Ryedale Festival: Royal Northern Sinfonia, Hovingham Hall, July 31
WE were powerfully reminded, with this now traditional festival finale at Hovingham, how fortunate we are to have this country’s only full-time chamber orchestra within such easy reach.
A slightly scaled-down orchestra, directed from the violin by co-leader Kyra Humphreys, played a concerto and a symphony by Haydn, one at the end of each half, leavened by three more recent pieces by English composers. It made a heady mix.
Malcolm Arnold’s troubled life is sometimes reflected in his music, but thankfully not too often. His Second Sinfonietta, Op 65 – he wrote three, in addition to nine numbered symphonies – has a dark threnody at its centre, but both the winding Andante at the start and the boisterous finale were positive, nicely coloured by pairs of flutes and horns.
Finzi’s Romance for strings, Op 11 was beautifully controlled, with a post-Elgarian sweep that was intoxicating.
Errollyn Wallen’s Photography is a 2007 piece in three movements that uses techniques from three centuries earlier. There was a catchy momentum in the idiomatically fugal opening and a strong bass line à la Baroque, quoting Bach indeed, in the more acerbic central movement.
An intriguingly slow pulse in the finale, over a drone bass, picked up pace thanks to the solo double bass – strongly delivered here – before a stirringly rhythmic finish.
But Haydn dominated the evening. It is doubtful that anyone in the audience had ever encountered a concerto soloist playing barefoot. Until now. Lucienne Renaudin Vary skipped onto the platform like a sprite and conducted the concerto herself.
But her demeanour belied the seriousness she gave to the score. Her tone, for example, in the opening Allegro was bright and brittle, similar to a high Bach trumpet, with tight trills and immaculate chromatics. In the slow movement, it was as if she had changed instrument: her tone was now velvety and mellow, allied to long-breathed lines and ultra-smooth control.
The finale used a combination of the two colours. At considerable speed it buzzed with energy, which the orchestra was only too happy to complement. She threw in a bluesy encore for good measure. It all but brought the house down.
Symphony No 93 in D was the first of Haydn’s 12 ‘London’ symphonies, all of them premiered there in the first half of the 1790s. With Humphreys back at the helm, there was a polished clarity in the opening fanfares. But it was the slow movement, introduced gently by a solo quartet, which brought Haydn’s humour to the fore, with a rude bassoon solo poking fun at prim flutes and violins.
After a far from polite minuet, the closing rondo was frankly scintillating. The festival could hardly have ended more brilliantly.
IN Episode 99, Two Big Egos In A Small Carculture podcasters Graham Chalmers and Charles Hutchinson ponder the way forward for news delivery with Sheffield Tribune arts writer Liz Ryan at the dawn of the substack.
Under discussion too are the community play 122 Love Stories at a ghostly Harrogate Theatre; Irish comedian Jason Byrne’s upcoming Unblocked tour show and Bob Dylan’s auction value as a one-off recording is sold as a “work of art”.
Ryedale Festival: Siân Dicker/Krystal Tunnicliffe, Looking West,All Saints’ Church, Hovingham, and Church of St Peter & St Paul, Pickering, July 30
THE penultimate day of Ryedale Festival was mainly concerned with voices.
The mid-morning song recital in Hovingham by the soprano Siân Dicker and the pianist Krystal Tunnicliffe was A Tale Of Two Cities, while the evening in Pickering featured the world premiere of a “concert-theatre” work, Looking West, with music by Julian Philips to a libretto by Rebecca Hurst.
The recital flitted back and forth between London and Paris, cities that clearly excited both performers as they explained early on. Dicker sang in both English and French, clearly enunciating and distinguishing her tone between the two, and Tunnicliffe stayed with her every step of the way. We relished their relish.
Poulenc’s enthusiasm verged on the frenetic, but had its moments of thoughtfulness, and he was touching too about the lovers carrying on while the preachers in Hyde Park were on their soap boxes.
We dipped into Butterworth’s song cycle, Love Blows As The Wind Blows, as we imagined the lover travelling up to Kew from Richmond, and enjoyed Madeleine Dring’s evocation, via Betjeman, of business girls enjoying a hot soak in Camden Town, one of five settings she made of the poet in the year before her death (1977).
We had Debussy evoking beautiful Parisiennes, balanced by Weill’s lament over the hidden depths of the Seine. Walton’s pomp and circumstance at the Lord Mayor’s table was countered by Errolyn Wallen’s pensive London’s Burning.
Mezzo soprano soloist Rebecca Afonwy-Jones. Picture: Robert Workman
Finzi’s jovial setting of Hardy’s Rollicum-Rorum, plus an encore of Richard Rodney Bennett’s Let’s Go And Live In The Country (where the grass is not necessarily greener), rounded off a happy divertissement that was enhanced by four poems, well projected, including James Fenton’s In Paris With You. Dicker has a versatile charisma that should take her a very long way.
The 150th anniversary of the birth of Vaughan Williams was celebrated with the commission of Looking West by the Nova Music Trust and the Presteigne Festival. The latter will show the Welsh premiere but the world premiere was Ryedale’s honour.
The story exists on three historical levels, primarily the life of Saint Bega, an Irish princess who escaped marriage by crossing to St Bees and eventually settling in Northumbria as an anchorite, probably in the mid-9th century. Interest in her was revived by Melvyn Bragg’s novel Credo (1996), based on her life.
A second strand deals with the work of the Cumbrian artist Winifred Nicholson (1893-1981), who apparently left some memorable paintings of St Bees Head. The story is given contemporary relevance by a young pilgrim who makes his way across country starting from there, sharing his travails with the audience. “The spiritual enrichment we can find in the natural world” – a theme dear to the heart of Vaughan Williams – lies at the heart of Philips’ work.
In Nova Music Opera Ensemble’s production, directed by Sally Ripley, the actor Alexander Knox stole the show as the traveller, charting his day-to-day progress in various rambling outfits in an engaging, Jack-the-lad manner.
St Bega was cleanly, smoothly and spiritually sung by mezzo Rebecca Afonwy-Jones, clad in a purple habit tied with a rope, while soprano Rebecca Bottone, in a white smock, played the artist, not quite so clearly which was understandable given the high tessitura of many of her lines. Maddie Purefoy had a less clearly defined role speaking from the pulpit.
The orchestra of eight players played their hearts out under George Vass. Cello and double bass had important roles in some darker textures, but the upper strings came into their own near the end in something like folk style when our traveller danced in jubilation at having completed his journey.
At regular intervals we heard a tape of crashing waves streaked with the cries of seabirds. But the most affecting, intimate moment was a mezzo solo over cello and harp, especially when the instruments turned to pizzicato. The dramatic content was not as powerful as it might have been: most of the drama was left to the orchestra. But the influence of Vaughan Williams was undeniable.
The Cure’s Robert Smith backstage, by Alison O’Neill, from her debut exhibition of 1980s’ music photos at City Screen, York. Copyright: Alison O’Neill
FROM The Cure’s Eighties’ photos to Ayckbourn’s lies, folk, riverside and walls festivals to folk’s future, Charles Hutchinson picks his highlights of the week ahead and beyond.
Exhibition launch of the week: Trapped In The Light, 1980s Music Photos by Alison O’Neill, Sky Lounge, City Screen Picturehouse, York, Sunday to September 10
ALISON O’Neill loved photographing The Cure, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Jesus & Mary Chain and The Cramps in the 1980s, but those black-and-white concert and backstage images have been in hibernation for more than three decades, never exhibited until now.
Why? “Shyness,” she says, but with the encouragement of a photographer friend in Berlin, she is letting those nocturnal photographic encounters see the light of day at last at City Screen.
Play of the week: Alan Ayckbourn’s All Lies, Esk Valley Theatre, Robinson Institute, Glaisdale, near Whitby, until August 27
When the little white lies start:Luke Dayhill and Saskia Strallen as the young couple in Alan Ayckbourn’s All Lies at Esk Valley Theatre. Picture: Steven Barber
FOLLOWING its initial run at the Old Laundry Theatre, Bowness-on-Windermere, in May, Esk Valley Theatre presents the world premiere production of writer-director Alan Ayckbourn’s 86th full-length play.
The setting is 1957/1958, when a when a chance meeting elicits love at first sight! The person of your dreams! But will they feel the same? Once you tell the truth about yourself, will you even be worthy of them? Do you take the plunge and reveal all? Or choose the dangerous alternative and tell them…All Lies?!
Questions, questions, so many Ayckbourn questions, in a play where it may be all lies but the truth is in there somewhere. Box office: 01947 897587.
Inside a tipi at the Boatyard York Festival
New festival of the week: The Boatyard York Summer Festival, Ferry Lane, Bishopthorpe, York, today, 11am to 7pm
THE Boatyard plays host to its first summer riverside festival this weekend, featuring live music from York bands and musicians, such as Up In Smoke, and an array of street food to suit meat eaters and vegetarians alike.
Organised by Eva Brindley, this family-orientated day promises a Punch & Judy show, face-painting, fare stalls and games, ping pong and volleyball, plus canoe, kayak and day boat hire. Look out for the Bosun’s Oven café, wood-fired pizzas and summery drinks from the horsebox bar. Dogs are welcome; entry is free.
Lewis Capaldi: First visit to Scarborough Open Air Theatre since 2019
Outdoor gig of the week; Lewis Capaldi, supported by Wild Youth and Aine Deane, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, Thursday, gates 6pm. CANCELLED
UPDATE: 10/8/2022
LEWIS Capaldi has pulled out of his August 11 gig at Scarborough Open Air Theatre. The reason? Illness.
Ticket holders will be reimbursed fully.
SCOTTISH singer-songwriter Lewis Capaldi spent ten weeks at the top of the charts with his May 2019 debut album, Divinely Inspired To A Hellish Extent. Alas, the wait goes on for the follow-up, and all the while you will find such questions as “Is Lewis Capaldi quitting?” and “What has happened to Lewis Capaldi” on the internet.
In July, the 25-year-old Glaswegian told his Latitude festival audience “I have no new music to play you”, calling himself “horribly lazy” when faced with “needing to finish my new album”. Looks like you will have to make do with Before You Go, Grace, Hollywood, Bruises et al once more on Thursday; the heartbeat of his first visit to Scarborough OAT in 2019 . Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.
Much ado about Nothing & Everything Else…and Z Is For Zelda at Theatre@41
Double bill of the week: Black Sheep Theatre in Nothing & Everything Else/Z Is For Zelda, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, August 10 to 13, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee
SHOWCASING the work of playwright and director Bethany Shilling, the first play is an offbeat comedy about a young woman performing at her very first stand-up comedy open-mic night where she uses the time to check in with herself mentally.
The second is an attempt by Zelda Fitzgerald to share her life story. In doing so, she flits between her polished, performed self and the obscure ramblings that consume her mind. Is she mad or is this the final act of Zelda’s undeniable character? Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Seth Lakeman: Next Saturday’s main-stage headliner at The Magpies Festival. Picture: Tom Griffiths
Folk festival of the week: The Magpies Festival, Sutton Park, Sutton-on-the-Forest, near York, August 12, music from 6pm; August 13, music from 12.30pm
THE Magpies Festival has expanded from one day at last summer’s inaugural event to two in 2022, hosted again by The Magpies’ transatlantic folk trio of Bella Gaffney, Kate Griffin and Holly Brandon, ahead of this autumn’s release of their new album, Undertow.
Next Friday’s line-up will be: Jaywalkers; Elanor Moss; John Smith; Chris Elliott & Caitlin Jones and headliners Rob Heron & The Tea Pad Orchestra. Next Saturday presents Honey & The Bear; Dan Webster Band; Katie Spencer; The People Versus; David Ward Maclean; The Jellyman’s Daughter; Rory Butler; The Magpies plus guests; The 309s; The Drystones and main-stage headliner Seth Lakeman. Look out too for the food market and craft fair. Box office: themagpiesfestival.co.uk/tickets
The poster for York Walls Festival 2022
Heritage event of the week: York Walls Festival 2022 Summer Weekend, August 13 and 14
THE Friends of York Walls will be partnering with York organisations and community groups to tell stories and promote “our shared community, history and heritage” next weekend.
The Friends look after the 500-year-old Fishergate Postern Tower on behalf of City of York Council and it is sure to feature in the festival, along with the Bar walls and Red Tower. For festival updates, head to: yorkwallsfestival.org.
Joshua Burnell & Band: Autumn tour takes in The Crescent in his home city of York. Picture: Elly Lucas
The future of folk: Joshua Burnell & Band, The Crescent, York, October 16, 8pm
JOSHUA Burnell & Band will play a home-city gig at The Crescent on his nine-date folk-fused baroque’n’roll autumn tour.
Multi-instrumentalist singer Burnell will be joined by globe-trotting violinist Frances Archer, guitarist Nathan Greaves, multi-instrumentalist Oliver Whitehouse, drummer Ed Simpson and vocalist Frances Sladen. “Think The War On Drugs meets Seth Lakeman on Ziggy Stardust’s spaceship,” he suggests. Tickets: joshuaburnell.co.uk/tour or ticketweb.co.uk.
Kristy Matheson: New creative director of Edinburgh International Film Festival
EDINBURGH International Film Festival marks its 75th anniversary with a return to a full programme from August 12 to 20 under the leadership of a new creative director.
Back in tandem with the Scottish capital’s myriad festivals this month, the world’s oldest continually running film festival presents 87 new features, 12 short film programmes and two retrospectives in a resumption of a full-on, in-person event after the restrictions and challenges of the pandemic.
Newly at the helm is Kristy Matheson, a creative director looking to make her mark as she follows a raft of artistic directors that established and grew Edinburgh International Film Festival’s global clout.
Among those who contributed to the festival’s long-running success since its foundation in 1947 were journalist and film critic Hannah McGill, artistic director from 2006 to 2010; Mark Cousins, who made a big impact in all-too-brief tenure from 1996 to 1997 before blossoming into an award-winning documentary filmmaker, and Jim Hickey, who steered a golden era from 1981 to 1988.
Before that came Linda Myles, who ran EIFF with remarkable success on a small budget from 1973 to 1980, when she was first woman to occupy such a role at any film festival worldwide.
Not only did she pioneer screenings of the cream of the “New Hollywood” filmmakers of the day, such as Martin Scorsese, but Myles also initiated reappraisals and new viewpoints, most notably “The Women’s Event”, organised in tandem with Claire Johnston and Laura Mulvey at the 1972 EIFF.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the women’s film festival presented by Myles to showcase films made by female directors. In recognition of this ground-breaking event, this summer’s EIFF will play host to Reframing The Gaze, a retrospective programme curated by Kim Knowles.
Kristy Matheson, previously director of film at Australia’s national museum of screen culture, ACMI, is thrilled to be propelling EIFF’s milestone anniversary year. “For our 75th anniversary, we’ve embraced the very essence of cinema: from its production to its exhibition, it’s a truly collective pursuit,” says the creative director.
“Working alongside a talented team of programmers and festival producers to craft our 2022 programme has been joyous. I look forward to welcoming audiences back to EIFF this August.”
The opening gala screening on August 12 will be a home-made product: Aftersun, the debut from Scottish filmmaker Charlotte Wells starring Normal People’s Paul Mescal, that heads homewards buoyed by prize-winning success at Cannes Film Festival.
Further highlights to note are Armağan Ballantyne’s comedy Nude Tuesday, picked for the inaugural Central Gala on August 16, and After Yang, an American metaphysical science-fiction drama written and directed by Kogonada, starring Colin Farrell and Jodi Turner-Smith in the closing gala on August 20.
Look out too for Peter Strickland’s latest work, Flux Gourmet, featuring Asa Butterfield and Gwendoline Christie in the darkly comic tale of a performance art trio participating in an artist residency at the Sonic Catering Institute.
Screenings will take place at the festival’s home on Lothian Road, the Filmhouse, the Cameo Picturehouse, Everyman Edinburgh and Vue Edinburgh Omni.
The second major retrospective will focus on the work of performer and film director Kinuyo Tanaka (1909-1977), who played a key role in the history of Japanese cinema.
Further recommendations are Still Working 9 To 5, a documentary wherein Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin reunite to investigate the fight for women’s rights they kickstarted half a decade ago, and Nothing Compares, Kathryn Ferguson’s documentary about iconoclastic Irish singer Sinead O’Connor.
Renowned for its commitment to internationalism and cultural engagement, EIFF embraces more than film screenings, taking in performances and industry dialogues too.
Presented as a special live performance, The Ballad Of A Great Disordered Heart is a new collaborative film by Lau folk musician Aidan O’Rourke, Becky Manson and former EIFF artistic director Mark Cousins about Edinburgh’s Old Town and the Irish communities who have called it home.
The 2022 festival sees the return of Film Fest In The City in St Andrew’s Square, where the open-air programme offers classics such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Shrek and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
This year’s programme has been brought together by a team of programmers led by Matheson, working alongside Manish Agarwal, Anna Bogutskaya, Rafa Sales Ross, Kate Taylor; animation programmer Abigail Addison; short film programmers Jenny Clarke (narrative) and Rohan Crickmar (non-fiction); black box programmer Lydia Beilby and retrospective curator (2022 Theme) Kim Knowles.
Edinburgh International Film Festival is supported by Screen Scotland; the PLACE Programme (a partnership between the Scottish Government, City of Edinburgh Council and the Edinburgh Festivals); the Scottish Government, through the Festivals Expo Fund and the PLACE Resilience Fund; City of Edinburgh Council; EventScotland, part of VisitScotland’s Events Directorate, and the BFI Audience Fund, awarding National Lottery funding.
Two Big Egos In A Small Car culture vulture podcasters Graham Chalmers and Charles Hutchinson will preview the 2022 Edinburgh International Film Festival in the next episode before squeezing their egos into that compact automobile to head to Scotland next week.
Fran Lebowitz: Opinions aplenty at Grand Opera House, York
CULTURE vultures Graham Chalmers and Charles Hutchinson mull over American writer and Netflix documentary acerbic wit Fran Lebowitz’s night with bite at the Grand Opera House, York, in Episode 98 of Two Big Egos In A Small Car.
Under discussion too are Steve Coogan and Hugh Grant talking politics, The Smile’s detour from Radiohead and the new Suicide compilation.
Bull : York band play Deer Shed Festival 12 on Sunday
MUSIC in meadows and parks, a Viking community play and Osmondmania revisited, knitting and a superstar by the sea are Charles Hutchinson’s alternatives to summer holiday queues at ports.
Festival of the weekend: Deer Shed Festival 12, Baldersby Park, Topcliffe, near Thirsk, today and tomorrow
DEER Shed Festival 12 takes the theme of Pocket Planet, “a celebration of different things from different planets”, spanning live music, DJ sets, comedy, science, Fringe and children’s shows, spoken word, films, sports, workshops and wellbeing.
John Grant, from Buchanan, Michigan, headlines the main stage tonight, preceded by a special guest set from Self Esteem, alias Rebecca Lucy Taylor, from Sheffield/Rotherham. Art-rock Londoners Django Django top Sunday’s bill, backed up by South London post-punk hipsters Dry Cleaning, while York’s ebullient Bull headline the Acorn Stage that night. For ticket details, head to: deershedfestival.com.
The Feeling: Headlining MeadowFest in Malton. Picture: Andy Hughes
The other festival at the weekend: MeadowFest, Talbot Hotel gardens and riverside meadows, Malton, today, 10am to 10pm
MALTON’S boutique midsummer music festival, MeadowFest, welcomes headliners The Feeling, Alistair Griffin, New York Brass Band, Huge and Hyde Family Jam to the main stage.
Performing on the Hay Bale Stage will be Flatcap Carnival, Ross McWhirter, Simon Snaize, George Rowell, Maggie Wakeling, Nick Rooke, The Twisty Turns and Graeme Hargreaves.
Children’s entertainment, inflatables, fairground rides, street food and a festival bar are further attractions. Bring folding chairs, picnics…and well-behaved dogs on leads. Tickets: tickettailor.com/events/visitmalton.
Kate Hampson in the title role of The Coppergate Woman, York Theatre Royal’s summer community play
Play of the week: The Coppergate Woman, York Theatre Royal, today until August 7
IN an ever-changing world, how do we hang on to who we are when the grounds are shifting beneath our feet? How do we look forward and rebuild, when the end times feel ever more real? In the heart of York lies a woman with the answers.
Discovered in a shallow pit by the River Foss, the remains of an unknown woman are displayed in a Jorvik Viking Centre glass cage for all to see. Until, one day, the visitors are no more, the city is quiet and the Coppergate Woman rises again in Maureen Lennon’s community play, directed by Juliet Forster and John R Wilkinson with a cast of 90 led by Kate Hampson. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Crowning glory: Annie Stothert’s papier-mâché sculpture at Blossom Street Gallery
Exhibitions of the week: Colourforms, by Fiona Lane and Claire West; Enchanted Forest, by Annie Stothert, Blossom Street Gallery, York
BLOSSOM Street Gallery has two exhibitions running simultaneously until the end of August.
Colourforms presents brightly coloured paintings by York Open Studios mixed-media artist Fiona Lane and “art to make you smile” painter Claire West, from Beverley. Enchanted Forest brings together a highly imaginative collection of papier-mâché sculptures by Annie Stothert, from Yorkshire, inspired by folklore, myth and fairy tales.
Yoshika Colwell: Knitting together music, metaphysics and words in Invisible Mending at the Stilly Fringe
Edinburgh Fringe taster of the week: Yoshika Colwell in Invisible Mending, Stilly Fringe, At The Mill, Stillington, near York, Sunday, 7pm
IN the summer of 2020 as a pandemic raged, Yoshika Colwell was processing the death of her beloved grandmother, Ann. A woman of few words, Ann’s main outlet was her glorious, virtuosic knitting. As she approached the end of her life, Ann started a project with no pattern and no end goal.
Yoshika takes up this piece where Ann left off, creating a show about love, grief and knitting with fellow experimental music/theatre-maker Max Barton, from Second Body. Original music, metaphysics and verbatim material combine to explore the power in small acts of creativity. Box office: atthemill.org.
How they became big in the Seventies: The Osmonds: A New Musical tells the family story in song at the Grand Opera House, York
Musical of the week: The Osmonds: A New Musical, Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday to Saturday
YOU loved them for a reason. Now, for the first time, family drummer Jay Osmond turns his story into a family drama on the musical stage, offering the chance to re-live the ups and downs, the hits and the hysteria of the clean-living Seventies’ boy band from Utah, USA.
Directed by Shaun Kerrison and choreographed by Olivier Award-winning Bill Deamer, this is Jay’s official account of how five brothers born into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints faith were pushed into the spotlight as children on the Andy Williams Show and the hits then flowed, Crazy Horses, Let Me In et al. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or atgtickets.com/York.
Christina Aguilera: Biggest American female star to play Scarborough Open Air Theatre since Britney Spears
American superstar grand entrance of the week: Christina Aguilera, supported by Union J, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, Tuesday, gates open at 6pm
CHRISTINA Aguilera piles up the Billboard Hot 100 hits, the Grammy awards and the 43 million record sales, to go with the star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the honour of being the only artist under the age of 30 to feature in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 greatest singers of all time.
Add to those accolades her coaching on NBC’s The Voice and her role as a global spokesperson for World Hunger Relief. Tuesday, however, is all about Genie In A Bottle, Beautiful, What A Girl Wants, Dirty and Fighter. Box office: scarboroughopenairtheatre.com.
Kate Pettitt: Kate Pettitt: One of the artists taking part in Arnup Studios Summer Open Weekend. Picture: Olivia Brabbs
Open studios of the week: Arnup Studios Summer Open Weekend, Panman Lane, Holtby, near York, August 6 and 7, 10am to 5pm
ARNUP Studios open their countryside doors for a weekend of art, craft and, fingers crossed, summer sunshine.
Once the home and workplace of the late potter and sculptor Mick and Sally Arnup, Arnup Studios are now run by daughter and stoneware potter Hannah, who oversaw their renovation. Liz Foster, Michelle Galloway, Kate Pettitt, Reg Walker, Emma Welsh and Hannah all have working studios there.
All but abstract sculptor Reg of these resident artists will be taking part, showing a mix of painting, print, drawing, ceramics and jewellery. They will be on hand to discuss their work and share processes and techniques with visitors, who are invitated to buy original one-off pieces of art and craft, smaller gifts and cards direct from the makers or simply to browse and enjoy the day.
As well as a small carpark on site, free on-street parking is available in the village. The studios are bike and dog friendly; families are welcome.
Stephen Kovacevich: “Hearing him in solo recital was a rare opportunity”
Ryedale Festival: Stephen Kovacevich, Duncombe Park, July 28
THIS was the second of two remarkable, and remarkably different, piano recitals during Ryedale’s second week.
Stephen Kovacevich will celebrate his 82nd birthday in October. He has been a fixture on the musical scene for 60 years and has lived in Hampstead for many years, so he is practically one of us.
Hearing him in solo recital was a rare opportunity, since these days you are more likely to hear him in chamber music or duetting with his long-time friend Martha Argerich (now there’s a thought for a future festival).
His programme opened with Berg’s single-movement sonata, continued with Beethoven’s penultimate sonata, Op 110 in A flat (not the advertised Op 109) and ended with Schubert’s final sonata, D.960 in B flat.
The piano sonata was far from being Berg’s earliest work – he finished it in 1909 at the age of 24 – but he called Op 1. In it he kindles the dying embers of romanticism, showing himself wrestling with the (for him) magnetic tug of atonality.
Kovacevich presented the theme and its offshoots with a clarity it hardly deserved, so that it was possible to pick out some logic in Berg’s machinations. Whether the rubato he employed was supposed to be part of the original deal is open to question but it certainly helped this listener. The work would not have been many people’s choice of opener, on either side of the platform, but it worked here.
Nevertheless, moving back to the purer tonality of Beethoven came as something of a relief. Kovacevich’s last-minute change of sonata – excused by a recent bout of Covid – was something of a mystery, because his opening movement was wayward. Marked ‘con amabilità’ (lovingly), it was certainly caressed, but it also rambled and some of the runs were too fast for their own clarity.
Kovacevich came back into better focus with the scherzo, which was percussive to the point of anger in its C major sections. The trio was hardly less forceful and he coped admirably with its abrupt leaps.
The finale is a tricky mixture – and sounded it. Its slow opening and elegiac first arioso led smoothly into the first fugue, which was impressively delivered, with special clarity in the left hand. The second arioso was less comfortable and led into an aggressive second fugue, untidily banged out in places, even though it ended convincingly enough. This was not so much faltering technique as the idiosyncrasies that come with age, undeniably reminiscent of Horowitz in his later years.
We looked for recompense in Schubert after the interval. It came, gradually at first, reaching full flowering in a finale that was by far his best movement of the evening. The sonata, for all its use of the major key, is clouded with the darkness of Schubert’s knowledge that he had not long to live (he died two months later, at the age of 31).
Its otherwise soothing melodies also conveyed doubt here, in the dark, low trill near the start, for example. There was a well-worked acceleration when the main theme was repeated, but the first movement ended in a beautiful calm.
The dotted rhythms of the Andante were almost Baroque, but its answering theme was too hasty, lacking nobility, even if the later key-changes were negotiated persuasively. The Scherzo was a little rough at the edges, but it was a warm-up for a finale whose drama dazzled. This was the Kovacevich we had been waiting for and it did not disappoint in any way.
The Gesualdo Six: Performed in the Chapel at Castle Howard. Picture: Ash Mills
Ryedale Festival: Triple Concert, Ashley Riches; The Gesualdo Six; Joseph Shiner and the Barbican Quartet, Castle Howard, July 27
TICKETS were once again like gold dust for the triple concert in three locations at Castle Howard. Ashley Riches sang in the Long Gallery, accompanied by Joseph Middleton, the Gesualdo Six appeared in the Chapel, and clarinettist Joseph Shiner and the Barbican Quartet played in the Great Hall. This was the satisfying order in which I heard them.
Riches, who hails from this part of the world but has gone onto widespread conquests, boasts a dark basso quality to his baritone and put it to excellent use in his wide-ranging exploration of the animal world, A Musical Zoo.
His German group began pleasingly with Schubert’s Die Forelle (The Trout) and Brahms’ injunction to the nightingale to pipe down, but his legato only took full shape in Strauss’ lament for the thrush that dies in its cage.
Where his German in Wolf’s Der Rattenfänger (The Ratcatcher) was a touch wayward, his French group was on a much higher plane. Fauré’s waltz-dialogue between butterfly and flower was utterly charming, as were the solitary, rhapsodic cricket of Ravel and De Sévérac’s serene owls.
So, to England, with another nightingale soothing away the sorrows of King David, in Howells’ setting of Walter de la Mare. Its solemnity was instantly dispelled by Vernon Duke’s treatment of Ogden Nash’s musical zoo, where Riches was a veritable chameleon in his colourings of the epigrams, with an American accent into the bargain.
The Gesualdo Six under Owain Park, who also delivers a deep bass, gave a programme of slow music suitable for the Anglican office of compline, the last service of the day. It proved confusing because they omitted three-quarters of the Hildegard plainsong printed in the programme and merged the two following pieces so that their boundaries were unclear.
That aside, they were as impressive as ever, neatly blended and precisely tuned. Tallis’s evening hymn Te Lucis led nicely into Byrd’s Miserere Mihi, Domine, which was followed in turn by Look Down, O Lord, by Jonathan Seers – British, but little-known here because of being based in Germany for many years – whose setting of the Elizabethan William Leighton was a model of anguished harmony.
Nicolas Gombert’s relentlessly remorseful Media Vita started in the deepest, darkest tones. Park’s own Hail, Gladdening Light fell short of the famous setting by Charles Wood, but The Wind’s Warning, a setting of Ivor Gurney by Alison Willis, complete with whooshing gusts, was powerful. Some tortuous harmony in night settings by Reger and Rheinberger was safely negotiated. Beautiful though this programme was, it needed a little more variety for full effect.
So, to Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet in the Great Hall. Joseph Shiner’s clarinet was both lithe and intimate. The way, for example, that he melted back into the first movement recapitulation was exquisite and there was also a special serenity when the slow movement theme reappeared.
The minuet’s second trio had a special swagger, contrasting with the quartet’s account of the first one, where the clarinet is silent. Shiner played games with the early variations in the finale, so that when the break came – with the Adagio interlude – it was all the more effective, and the closing bars breathed wonderfully.
The strings were very much in cahoots with him and maintained a fine balance throughout. A lovely conclusion to a rewarding evening.
Alexander Flanagan Wright, left, Phil Grainger and Megan Drury in The Gods The Gods The Gods
WHY call this Wright & Grainger show The Gods The Gods The Gods, rather than plain old The Gods?
“A lot of things come in threes and a lot of things in this show fall naturally into threes,” reasons Alexander Flangan Wright, the Wright to Phil Grainger’s Grainger in this enduring Easingwold partnership.
“It’s one of those powerful numbers: a triad, with the three of us telling the story.” Make that Grainger & Wright & Drury, the trio being completed by Megan Drury, Australian actor, blues singer, writer, creative artists and dramaturg – oh, and newly married to Alex too.
The Gods The Gods Gods is the third in the trilogy of myth, music and spoken word shows by Grainger & Wright, premiered in a Covid-curtailed Australian visit in 2020 and now following Orpheus and Eurydice into open-air performances under the sails at Stillington Mill, near York.
The Gods X 3 will be heading indoors at the Edinburgh Fringe, with lighting pyrotechnics re-booted in the Assembly Rooms’ Bijou tent from August 3 to 29, when this dancier variation on gig theatre will carry the warnings: “Audience participation, Involves walking, Strobe lighting, Strong language/swearing”.
Saturday night was rather more informal, Alex, Phil and Megan testing out their hi-tech electronic requirements, spread out in a triangle of stations of equipment, as the audience gathered on the banks of seating. “Still not the show,” Alex would say, as another adjustment was made.
Such is the nature of a Fringe warm-up and of a first performance in this al-fresco iteration minus the probing strobe lighting. It was all very much in keeping with the spirit of At The Mill, where theatrical magic is made on the hoof, aided by Abbigail Ollive’s pizzas adding culinary pizzazz to the occasion and cocktails playing on the tongue.
Still doing the Maths, The Gods The Gods The Gods is in fact four, not three, stories, spread over 11 original musical tracks arranged by Grainger and Tom Figgins. They are stories of faith and loss of faith; love and loss of love; faith in anything but religious faith; false gods and new gods; a search for holy ground or finding heaven on earth. All set against a final council of the old Gods, Zeus and co, gathering at the end of days.
As Wright elucidated at the close, they are stories grown freshly from the seeds of Kae Tempest, Walt Whitman and David Whyte (Finisterre), and the messages on 28 signs posted on London’s Millennium Bridge, read by Alex and Megan as they crossed over between St Paul’s Cathedral and Tate Modern, the towers of God and gallery, religion and art, that now do battle in The Gods The Gods The Gods.
Phil plays guitar and sings mightily yet tenderly, a Yorkshireman as soulful as Joe Cocker and John Newman; Megan throws shapes and switches between heartfelt spoken word and blues singing that brings out the bruises; Alex plays bass and percussion and spins words of dazzling rhythm, breath-taking in their imagery and rapper’s speed. All three tap away at technology too, evoking Kraftwerk.
Grainger & Wright promised a big, loud, bopping night in the garden – and delivered exactly that. In every way it is the biggest show of the trilogy; the spoken word now complemented by a broader musical palette that combines classic songwriting tropes and lyricism with dancefloor pulses and electronic flash to induce a state of euphoria.
Alas, more Gods than advertised played their hand as the night darkened: the Weather Gods raining on the parade – and all that technology – with one story yet to be completed. Suddenly, the night “involved walking” as we were ushered to the café bar, where Wright gave a resumé of the closing chapters, finishing with that inspirational walk across the London bridge. Trouble at The Mill? Not when they can improvise like that.
An album is in the offing too, and that won’t be in the lap – or laptop- of the Gods, the Gods, the Gods.
Holly Beasley-Garrigan in Opal Fruits, tonight at 7pm
THE Stilly Fringe presents Opal Fruits, Holly Beasley-Garrigan’s solo show about class, nostalgia and five generations of women from a London council estate in South London, tonight at 7pm; Casey Jay Andrews’ The Wild Unfeeling World, a tender, furious and fragile re-imagining of Moby Dick, and A Place That belongs To Monsters, a re-imagining of The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse, tomorrow at 7pm and 8.45pm respectively.
Lucy Bird, originally from Ampleforth, heads back north with her Birmingham company Paperback Theatre for an “utterly Brummie” re-telling of The Wind In The Willows on July 30 at 2.30pm and 7.30pm.
Yoshika Colwell returns to The Mill for the Stilly Fringe finale, Invisible Mending, her exploration of the power in small acts of creativity through original music, metaphysics and verbatim material, in collaboration with Second Body’s Max Barton, on July 31 at 7pm.
