The second half of the season kicks off tonight at 7:30 as usual. Angus Menzies will be talking about music fit for an emperor.
Tag: Salisbury
Next meeting
The second half of the season kicks off on Monday 6 February. Further details soon.
Mozart’s Last Year
Mozart’s last year was the title of a presentation to the Society by group member Peter Curbishley. There probably isn’t another composer about whom there are so many myths particularly surrounding his death in December 1791, almost exactly 225 years ago. The film Amadeus by Peter Shaffer did not help. Although entertaining, it gave credence to wild rumours about poisoning which are now known to be untrue.
Peter played extracts from most of the works he wrote in the final months of his life. This included of course the Requiem, but also from the operas The Magic Flute and La clemenza di Tito. The Magic Flute was a huge success and is the fourth most performed opera ever written. La Clemenza di Tito by contrast was a failure and languished unperformed until the 1950s. This was in part due to a part written for a castrato, a practice which, mercifully, died out soon after the opera was written.
Members also heard extracts from the Clarinet Concerto written two months before his death, a string quintet and the last Horn Concerto. Despite the huge body of brilliant music Mozart had composed before he died, he was Peter explained, only just beginning. Part of the last piano concerto, finished in the early part of that year. Had he lived into the nineteenth century who knows what he might have produced. His death – from a streptococcal throat infection not poison – was a tragic loss to the world of music.
This was the last meeting of the first part of the programme and the next meeting is in February. Seasons greetings to all our readers.
Forthcoming events
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:
On Monday 6 February, Angus Menzies will present “Fit for an Emperor: music at the Austrian court 1650 – 1750”.
On Monday 20 February, we shall host a live concert by David Davies (piano), with David Morgan (violin) and Warren Driffill (‘cello), exploring the piano trio.
On Monday 6 March, Frida Backman will be presenting “The solo violin in classical music”.
Meanwhile, can I mention that Frida Backman is giving a series of solo violin concerts, the first of which is this Thursday (1 December) at 7.30pm in St Martin’s Church, Salisbury (with pre concert talk at 7.
We hope you will be able to support some or all of these events. For details nearer the time, look at this Web site for any updates or changes.
Next meeting
The next meeting takes place tonight, 28 November when Peter Curbishley will be presenting ‘Mozart’s last year’. Mozart died in December 1791 and the last year of his life was full of incident and great music. Some masterpieces including the Requiem and the Magic Flute were composed as well as La clemenza da Tito.
Many people have been influenced by the Peter Shaffer play, Amadeus which, although entertaining, was full of nonsense. The presentation will try and give some of the facts surrounding his last year and of course, play some of the music …
Next meeting
The next meeting of the 2016-17 season of Salisbury Recorded Music Society, will be tonight, 
Monday 17th October 2016 at 7.30pm, in our usual venue.
Peter Horwood will be presenting: “Venice – more than Vivaldi!” – a celebration for a City of Music
We hope to see you there.
Next meeting
The next meeting of the Society will take place on Monday 3rd October at 7:30 as usual. It will be preceded by a short agm and then there will be a presentation by Robin Lim on the subject of early stereo recordings. Older readers may recall the days when stereo started to make its appearance in the home. There used to be salesmen who would come to your home and install a gramophone to demonstrate this wonderful sound experience. One recording designed to show off the effect was of a steam train rushing past – first in one speaker and then in the other. Robin probably won’t be playing us that but it should be interesting to hear the early recordings using what was then, new technology.
New season starts
The new season got off to a good start with a presentation entitled The Power of Mysticism in Music by Ian Lace. Ian was one of the founder members of the Society (not called that then) so we were pleased to welcome him back. He chose pieces where a sense of something beyond the composer was present in the music. It was interesting that most of the pieces – with one exception in fact – were English composers. Whether this means composers from these shores are more susceptible to these influences is probably unlikely although it was noticeable that several had experience either the first or second world wars.
The pieces played were:
- Adagio from Elgar’s Symphony No 1
- Bax, Symphony No 3
- Finzi Intimations of Mortality
- Bach: Chaconne
- The Romanza from Vaughan William’s Symphony No 5
- Elgar again the time the Kingdom Pentecost and finishing with
- Delius Songs of Farewell
Well not quite finishing there because he finished with Louis Armstrong singing What a Wonderful World.
An excellent evening and an all too rare opportunity to hear the music of Bax.
The next meeting is on 3 October and is on early stereo recordings. It will be preceded by a brief agm.
New season
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.
New season’s programme
The new season’s programme has now been finalised and will soon be printed for distribution. You can see a copy of the brochure here ahead of publication. The committee has put together an excellent programme with two outside speakers and one, for the first time, from the Delius Society. We have one ‘live’ music evening as well as presentations on a wide range of topics from Society members themselves.
Meeting arrangements are as before and parking is easy. New members are always welcome – we’ve had several this year – and if you want to come along to an evening without commitment, there is a small fee of £3 to help with our expenses.
Existing members: if you can do anything to help promote events that would be appreciated.
The first evening will be on Monday 19 September.
Salisbury Recorded Music Society 