The Gesualdo Six, with director Owain Park, back row, centre
York Early Music Christmas Festival: The Gesualdo Six & Fretwork Viol Consort, Secret Byrd, National Centre for Early Music, York, December 2
THERE have been numerous commemorations of the 400th anniversary of the death of William Byrd this year. This was something else: imaginative, authentic and deeply moving. The singers of The Gesualdo Six and the viol consort Fretwork teamed up to present this opening salvo in the 2023 Christmas festival, a dramatised version of Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices.
When Byrd forsook the bright lights of London in 1593 and settled in the Essex village of Stondon Massey, he was close to the Byrd family’s native heath in Ingatestone, where he knew he could give his Catholic faith full rein.
He immediately set about composing three masses for private recusants there. The ‘Byrd Five-Part’, as it is colloquially known, was the last of the three, dating from 1595. It is written for good but not professional singers and represents the acme of his achievements in that deceptively simple style, one that ironically owes something to the cleaner, more homophonic material he had created for Protestant paymasters earlier in his career.
In this production by Bill Barclay, the audience was peripatetic, although able to sit if need be round the perimeter of what was originally St Margaret’s Church. There was a dining table set for eight on a central plinth from which the costumed Gesualdos (whose director is its bass, Owain Park) mainly performed. One of their number acted as priest and precentor and two audience members were invited to join them at table, where they sang from facsimiles.
The intervals between mass sections were filled with two six-part viol fantasias and an In Nomine from Fretwork, during which the singers circulated, made (silent) confessions or served vegetable soup to lucky punters. They sang the Benedictus on their knees.
Illumination was by candlelight (the exception was Fretwork’s electronic scores) and the air was faintly scented. So riveting was the vocal music that the audience remained completely still, moving only whenever the instruments started. Loud banging, as of government spies, resounded like rifle shots at the end of the mass – and candles were at once extinguished, adding to the secrecy.
There was the bonus of the Agnus Dei from the Byrd Four-Part, arguably the finest section from all his masses, which was beautifully shaped, matching the exquisite pianissimo of the five-part Agnus.
Thereafter the atmosphere lightened slightly with Byrd’s only pavan and galliard for viols, although there was a brief return to hair shirts with Infelix Ego (with viols entering at ‘Miserere’) and a happy concession to the season with ‘Haec Die’ (a grammatically correct title, although normally called Haec Dies).
This was the finest imaginable tribute to the great man. The singers blended superbly and Fretwork’s rhythmic verve brought the viol music to vivid life. Let us hope that all these commemorations lead to even wider appreciation of the most important figure of the English High Renaissance.
Review by Martin Dreyer
York Early Music Christmas Festival 2023 runs until December 9. Box office: ncemc.uk/yemcf/York Early Music Christmas Festival
The Gesualdo Six, with director Owain Park, centre, back row: Two concerts in one evening at NCEM
CHRISTMAS music, Scrooge the farmer, artist fairs and pantomime frolics set up Charles Hutchinson for the festive season ahead.
Festival of the week: York Early Music Christmas Festival, today until December 9
YORK Early Music Christmas Festival 2023 takes the theme of Music, Minstrels and Mystery, with today’s concerts by Flutes & Frets (Bedern Hall) and The Gesualdo Six & Fretwork Viol Consort (NCEM) having sold out already.
So has December 9’s finale, the Yorkshire Bach Choir’s Bach Christmas Oratorio (Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall), but tickets are still available for The Harmonious Society of Tickle-Fiddle Gentlemen, Fiddlesticks, The Marian Consort, Ceruleo and Baroque In The North. For concert details and tickets, visit ncem.co.uk. Box office: 01904 658338.
James Lewis-Knight and Emily Chattle in a scene from Badapple Theatre Company’s Farmer Scrooge’s Christmas Carol. Picture: Karl Andre
Tour opening of the week: Badapple Theatre Company in Farmer Scrooge’s Christmas Carol, until December 30
A GRUMPY farmer? From Yorkshire? Surely not! Welcome to Kate Bramley’s rural revision of Dickens’s festive favourite, A Christmas Carol, now set on Farmer Scrooge’s farm and in his bed in 1959 in Green Hammerton company Badapple Theatre’s tour of Yorkshire and beyond.
York actors James Lewis-Knight and Emily Chattle play multiple roles in a tale replete with local stories and carols, puppets and mayhem, original songs by Jez Lowe and a whacking great dose of seasonal bonhomie. For tour dates and ticket details, visit: badappletheatre.co.uk or call 01423 331304.
South Bank Studios artist Carolyn Coles: Taking part in this weekend’s Christmas Artists Trail
Artists with Christmas in mind: South Bank Studios Christmas Artists Trail, hosted by South Bank Studios, Bishopthorpe Road, York, today and tomorrow, 10am to 4pm
JOIN artists, illustrators and makers in the South Bank area of York for a weekend of festive cheer and a chance to visit artists’ houses and studios. For sale will be paintings, illustrations, ceramics, textiles, cards and gifts.
Taking part: Jill Tattersall, at 11 Mount Parade, today and tomorrow; Marie Murphy, 38, Scarcroft Road, today; Donna Maria Taylor, Carolyn Coles, Karen Winship, Rebeca Mason (11am to 4pm, in the loft), Katie Hill (outside) and Rachel Jones (outside) at South Bank Studio, today only.
Other art events happening in York over the weekend will be PICA Studios’ open studio, in Grape Lane, today and tomorrow, 10am to 5pm, and Rogues Atelier’s open studio, in Fossgate, today and tomorrow, 10am to 5pm.
Damion Larkin: Hosting Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club at The Basement
Comedy gig of the week: Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club, The Basement, City Screen Picturehouse, York, today, 5pm and 8pm
ESSEX comedian Markus Birdman headlines Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club’s brace of Basement gigs today. Joining him will be Tal Davies, Hasan Al-Habib and promoter/master of ceremonies Damion Larkin.
In 2022, Birdman suffered a stroke and ended up with a platinum heart, the subject of his Platinum Tour show. This year he was a semi-finalist on Britain’s Got Talent. Box office: lolcomedyclubs.co.uk.
Nina Cumin, left, Jonathan Sage and Kate Ledger: York Late Music concert of Anthony Gilbert works tonight
York Late Music: Micklegate Singers, After Byrd, today, 1pm; Nina Kumin, Jonathan Sage and Kate Ledger, 7.30pm, both at Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, York
MICKLEGATE Singers bring together three anniversaries, Byrd, Rachmaninov and Thomas Weelkes, in a lunchtime musical sandwich of more than 500 years of a cappella choral music.
In the evening, Nina Kumin, violin, Jonathan Sage, clarinet, and Kate Ledger, piano, mark July’s death of Anthony Gilbert by performing four of the British composer’s works, plus music by Nicola LeFanu and David Lumsdaine, who both knew him well. Box office: latemusic.org or on the door.
Kirk Brandon: Fronting Spear Of Destiny at The Crescent
40th anniversary gig of the week: Spear Of Destiny, The Crescent, York, Wednesday, 7.30pm
FORTY years on from Epic Records’ release of Spear Of Destiny’s debut album, The Grapes Of Wrath, Kirk Brandon leads his punk-influenced power rock band on a 17-date November and December tour.
On the back of American travels, Brandon will be performing with his longest-serving line-up: Adrian Portas (New Model Army/Sex Gang Children), Craig Adams (Sisters Of Mercy/The Cult/The Mission) and Phil Martini (Jim Jones And The Righteous Mind), bolstered by Clive Osborne on saxophone and Steve Allen-Jones on keys. Support comes from former Simple Minds bassist Derek Forbes & The Dark. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
Kate Rusby: Showcasing her new Christmas album, Light Years, at York Barbican on Thursday
Festive folk gig of the week: Kate Rusby, Established 1973 Christmas Tour, York Barbican, Thursday, 7.30pm
BARNSLEY folk nightingale Kate Rusby marks turning 50 on Monday with the release of her seventh Christmas album, Light Years, and an accompanying tour that opens in York.
In the company of her regular band, coupled with the added warmth of the Brass Boys, Kate combines carols still sung in South Yorkshire pubs with her winter songs and favourite Christmas chestnuts. Look out for the fancy dress finale. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Rowntree Players having a ball in rehearsal for Cinderella
Pantomime opening of the week: Rowntree Players in Cinderella, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, December 9 to 16, except December 11
HOWARD Ella directs Rowntree Players in a rollicking romp of a pantomime, wherein Cinderella and Buttons are fighting to save the Windy End Hotel when the Queen announces a ball to celebrate Prince Charming’s birthday.
Trouble is brewing with the arrival of a “truly horrific trio”, determined to find themselves a prince. Expect song, dance, all the traditional silliness…and a mad rush for the last few tickets for all performances. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Billie Marten: Dropping into The Crescent with her Drop Cherries album. Picture: Katie Silvester
Recommended but sold out already
RIPON singer-songwriter Billie Marten, now based in London, returns home to Yorkshire to showcase her fourth album, Drop Cherries, on which she explores the struggle with modernity versus tradition, nature, mental health, relationships and “a general voyeurism on the world as she sees it”. Clara Mann supports.
Beth Stone and Daniel Murphy of Flutes & Frets: Sold-out opening concert today at York Early Music Christmas Festival 2023
MUSIC, Minstrels and Mystery is the theme of the York Early Music Christmas Festival 2023, running from tomorrow to December 9.
This annual celebration conjures up the spirit of Christmas past with an array of atmospheric music, primarily at the National Centre for Early Music, in the medieval St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate, complemented by concerts at Bedern Hall and the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York.
Opening at the beginning of Advent, the festival features a host of world-class artists from the Early Music world, celebrating the extraordinary wealth of music associated with Advent, Christmas and Epiphany, from the medieval to the baroque.
To complete the Christmas experience, many concerts take place by candlelight, with mince pies and mulled wine available at most events.
Already the festival has been previewed on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune on November 26, when festival artists the Gesualdo Six spoke to Katie Derham and performed a selection of their work.
Both immersive Gesualdo Six concerts with the Fretwork Viol Consort at 6pm and 8.30pm on Saturday have sold out. Marking composer William Byrd’s 400th anniversary, Secret Byrd will theatrically intersperse Byrd’s private mass for secret worship with his virtuosic music for strings.
Sold out too are Saturday’s opening concert, European Court and Salon Music, by Flutes & Frets (Beth Stone, flute, and Daniel Murphy, lute, theorbo, guitar) at Bedern Hall at 11am, backed by funding from the European Festival Fund for Emerging Artists, and December 9’s Bach Christmas Oratorio concert at 7pm by the Yorkshire Bach Choir and Yorkshire Baroque Soloists at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall.
Festival director Delma Tomlin will host an introductory talk at Sunday’s 6.30pm concert, A Christmas Song – The “original” Messiah, by festival debutants The Harmonious Society of Tickle-Fiddle Gentlemen at the NCEM. The Harmonious Society’s 14 musicians and singers face a busy three days of travel, playing Canterbury on Saturday, York on Sunday and Durham on Monday.
Baroque In The North: Festive sweetmeats from Versailles to Rome on December 9 at the NCEM
Fiddlesticks, a new ensemble featuring former festival advisers Kati Debretzeni and Steven Devine, will make their festival debut too with Monday’s 7pm NCEM programme of European court music for three violins and continuo. Earlier that day, the NCEM’s youth instrumental ensemble, Minster Minstrels, will be working on Christmas repertory with Fiddlesticks in the afternoon.
Further festival highlights will be The Marian Consort, performing music written for the festive court, on Thursday and Ceruleo’s Love Restor’d, a theatrical Restoration England programme of Henry Purcell, John Blow and John Eccles works, on Friday, both at 7pm at the NCEM.
On December 9, Baroque In The North will play this festival for the first time, performing Panettone or Bûche de Noël?, Festive Sweetmeats, featuring works by Esprit-Philippe, Chédeville, Vivaldi and Corelli at the NCEM at 11am.
In addition, the Minster Minstrels will work with the Harmonious Society’s baroque trumpeter Will Russell on Sunday, while Owain Park, director of The Gesualdo Six, is inviting singers to join him for a choral workshop, designed to celebrate the music of Willam Byrd on Saturday and Sunday at Bedern Hall.
The York Early Music Festival Christmas Box Set, featuring a selection of recorded highlights from the festival, plus this year’s York Early Music Festival and Beverley & East Riding Early Music Festival, is on sale now and will be available to enjoy online from December 15 to the end of January 2024. Highlights include concerts by violinist Rachel Podger and the Dunedin Consort, the Scottish baroque ensemble. The box set costs £50 or concerts can be bought individually at ncem.co.uk.
Ahead of the week of festive music, NCEM director Delma Tomlin says: “Our Christmas festival is one of the highlights of the city’s Christmas calendar. This December we are delighted to present an array of atmospheric Christmas concerts featuring music from the medieval times, through the ages and ending with Bach’s glorious Christmas Oratorio.
“The concerts are the perfect way to celebrate Yuletide and we look forward to seeing old friends and welcoming new ones at the special time of year.”
Full programme details can be found at ncem.co.uk/yemcf/.Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk.
The Marian Consort: Performing music composed for the festive Stuart court in For Delighting The People – A Jacobean Christmas on December 7
York Early Music Christmas Festival programme highlights
Saturday, 11am: Flutes & Frets, European Court and Salon Music, Bedern Hall, Bedern. SOLD OUT.
FLUTES, lutes, theorbo and guitar introducing music of European courts across the ages, performed by NCEM Platform Artists Beth Stone and Daniel Murphy, who received grant from European Festivals Fund for Emerging Artists, leading to concerts in Antwerp, Krakow and York. Final concert of tour for young duo selected for annual International Artist Presentation in Flanders. Flutes & Frets will return to York next spring for Baroque Around The Books library tour.
Saturday, 6pm and 8.30pm, The Gesualdo Six & Fretwork Viol Consort, Secret Byrd, National Centre for Early Music, St Margaret’s Church, Walmgate. Both SOLD OUT.
CREATED and directed by Bill Barclay, this 80-minute immersive experience marks the 400th anniversary of composer William Byrd with a mix of voices, viols and theatricality. A small number of audience members sit and stand among costumed musicians who gather by candlelight to worship in secret as Byrd’s setting of the Ordinary is mixed with his most probing instrumental works, played where the five Proper sections of the Mass would take place.
Sunday, 6.30pm, The Harmonious Society of Tickle-Fiddle Gentlemen, A Christmas Song – The “original” Messiah, NCEM.
PRESENTING the only surviving Nativity story in England set to music in the baroque era: the original Messiah and possibly the first oratorio in English. Full title: the anonymous Messiah. A Christ -Mass Song for Voices and Instruments, circa 1720. Complete with tuneful shepherd dialogues, the joyful song of the Virgin Mary, Three Wise Men arias and even a ‘halleluia’ chorus. Plus offertory by Prague composer Simon Brixi.
Monday, 7pm, Fiddlesticks, Three Parts on a Ground: European Court Music for three violins and continuo, NCEM
VIOLINISTS Huw Davies, Kati Debretzeni and Debbie Diamond are joined by harpsichordist Steven Devine for glorious programme of the Pachelbel Canon, a new arrangement of the Corelli ‘Christmas’ Concerto and Bach Concerto for three violins.
Thursday, 7pm, The Marian Consort, For Delighting The People – A Jacobean Christmas, NCEM
DIRECTED by Rory McCleery, one of the festival’s favourite vocal groups returns for a special seasonal programme from the Golden Age of English composers at their most unbuttoned and celebratory, featuring music written for the famously festive Stuart court. Plus more intimate, introspective sacred works by Byrd, Gibbons, Weelkes and Bull.
Friday, 7pm, Ceruleo, Love Restor’d, NCEM
IN the summer of 1660, London’s theatres are reopening after 18 long years of Puritan rule: time for one Henry Purcell – the “English Orpheus” – to make his entrance on the musical stage to lead a musical revolution and new English baroque music. Ceruleo’s programme runs the gamut of Restoration English music, encompassing some of Purcell’s most famous pieces, alongside his lesser-known works and those by John Blow and John Eccles, while also celebrating the first female stars of the English stage.
Saturday, December 9, 11am, Baroque In The North, Panettone or Bûche de Noël? Festive Sweetmeats, NCEM
THIS multi-instrumented programme by Amanda Babington (violin, recorder, musette), Clare Babington (cello) and David Francis (harpsichord) showcases their debut album, Music For French King. Be prepared to fly from Versailles to Rome with works by Esprit-Philippe and Nicholas Chédeville, Antonio Vivaldi and Arcangelo Corelli. Enjoy the Advent spirit too with a tempting set of “French Noëls”. Musette, you ask. 18th century French bagpipes.
Saturday, December 9, 7pm, Yorkshire Bach Choir & Yorkshire Baroque Soloists, Bach Christmas Oratorio, Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York. SOLD OUT.
WRITTEN in 1734, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio is heard rarely in its complete form, encapsulating rituals of belief, the human spirit’s diversity and the ecstatic joy in the Christmas message. Enjoy all six cantatas written for the feast days of Christmas and New Year, works that demand the largest and most spectacular orchestral forces Bach ever required. Soloists will be soprano Bethany Seymour, countertenor Robin Blaize, tenor Jonathan Hanley and bass Frederick Long.
Green Matthews: Dickens of a festive good time in A Christmas Carol In Concert
Festive folk concerts at NCEM
YULETIDE celebrations at the NCEM will be bookended by three festive folk nights: St Agnes Fountain, tonight; The Furrow Collective on December 5 and Green Matthews, December 19, all at 7.30pm.
Presented by the Black Swan Folk Club, St Agnes Fountain lines up with Chris While on vocals, guitar, bodhran, dulcimer, darbuka and percussion; Julie Matthews on vocals, piano, guitar, accordion and gazouki, and Chris Leslie on fiddle, mandolin, tenor guitar, bouzouki, ukulele, banjo, oud, whistle, Native American flute and “anything else he can lay his hands on”.
Postponed from last year, The Furrow Collective perform We Know By The Moon with Lucy Farrell on viola, voice and saw; Emily Portman on banjo, concertina and voice and Alasdair Roberts on guitars and voice.
Playing the NCEM for the second Christmas season in a row, Green Matthews turn Dickensian for A Christmas Carol In Concert, performed by Sophie Matthews, voice and flute, Chris Green, voice, guitar, mandocello and piano, and Jude Rees, voice, oboe and melodeon. Box office: 01904 658338 or ncem.co.uk
Grumpy farmer? In Yorkshire? Meet James Lewis-Knight’s Farmer Scrooge in Badapple Theatre Company’s Farmer Scrooge’s Christmas Carol. Picture: Karl Andre
GREEN Hammerton company Badapple Theatre set off on their winter travels tomorrow with Farmer Scrooge’s Christmas Carol, starring York actors James Lewis-Knight and Emily Chattle.
Billed as “classic Badapple: Dickens with a Yorkshire twist, puppets, songs and music by Jez Lowe and all the jokes we can handle at this time of year,” writer-director Kate Bramley’s new family show will play across Yorkshire as well as Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Worcestershire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Staffordshire, Northumberland, Cumbria, County Durham and Oxfordshire.
Starting out at Tockwith Village Hall, near York, tomorrow at 7pm, Badapple’s tour van will take in 22 performances between December 1 and 30 as Bramley’s itinerant band of actors heads to venues on their Yorkshire doorstep and beyond with her comedy slant on Charles Dickens’s 180-year-old story, now set in and around Scrooge’s farm and bedroom in 1959.
“Have a good chuckle while the blustering, skin-flint farmer Ebeneezer Scrooge gets his comeuppance and is forced to see the error of his penny-pinching ways,” says Kate of a production that marks Badapple’s 25th anniversary of touring.
James will play Fred, Scrooge, Shep and Elvis, yes, Elvis; Emily’s multi-role playing will stretch to Ginger, Bert the feed man, Mrs Cratchitt, Niece (Josie), Marley, Belle, Mrs Feziweg, Mr Feziweg, assorted Cratchitts, Undertaker, Mrs Dilbert and Girl. (Please note, name spelling may diversify from other versions, whether Cratchit or Fezziwig).
Emily Chattle with the puppet of Mr Fezziwig in Badapple Theatre Company’s Farmer Scrooge’s Christmas Carol. Picture: Karl Andre
“Full of local stories and carols, puppets and mayhem, and original songs by Sony Award-winner Jez Lowe, plus a whacking great dose of seasonal bonhomie, this is a winter warmer to put a smile on everyone’s face this Christmas.”
Don’t take only Kate’s word for it. Clare Granger, High Sheriff of North Yorkshire, is a Badapple devotee. “It’s wonderful to spend a joyous evening with Badapple Theatre Company in a small rural village hall,” she says. “Kate Bramley is absolutely fulfilling her ambition to bring the arts into the community and the uplifting effect on the audience of what the theatre company does is palpable.”
Badapple’s mission is to venture out to the smallest and hardest-to-reach village halls and community venues to bring professional theatre to all. “We all know that isolation and loneliness are major issues in our rural communities and that maintaining good mental health is proving more and more of a challenge for the general population,” says the High Sheriff.
“It is hard to overestimate the positive benefits of getting out of the house and attending a joyful, inexpensive, communal event in your own locality. Badapple Theatre Company is providing just this experience.”
This year, James has appeared in York company Next Door But One’s tour of Operation Hummingbird, Matthew Harper-Hardcastle’s “humorous and uplifting exploration of grief, loss and noticing just how far you’ve come”, while Emily did the milk rounds in Badapple’s tour of Eddie And The Gold Tops, Bramley’s comedy of a milkman turning into the cream of Sixties pop stars.
James Lewis-Knight and Emily Chattle in a scene from BadappleTheatre Company’s Farmer Scrooge’s Christmas Carol. Picture: Karl Andre
Farmer Scrooge’s Christmas Carol: Yorkshire dates
December 1: Tockwith Village Hall, 7pm. Box office: 01423 331304
December 2: Harpham & Lowthorpe Village Hall YO25 4QZ, 7.30pm. Box office: 07867 692616.
December 3: The Old Girls’ School, Sherburn in Elmet, LS25 6BL, 7pm. Box office: 01977 685178.
December 13: Bishop Monkton Village Hall, near Harrogate, HG3 3QG, 7.30pm. Box office: 01423 331304.
December 19: Green Hammerton Village Hall, near York, YO26 8AB, 7pm. Box office: 01423 331304.
December 20: Burton Fleming Village Hall, East Yorkshire, YO25 3LL, 6.30pm. Box
December 27: Sutton under Whitestonecliffe Village Hall, Hambleton, YO7 2PS, 4.30pm. Box office: 01423 331304.
December 29: East Cottingwith Village Hall, near York, YO42 2TL, 4pm. Box office: 07866 024009 or 07973 699145.
Emily Chattle with one of the puppets designed by Sam Edwards for Badapple’s Farmer Scrooge’s Christmas Carol. Picture: Karl Andre
The late York composer Janet Owen Thomas, remembered in Anthony Gilbert’s work Monsoon Toccata
ANTHONY Gilbert’s Monsoon Toccata: In Memoriam Janet Owen Thomas (1961-2002) will be performed by pianist Kate Ledger at Saturday night’s Late Music concert in York.
“This concert will be a celebration of composer Anthony Gilbert who died in July this year, aged 89,” says Late Music administrator Steve Crowther. “The programme includes his memorial piece written for Janet Owen Thomas, the York composer, who died tragically young.”
Performed by violinist Nina Kumin, clarinet player Jonathan Sage and pianist Ledger at the Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, the 7.30pm programme features three more Gilbert works, plus music by Nicola LeFanu and David Lumsdaine, who both knew him well.
Here Steve Crowther pays tribute to Jane Owen Thomas and her contribution to York Late Music.
“I never met Janet, even though she lived near me in Holgate, York. I did speak with her on the phone however, inviting Janet to compose a short piece for a small ensemble,” he recalls.
“It was the early days of Late Music and I worked with director David Power. It was then called the Late Music Festival with a strapline: The Cutting Edge, and the following year, The Cutting Edge Gets Sharper.
“The concerts were a niche market, and quite often the niche didn’t bother turning up. Low audiences with marginal box office revenue did not appeal to grant-funding bodies and so there was, as Kwasi Kwarteng discovered many years later, little in the way of inward investment.
“So we decided to change our marketing strategy, or rather, develop one. Living Composers, performed Live. This really sounded unique and, apart from the Go West Festival in Wales, it was.
Nina Kumin, left, Jonathan Sage and Kate Ledger: Playing Anthony Gilbert works at Saturday night’s Late Music concert at the Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, York
“The main issue here was that quite a few of the living composers we programmed were no longer with us after we had gone to print. We then went nuts and threw the kitchen sink at the programming.
“The concerts now included jazz, Indian music, gamelan, crossover, loads of fusions; we even dug up Beethoven. Anyway, this long and winding road led us to where we are today. So back to Janet.
“OK, so this next bit isn’t going to sound professional or cool; not that I have ever been professional or cool. Janet said she would be interested and then caught me off guard with: ‘What will the commission fee be?’ I started laughing and said: ‘you’re kidding?’. She wasn’t.
“I have often thought Late Music should host a memorial concert of Janet’s music. And we will. I thought this programme note written by Anthony Gilbert – for a short piano piece called Monsoon Toccata, was very touching, very moving. It feels so right and so fitting to include this in Anthony’s own Late Music memorial concert.”
Anthony Gilbert wrote: “In 1988, Janet Owen Thomas met up with me in Sydney at the end of a short organ recital tour – possibly her last before devoting herself entirely to composing.
“We returned to England together, doing a rapid circular tour of Northern India on the way. Alighting from the plane at Delhi, we were hit by the whirling wind and torrential rain of the seasonal monsoon, and early the following morning there was also a minor earthquake.
“This experience determined the spirit of the music, and Northern Indian Raga determines the purely technical approach, with the quasi-improvisatory toccata-like textures acting as decoration to a slow-moving, widely spaced modal top line, which almost loses control of the overall shape at the mid-point – a reflection of the impact of those natural phenomena.”
Janet Owen Thomas, composer, writer, teacher and organist: the back story, from British Music Collection
Born: Merseyside, to Welsh and German parents.
Education: Merchant Taylors’ Girls’ School, Liverpool; read music at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, taught by Jane Glover and Robert Saxton (composition).
Further studies: After premiere of her choral work New And Better Days, commissioned to mark the opening of Liverpool’s Tate Gallery, read for degree in Music Technology at University of York, then took advanced composition studies with Anthony Gilbert at Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester.
Works included: UK premiere of Rosaces at 1991 BBC Proms (youngest composer featured that year). Concerto Grosso Cantus for Bang-on-a-Can, 1992, performed in Goldberg Ensemble’s Contemporary series at RNCM, broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Under The Skin, BBC commission for 1999 Huddersfield Festival of Contemporary Music. Preludes for Piano, premiered in London in 2000.
Commissioned or performed by: BBC; Goldberg Ensemble; Park Lane Group; Allegri and Bingham Quartets; Gemini; Boccherini String Trio; Stephen De Pledge; Mary Wiegold; Lontano; Kevin Bowyer; the Option Band and others.
Lived and worked in: York, dividing her time between teaching, writing and composition.
York composer Nicola LeFanu
IN her obituary for Janet Owen Thomas, fellow York composer Nicola LeFanu wrote of her musical style: “The hallmark of her style is linear counterpoint; the music is carefully constructed to allow for self-similarity in its proportions, both in the large and in the detail.
“In speaking of her work, Thomas acknowledged the influence of the 17th and 18th-century music which she played so much in her days as an organist. Her contrapuntal textures are transformed, though, by the ‘shimmer and glitter’ which she loved.”
Chain reaction: Steve Tearle’s Jacob Marley spooks Kit Stroud’s Ebenezer Scrooge in NE Theatre York’s A Christmas Carol
NE Theatre York – or NE Musicals York as they were back then – staged the York premiere of this all-singing version of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol at the JoRo in November 2018.
More Christmas advert season than Advent season on that occasion, but the show’s return heralds Advent’s arrival on Sunday, and the festive mood is already alive and noisy, like the crisp and sweet packet scrunching that accompanied Tuesday’s opening night.
Scrooge moan over, some things have changed since 2018, some have not. More on the changes later, but first: the cast numbers 60 once more; Steve Tearle is directing and playing the ghost of Jacob Marley in white suit and face paint again, and the Sold Out signs will be greeting theatregoers again and again on the street scene on the JoRo forecourt. No tickets left, not one.
A roll of thunder announces the arrival of Tearle’s Marley on a London set familiar to audiences who saw his production of Oliver!. Temporarily, north easterner Steve turns Brummie to make the obligatory mobile phone pronouncement but with the impish humour that will mark a frenetic, fantastical, phantasmagorical production into which he will throw everything, magical books, bouncing balls and kitchen sink included (metaphorically speaking).
Perri Ann Barley’s Ghost of Christmas Past
Look out too for the misbehaving chairs and bed in Scrooge’s house, leaping into the air as if propelled by the handiwork of ghosts.
Written by Beauty And The Beast and The Little Mermaid composer Alan Menken, with lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and book by Mike Ockrent and Lynn Ahrens, the musical began life as a film before being re-created for the Broadway stage, opening at Madison Square Garden.
Its driving force is the modern musical score under Scott Phillips’s enthusiastic direction, but the dialogue fizzes along too – everything is home and hosed by 9.30pm – with Tearle’s Marley as host, ghost and timekeeper.
Changes afoot? The familiar tale of miserable, miserly Ebenezer Scrooge’s redemptive journey through Christmas Eve night still takes the form of encounters with Ghosts of the Past, Present and Yet To Be but Tearle has fortified the circus setting first evoked in 2018, while Melissa Boyd’s choreography nods to both 1856 and modern moves for ensemble numbers.
Once more the ghosts are first seen in their real-world guises as a lamplighter (Perri Ann Barley), Ring Master (Chris Hagyard, taking the circus theme further than James O’Neil’s charity show barker of 2018), and an Old Hag (John Mulholland). Note their Christmas colours of snow white, ivy green and holly berry red.
Chris Hagyard’s Ghost of Christmas Present
Tearle loves theatricality, spectacle in particular, and here he quite surpasses himself by having Marley wreathed in 100 metres of white fabric, stretched like waves across the stage as he urges Kit Stroud’s grouchy Scrooge to learn the error of his ways before it is too late. Marley’s trademark chains are more like a rapper’s bling adornments by comparison.
Graduating from his 2018 role as Young Ebenezer, Stroud’s Scrooge is mean of voice and demeanour at the outset, his lead performance being alive to both the humour and inhumanity the part demands.
Shocked by what he learns of himself, his Scrooge is pained by the recollections of his younger self, when guided by Perri Ann Barley’s Ghost Of Christmas Past with her coat of lights leading the way.
Ockrent and Ahrens’s book weaves one departure from Dickens’s novella into the plot: the story of Scrooge’s father, John William Scrooge, being sentenced to a debtors’ prison while his horrified wife’s family look on as they sing God Bless Us, Everyone.
Cowering into a ball, Stroud’s Scrooge screams “Mother” (as played by Rebecca Jackson), the stuff of a psychological thriller to counter the pantomimic comedy mayhem that subsequently permeates Mr Fezziwig’s Annual Christmas Ball.
John Mulholland’s Ghost of Christmas Yet To Be
Hagyard, out of luck in October when Bev Jones Company’s Guys And Dolls had to be called off, puts that frustration behind him in a terrific performance, pulling strings as Ring Master cum Ghost of Christmas Present.
Greg Roberts’s clown-wigged Mr Fezziwig and Ali Butler-Hind’s Mrs Fezziwig enjoy themselves too in that first-half climax, while Kristian Barley’s Bob Cratchit and Alice Atang’s Tiny Tim maximise their moments too.
Mulholland’s Ghost of Christmas Yet To Be transforms from Old Hag to flame-maned heavy metal frontman, the shock of the new steering Stroud’s alarmed Scrooge towards the dawn of realisation and change.
Visually arresting, largely playful rather than psychological, A Christmas Carol is a typically vibrant, helter-skelter Tearle production, where the singing and musicianship is of varied quality, the dancing and acting being more assured by comparison.
NE Theatre York in A Christmas Carol, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, until Saturday; 7.30pm nightly and 2.30pm Saturday matinee. SOLD OUT. Box office for returns only: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
John Stringer conducting the University of York Symphony Orchestra on November 25
THE first thing to say about this ambitious concert was that it was played to a packed auditorium. In these difficult times this is no small achievement and great credit to the University Symphony Orchestra and conductor John Stringer, who have deservedly generated such a trusted following.
I have never heard Kaija Saariaho’s Lumière et Pesanteur in a live performance. To be honest I found listening to the work slightly unsettling. It was like swimming submerged in a spooky, murky musical lagoon.
The very effective soundscape was made from light, translucent chords. A delicate motif moved from trumpet to flute. There emerged loud tutti, trumpet and brass but these outbursts were always sucked back into the murky depths. As I said, unsettling.
Not all the exposed playing was always on the money, a little pitch unsure, perhaps lacking a little match practice. But there was no doubting the originality of the score and the performance caught the atmospheric sound world to good effect.
And so, from one Finnish great to an even greater one, Jean Sibelius. En Saga is also a powerful, descriptive tone poem. The work opens with a mysterious, distinctive mood or sheen created by glistening string playing. Again, the solo and exposed instrumental groupings seemed to lack authority and confidence.
This changed with the dramatic increase in tempo and the playing was more self-assured and enjoyable. The work is now brimming with instrumental folk-inspired dances, heroic calls on the horn. The climax of the four horns playing their notes chiuso (muted by hand), produced a particularly metallic, brassy effect.
Following some strong viola solo playing (Anna Thompson), conductor John Stringer drove the players on to a sustained orchestral climax dominated by brass fanfares. Very effective. This couldn’t last and a splendid Pip Tall on clarinet guided us toward a poignant, tranquil close.
If some of the playing in the first half seemed, I suspect, a little under rehearsed, this was certainly not the case in the second half with a terrific performance of Shostakovich’s symphonic last will and musical testament, the exceptional Symphony No. 15.
Whereas his symphonies are usually driven by external events and politics, here the drama is very much internalised. To be sure, there is fun to be had, not least in the William Tell quotations. Or is there?
The symphony, the mightiest of abstract musical forms, opens with a solo glockenspiel. It is certainly a surprise and, in this context, a dramatic one. This is followed by a seemingly carefree chirpy flute solo and then a slightly odd bassoon melody, some strange, slightly displaced string passages, familiar rhythmic echoes in the brass and then an even stranger hello from the trumpets quoting from Rossini’s William Tell overture.
The playing convincingly recreated a kind of black musical playground, or possibly fairground, where the appearance of Petrushka’s ghost wouldn’t have been that far-fetched. But if this quirky, surreal quality suggesting frivolity is a musical joke, the punchline is manifest in the darkest recesses of the following slow movement.
The University Symphony Orchestra delivered a persuasive, bleak account. It opens with a noble brass chorale ushering in a truly heartfelt cello solo; a pair of solo flutes (nicely played by Persephone Alloway and Immy McPhun) introduce the historical dotted funeral motif, with a solo trombone taking us to loud fortissimo climax.
Fine bassoon playing leads to the start of the Allegretto third movement. I think that this is meant to be played without a break, but anyhow, mercifully there was one, and I needed it. Having said that, this scherzando offers little respite as the chilling woodblock motif introduces a solo double bass theme accompanied by confident celesta playing by Joel Edmondson.
A macabre clarinet solo takes to a unsettling violin solo arriving at the movement’s closing Desolation Row. The final Adagio is brimming with quotations: the fate motif from Wagner’s Der Ring des Nieberlung and Tristan und Isolde. There are echoes of Glinka’s Do Not Tempt Me Needlessly. It is left to the celesta to take us to the final curtain restating the symphony’s opening motif.
To quote music journalist Tom Service: “The final sounds of Shostakovich’s symphonic canon are impassive, intimate, and empty. They’re among the most spine-tingling and chilling sounds in orchestral music.”
John Stringer and the University Symphony Orchestra delivered an emotional rollercoaster of the bleakest of musical journeys. They, and especially their fine soloists – Persephone Alloway (flute), Isaac McAreavey (bassoon), Mari McGregor (cello), Sam Banks (trombone), George Roberts (double bass) and Vlad Turapov (violin) – should be very proud.
London Bridge Trio: violinist Ben Hancox, pianist Daniel Tong and cellist Cara Berridge
British Music Society of York: London Bridge Trio, Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, November 10
IT came as a surprise to find that the London Bridge Trio, renowned for its championing of English composers, is already into its third decade.
Its appearance for the British Music Society of York contained no English music, but a tasty combination of early Beethoven and late Fauré, with Schumann’s First Piano Trio for finale.
Beethoven’s first three trios – his first official opus – were his calling card as he summoned up the courage to journey to Vienna from his birthplace in Bonn at the age of 21. They did the trick and opened many doors for him.
Op 1 No 2 in D, full of variety, speaks of an imagination off the leash for the first time. There was at once clarity and spaciousness in the ensemble’s approach, a feel for the structure without obvious signposting.
The slow movement was measured, as the trio relished its improvisatory structure, while the scherzo with its offbeat accents made a lively contrast, calmed down only in its closing six-bar calando (simultaneous decrease in sound and speed). The mood of suppressed excitement in the finale burst into the open in the closing bars.
Fauré’s only piano trio, by contrast, was the work of a 78-year-old. Its ebb and flow was remarkably cogent here, as the ensemble – launched by the cello’s theme – sustained a steady momentum throughout the opening allegro.
The slow movement was meditative, its tempo leisurely, but eventually generating warmth from the central bleakness. The finale was the antithesis of this, using its syncopation and cross accents to build excitement.
Schumann’s Op 63 in D minor, the same key as the Fauré, got off to a boisterous start, with its dotted main motif especially forceful. Its jack-in-the-box scherzo was scarcely less emphatic, bursting with surprises, although the trio was a good deal smoother.
The elegiac violin opening to the slow movement, picked up by the cello, was gently touching. But its moodiness was at once dispelled by the sunshine of the finale, now in the major key, and the final acceleration was exhilarating.
The London Bridge is a well-balanced ensemble, its pianist Daniel Tong never dominating. It was a privilege to share its many insights.
MENTION the names Charlotte, Daniel, Jamie and Katya to any regular punter at the North York Moors Chamber Music Festival and they will instantly know who you mean.
For the uninitiated, this is a reference to violinist Charlotte Scott, pianist Daniel Lebhardt, cellist Jamie Walton and pianist Katya Apekisheva. All are core members of the resident team during the summer festival – so I shall use their first names here.
It was a special pleasure to welcome them back to our area as winter closes in, incidentally reminding us of treasures in store next summer (specifically, August11 to 24 2014). Here we enjoyed sonatas by Strauss and Rachmaninov, alongside bonbons by the latter and by Schubert.
Pianist Daniel Lebhardt
Schubert’s Adagio in E flat, D.897 (known by its publisher’s title, Notturno) is a touching piano trio. It begins pianissimo and is – rarely for Schubert – marked appassionato. With the benefit of hindsight, we can feel the nostalgia of a piece written during his 32nd and final year.
Here it was beautifully controlled, with Katya’s rippling piano a constant underlay and the dotted figure in its opening phrase still prominent in its brief chorale.
Rachmaninov stood at the heart of the evening. His Cello Sonata in G minor, a work of his late twenties and the last chamber music he was to write, brought a much-deserved spotlight on Jamie, with Katya still in support (although the actual spotlights flickered distractingly).
Cellist Jamie Walton. Picture: Matthew Johnson
Its first three movements showed varying degrees of agitation here. The opening grew in intensity, right up to its fiery conclusion. Scherzo and trio were neatly contrasted, the one nervy and staccato, the other smoothly melodious.
The slow movement teetered on the brink of sentimentality – but never crossed that line. The finale was quite different. Now in the major key, it reached unexpectedly sunny uplands, delivered with immense conviction right through to its furiously happy coda.
Rachmaninov’s Trio élégiaque in D minor (1893) dates from his late teens but took another two decades to reach its final form. It sounds much like Brahms. Its themes emerged clearly from Daniel’s piano, although Charlotte’s violin needed to resort to some muscularity to match his enthusiasm. Jamie’s cello remained firm and the ending was properly solemn.
Pianist Katya Apekisheva
Richard Strauss’s Violin Sonata is another early work, dating from his early twenties, with all the exuberance that implies. Daniel’s passionate piano moved a little too readily directly from piano to forte, with little between. Charlotte not merely withstood the challenge but soared sumptuously in both the outer movements.
The Andante between, marked ‘Improvisation’, was a different matter: an absolute gem. Its song-like melody elicited exceptionally sweet tone from Charlotte, with Daniel nobly self-effacing, and reached a rare ‘pin-drop’ moment at its close, the audience completely transfixed. It crystallised an evening of exceptional warmth – just what the doctor ordered, in fact.
Review by Martin Dreyer
* Next summer’s programme details are available at www.northyorkmoorsfestival.com.
The Hollywood Sisters: Cat Foster, left, Rachel Higgs, Helen ‘Bells’ Spencer and Henrietta Linnemann
THE Hollywood Sisters will be joined by friends for a night of musical cabaret in aid of York Mind at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, on Friday at 7.30pm.
The luscious close harmonies of the Hollywood Sisters will be complemented by guest appearances from “the finest talent York has to offer”: The Rusty Pegs, Jennie Wogan-Wells, Richard Bayton, Nicola Holliday, Matthew Clare, Connie Howcroft, John Haigh and Mark Lovell.
“Expect an evening of music, song and sprinkle of festive cheer to kick off December,” says Hollywood Sister Helen ‘Bells’ Spencer. “All profits from the evening will go to mental health charity York Mind.”
Richard Bayton, left, and John Haigh: Guest singers at the Hollywood Sisters And Friends charity concert
The Hollywood Sisters, Cat Foster, Henrietta Linnemann, Rachel Higgs and Bells, met in 2020 when they were cast together in York Musical Theatre Company’s Hooray For Hollywood, Paul Laidlaw’s nostalgic, whirlwind journey through the sounds of a bygone era from the MGM, Warner Bros, RKO and Universal studios, staged that November at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre.
“We instantly forged a special bond and after the show finished, we kept in close contact,” says Bells. “Many meet-ups over tea and cake later, the Hollywood Sisters were devised.
“In honour of the show we met on, and because we all have a shared love of vintage glamour, we kept the Hollywood part of our name and style as a group. Now we’re delighted to be welcoming back John Haigh and Richard Bayton, who were also in Hooray For Hollywood. We can’t wait to all be singing together again!
“Added to these crooners, we couldn’t be more thrilled to have guest appearances from three phenomenal female vocalists, Jennie, Connie and Nicola, and we’ll all be accompanied by the brilliant Rusty Pegs, Matthew Clare on piano and Mark Lovell on double bass.”
“We instantly forged a special bond,” says Helen ‘Bells’ Spencer, left, one that led to the Hollywood Sisters’ formation
Friday promises a relaxed cabaret-style event with the bar open throughout. “There’ll be music from across genres but always featuring gorgeous harmonies and a few festive numbers to get December started with some cheer!” says Bells.
“We also have a raffle with some amazing prizes to be won: £100 meal voucher, Tea for Two in Malton, art prints, Prosecco and much more. If you can’t make the gig but would like to buy a raffle ticket to support York Mind, please head to our just giving page and leave your email address.”
