BWV 8 and 95
  • there was then a mystery piece and this defeated the audience.  It was part of Symphony #4 by the Polish composer Schmidt-Kowalski and several were impressed by this extract.
  • the penultimate piece was a Chopin ballade and to finish
  • .. Mendelssohn’s Scherzo from the Midsummer Nights Dream, but played on two pianos

A very diverse programme with no clear theme except that they were pieces loved by the members.

The solo violin

The solo violin in classical music

This was a presentation by Salisbury violinist Frida Backman on music for the solo violin.

FB mar 17

Perhaps the first thing to say is that there isn’t that much for the solo instrument.  Beyond Bach one might be stumped to think of many solo works and although Kodály was mentioned and later his fellow Hungarian Bartók, apart from a few virtuoso performers, there are not many works of note.  There is of course a huge repertoire of accompanied violin music and concertos.

The instrument was developed into what we see today in the sixteenth century in Cremona, Italy and one of the first masters was Amati.  The instrument consists of no less than 70 parts.

Frida started with some early works by Nicola Matteis who was a violinist in the early eighteenth century and who composed pieces more advanced than his contemporaries.  We then heard a piece by Tartini also of this era, and who was influential in teaching the instrument and wrote a treatise which may have influenced Mozart’s father.

The composer of a large amount of solo work was JS Bach and we heard several pieces by him including an arrangement by Fritz Kreisler in a 1904 recording of a partita with a piano accompaniment.  We also heard pieces by Biber, Prokofiev, Ysaÿe, and Ravel’s Tzigane composed in the early ’20s.

A brilliant virtuoso of the early nineteenth century was Paganini who’s phenomenal abilities were said to derive from the devil.  He was hugely successful and owned no less than 11 Stradivari violins.  Two of his caprices were played, numbers 23 and 24.

Frida explained that development of the bow was crucial to the instrument’s success.  As music moved out of the salon into the concert hall, more power and volume was needed and the modern bow enabled that to be achieved.  However, many players still use a baroque style bow to achieve greater authenticity and Frida played two CDs of the same piece to illustrate the difference in tone.

Frida ended her presentation with a live rendition of a piece by a modern composer Zura Dzagnidze called Intruder composed in 2005.  This she played against a backing track with herself.

A most interesting evening exploring the history of this most versatile of instruments.

Peter Curbishley

Picture: Frida Backman

Members’ evening

A range of interesting music from members

Members’ evening on November 14th produced a wide range of interesting, not to say eclectic, offerings from members.  Clearly, as a group, we listen to a wide range of sources and this was reflected in the music played.

Derek Bourgeois. Picture: YouTube

First off was a trombone concerto by Derek Bourgeois, born in 1941 and this piece was composed in 1988.  We heard the 3rd movement which showed the incredible versatility of the instrument played by Christian Lindberg.

Next – and a complete break in time and tone after the flamboyance of the trombone piece – we heard some selected pieces from the Well-Tempered Clavier by Bach.  Quite what instrument these were written for as there is no instrument called the clavier but it is likely they were for clavichord, harpsichord or small organ.  They were composed for purposes of tuition and to teach feeling as well as technique.

A complete change again with the title theme to the Carpetbaggers by Elmer Bernstein.  Bernstein was a prolific composer for the film industry and his scores include 10 Commandments, The Magnificent 7 and the Great Escape.  This was an arrangement by Lalo Schifrin.

Renee Fleming. Picture: Broadwayworld.com

Next, Korngold, a prodigy and prolific composer and from his opera Die Stadt, we heard the lovely Gluck, Das mir Verlieb sung by Renée Fleming.

Source: en-wiki

Female composers are not that common and so it was a pleasure to be introduced to Marie Jaëll and her Cello Concerto from 1882.  She was a pupil of Camille Saint-Saëns and Liszt.  Marie Jaëll probably represents the most authoritative and accomplished expression of the nineteenth century woman musician.  In spite of her coming from the provinces and despite the heavy social restrictions imposed on artists of her gender, she nonetheless succeeded in being recognized as a virtuoso, a composer and as a teacher.  Support from her husband – the Austrian pianist Alfred Jaëll – greatly contributed to the positive reception of her initial works for the piano, but it was by herself, armed with her talent and her resolve in the latter part of her life, that she faced up to the Parisian hurly-burly in which she proved herself to be one of its distinctive figures. While her learning method is still taught in various different countries, little interest thus far has been shown in her music, which in the greater part is held in the Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire in Strasbourg. Formidable and ambitious symphonic works are revealed on this book-cd as well as a significant facet of her compositions for the piano [Source; Wikipedia].

We then heard an extract from Schubert’s Piano Trio No 2 in E flat.  Also by contrast – and harking back to the Venetian evening last month, part of Marcello’s music based on Psalm 11.

Rameau is not a composer we have heard much of at the Society so it was interesting to hear the lively Musette and Tambourin en rondeau pour Terpsicore.  Not much is known about his life and he was fairly obscure for many years.  There has been something of a revival in recent years and his pieces now appear in concerts.

Another American composer – albeit of Armenian and Scottish descent – is Alan Hovhaness who was another prolific composer who was very popular in the ’50s and ’60s but is less heard today.

Finally, a familiar composer to the Society – Gerald Finzi and his Romance for String Orchestra.  There is something in Finzi’s music that seems to capture a sense of a pre First World War world of lazy afternoons in the country.

Next meeting on 28 November on Mozart.