Tag: recorded music

Recent meetings

November 2024

The Society’s two recent meetings on 21 October and 4 November had a range of interesting music. The first was a members’ evening where members bring along pieces which have interested them or they have discovered for themselves.

This was preceded by our agm which went smoothly enough. The Society is holding its own at present with adequate funds and a healthy programme of events. Indeed plans are afoot for the 2024/25 season with some potentially interesting ideas. The Chair of the society said in the context of reduced funding for the arts that ‘we were keeping the flame of great music alight’.

Members brought a range of pieces one of which was an extract from Gloria Coates’ Symphony number 14. Gloria was from Wisconsin but spent a great deal of time in Europe. She died last year.

Gerald Finzi is a somewhat neglected British composer and few of his works appear on the repertoire these days. One composition which gets an outing now again is his clarinet concerto the first movement of which – an allegro – was played.

The Argentinian violinist Manfredo Kraemer performed an unusual Peruvian piece on the viola di gamba.

One most surprising piece was a Beethoven string quartet played on saxophones by the Sinta quartet. This really worked and shows that compositions can work in different genre and provide fresh insights.

We ended with a performance of a movement from Bruckner’s Symphony No 8. There are many recordings of this great work but this was by von Karajan dating from 1944. Many of these recordings disappeared into the Soviet Union after the war after prolonged negotiations, many have tricked out. As ever with a von Karajan it is a remarkable rendition all the more remarkable bearing in mind the circumstances in Berlin at the time. The recording is incomplete.

4 November

Due to the speaker being unwell, this was a change to the published programme. We were fortunate that Jeremy Barlow stepped into the breach and provided a programme which was both erudite and enjoyable. Entitled Theme and Variations, he explained the importance of variations in the musical world and gave examples of different types.

The standout recording was the chaconne from the partita for violin by Bach played by Victoria Mullova. You may be familiar with this piece but as Jeremy said, the phrasing of her playing made this an outstanding performance. It is thought that it was composed following Bach’s return home to find his wife had died during his absence.

Another piece was the Adagio from Beethoven’s quartet in E minor which has six variations (I think!) some of the breaks between them difficult to spot.

Other pieces included Brahms’s variations on a theme by Paganini, a composition by William Byrd and a movement from Vaughan Williams’ 6th Symphony.

It was an extremely interesting evening and members were grateful to Jeremy for putting it together at short notice.

The next meeting is on 18 November.

Peter Curbishley

Meeting tonight

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.

Next meeting

The next meeting of the Society is tomorrow, Monday 20 November starting at 7:30 as usual. It will be a change to the published programme due to unforeseen circumstances and will be on the subject of modern music. It is the last presentation on this subject by Peter Horwood who has found some gems from the world of recent compositions.

Only £3 on the door and there is ample parking outside.

Next meeting

Next meeting and changes to the programme

Due to unforeseen circumstances, we have had to make some changes to our programme involving the next three meetings.

On Monday 6th November, Peter Horwood will be presenting Off the Beaten Track in which he takes us on an informal journey along some less familiar musical byways.

On Monday 20th November, Peter again will be presenting, this time the third in his series on 20th Century Music. [This was due to be presented at the previous meeting].

Our final programme this season is slightly changed and will be Christmas Special in which members of the SRMS committee will present a range of pieces with a seasonally appropriate theme.

We look forward to seeing you at these evenings.

New season has got underway

Next meeting on 6 November 2023

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.

prog-23-24Download

If you want to speak on the phone then contact Ruth on T: 01722 782387 or M: 07759 785760

Leopold Stokowski

Fascinating talk on this conductor

At its meeting on 27 March, Robin Lim gave a fascinating talk about this famous conductor. If you did not know anything about his life story, you would assume from his showmanship and conducting history, that he was a quintessential American. Indeed, as Robin explained, he went to some pains to conceal his age and his place of birth, at times claiming it to have been Poland or Pomerania. In fact he was born in the rather more mundane St Johns Wood in London in 1882.

For many older people in the audience and more widely, their introduction to classical music came from the 1940 Disney film Fantasia which was recently reworked and reissued. This combination of film and music was in its day, quiet a feat and getting the sound to emerge from the right (correct) part of the screen required a considerable degree of technical expertise. Stereo was in its infancy at the time and the film was the first successful attempt to bring multi-track sound to the cinema. We sometimes forget today, surrounded as we are by the wonders of technology, that it was not always thus: I can recall seeing Fantasia in Manchester as a child and being enthralled by the sound as well as the animations. Fantasia’s remixed multi track soundtrack is still extant, the original takes prior to the remixing have been lost unfortunately .

Stokowski had a colourful life which included having three wives one of whom was Gloria Vanderbilt as well as a number of affairs including one – it is alleged – with Greta Garbo.

He was keen to promote new music and one piece played was the second movement from Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 – a 1958 recording which sounded amazing considering its age. Shostakovich was lucky to be alive and was only able to leave Russia because his prestige in the West led Stalin to give him permission to leave.

Another interesting item was a recording of Stokowski rehearsing Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony. Tchaikovsky’s parent’s original name was Chaiko as they hailed from Ukraine: interesting in view of attempts to ban his music after the Russian invasion of that country. But I digress.

We heard his impressive arrangement for orchestra of the Toccata and Fugue in D minor played by the Czech Philharmonic. Indeed, all the recordings we heard demonstrated Stokowski’s ability to get the most from an orchestra, particularly the string sections, a point Robin made. On the subject of orchestras, we take for granted the current arrangement of orchestras with strings on the left cellos on the right etc. but this arrangement is down to Stokowski after much experimentation with different arrangements.

He also appeared in films including One Hundred Men and a Girl, (1937) – the mind boggles – as well as Fantasia.

Towards the end of his life, he returned to the UK and decided to live in Nether Wallop, Hampshire, buying Place Farm House in 1972. He had a fatal heart attack in 1977. Local residents recall his strange habit of taking a stroll around the village wearing a sinister full-length opera coat. Another curiosity was his habit of speaking in a curious pseudo East European accent: odd since he was born in London.

A truly interesting evening and Robin had gone to great efforts to research his subject, a point made by the chair in his vote of thanks.

Peter Curbishley

Robin provided an extract written by Michael Draper from the September 2009 issue of Wallop Parish News, reproduced with permission, and some parts of this review were taken from that.

Next meeting

The next meeting is tonight, 13 March 2023, and is a presentation about making recordings during Lockdown. It will be by concert pianist Christopher Guild and this is an extract from his biography:

Born in Scotland in 1986, Christopher Guild studied piano and violin locally before entering St Mary’s Music School, Edinburgh aged 13. He took top honours in the Moray Piano Competition 2001 – he remains the youngest winner to this day.  Christopher entered the Royal College of Music in 2005 as a Foundation Scholar and studied for six years with Andrew Ball, gaining a First Class BMus (Hons), and the MMus and Artist Diploma with Distinction.  He went on to be the Richard Carne Junior Fellowship in Performance at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance 2012-13.  

Christopher teaches at Godolphin School. We look forward to seeing you at 7:30pm

Next meeting

Our next meeting will be this Monday, 27th February, when Jon Hampton will be presenting a fascinating insight into the colourful life of Alma Schindler – a woman who had an immense influence on music and the creative arts. Starting at 7:30 as usual and free parking outside the door.

We hope we will be able to welcome you on 27th February.

Music in eighteenth century London

This was the title of a presentation by Ruth Barlow which included a range of music popular in that century. London at that time was a rapidly growing city and the largest in Europe. The country was becoming prosperous as a result of the growing empire and people were looking for entertainment which would of course have included music.

Music was also coming out of the great houses and into the public sphere with an ever-increasing number of public concerts. Indeed, it was noted that if you wanted to learn about music you went to Paris or Italy, if you wanted to earn a living, you came to England.

The evening started with a performance of Corelli’s Concerto Grosso No 8 (excerpts) and ended with the last movement of Haydn’s Symphony No 4 nicknamed the ‘London’. This framing so to speak seemed to sum the century up with Corelli’s piece echoing the previous century and Haydn’s symphony, written in 1795, which ended it and gave hints of what was to come.

In between, we heard pieces by Handel, JC Bach, Thomas Arne, and William Boyce. We also heard part of the Beggar’s Opera, hugely popular in its day receiving 62 performances in its first season, on a recording directed by Ruth’s husband Jeremy which must be a first for the Society.

Music from men only ‘catch clubs’ was also performed. Today we would call them rounds but they are centuries old and involve singers coming in one by one singing the same melody. We heard examples by Henry Purcell and JS Smith sung by the Hilliard ensemble.

A sad moment was a Violin Sonata in A major by Thomas Linley, and English prodigy born in Bath who was certainly destined for great things. He was a friend of Mozart and they met and became friends in Italy. Unfortunately, he died at the tender age of 22 thus ending what was likely to have been a successful career.

Altogether a well put together programme and an interesting evening.