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.”
YORK Late Music pays tribute on Saturday to two British composers: a major name and an unjustly forgotten figure who is surely due for a revival.
The evening concert, A New Matrix, has been planned as a tribute to Sir Harrison Birtwistle, who died in April 2021. Birtwistle was a colossus in contemporary music, especially opera, whose influence was worldwide.
Based around the clarinet, the 7.30pm programme also acknowledges the work of York musician Alan Hacker, who was a long-term friend and musical associate of Birtwistle, and who taught many of those involved in this weekend’s performance.
Alongside Birtwistle’s work, the programme includes pieces by Messaien (whom Birtwistle acknowledged as an influence) and Peter Maxwell Davies, as well as a series of short pieces composed following Birtwistle’s death.
Guitarist Federico Pendenza
The lunchtime concert (1pm) celebrates the work of Reginald Smith Brindle, who died in 2003. A Lancastrian, like Birtwistle, Smith Brindle’s eclectic output included two symphonies, although he is now best known for his solo guitar work.
Guitarist Federico Pendenza, from the University of York, will be playing four works by Smith Brindle, pieces by Poulenc and a Chris Gander world premiere.
Both concerts are at Late Music’s usual venue, the Unitarian Chapel in St Saviourgate, York. The evening event will follow a 6.45pm talk by composer David Lancaster, with a complimentary glass of wine or juice.
Lunchtime concert tickets cost £5; evening, £12, students £5, at latemusic.org or on the door
Ian Pace: Tireless campaigner for composers of the past 100 years
Late Music: Ian Pace, Xenakis Centenary Concert, Composers With A Side Hustle, St Saviourgate Unitarian Chapel York, 1/4/2023
OSTENSIBLY a Xenakis centenary celebration, this recital had an intriguing sub-title: Composers With A Side Hustle. All six of the composers involved had day jobs until music took over. Xenakis himself was a professional architect working with Le Corbusier in Paris.
Ian Pace has been a tireless campaigner for composers of the past hundred years, including music that is barely dry on the page. He has appeared regularly in the Late Music series in York for over two decades.
He opened with Xenakis’s Mists (1980), a collection of cameos in which his staccato touch maintained immense clarity, even amongst the busiest of textures, often at the top of the keyboard.
A much earlier work, Chansons I-VI (1950-1), written when music was still a sideline for him, found Xenakis in lyrical vein and still strongly influenced by music of his Romanian childhood and Greek parentage. All the songs had a French tinge, boasting a certain joie de vivre when not reflective. Pace invested their melodies with pleasing immediacy.
Completing his Xenakis tribute, Pace gave the composer’s homage to Ravel, À.r. (1987), a virtuoso flourish to end a stimulating evening.
In between, we visited four American composers as well as our own James Williamson. Philip Glass (cab driver and plumber) wrote Knee Play 4 as a piano transcription of one of the five linking intermezzos from his opera Einstein On The Beach. It was both tonal and minimal, but Pace found a way to bring out its inner voices.
Morton Feldman’s (clothes manufacturer) Extensions 3 was extremely delicate, toying with the limits of audibility until its crashing closing chords.
Minimalism is also a stimulus in the work of Williamson (insurance claims handler), as heard here in his new Neon (2023). Tiny changes in repeating motifs in the centre of the piano were mesmeric, until twice interrupted by loud, separated chords which were like blobs of colour on the canvas. Each time the opening recurred, it brought illumination, although it was more like moonlight than anything gassy like neon. What’s a title anyway?
Pace filled out his programme with an amusing potpourri of Charles Ives (insurance agent), arguably the forefather of all the Americans here. It included a Bach-style invention, a solemn chorale and a parody of salon music, all given nicely tongue-in-cheek.
Finally, there was John Cage (graphic designer and mycologist). In his minimalist Satie-inspired In A Landscape (1948), Pace picked out its two melodies from the subtly shifting accents. Yet again he had proved an invaluable missionary for music that might otherwise be forgotten.
York Ice Trail: Taking the theme of A Journey Through Time in 2023
AS the new Ice Age dawns in the city centre, Charles Hutchinson has advice on winter warmers to discover.
Free event of the week: York Ice Trail, York city centre, today and tomorrow, from 10am
YORK Ice Trail’s theme for 2023 invites city-centre visitors to time-travel to prehistoric ages, walk through history and step into the future for A Journey Through Time.
Organised by Make It York, the free trail features ice sculptures sponsored and conceived by York businesses and designed and made by ice specialists Icebox for a second year. Look out for the National Railway Museum’s interactive sculpture in High Petergate celebrating Flying Scotsman’s centenary, one of 36 sculptures standing to attention in York’s streets this weekend. Icebox will be doing live ice carving at St Sampson’s Square.
Free trail maps will be available from the Visitor Information Centre on Parliament Street or can be downloaded online at visityork.org/ice.
The poster for Fool(ish)’s improvised comedy show Fooling Around
Hot date of the week: Fool(ish) in Fooling Around, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, Tuesday, 7.30pm
JOIN Fool(ish) for Fooling Around, an improvised romantic comedy cum early Valentine’s evening of love, laughter and hand-crafted chaos. Taking audience stories and suggestions, the Chicago-trained York improvisers create a spontaneous series of inspired love-scenes.
From first dates to happy never afters, Fooling Around aims to sweep you off your feet in its off-the-cuff Yorkshire twist on American long-form comedy on the theme of dreams, desires and total disasters. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
Platform for song:Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company’s Hello, Dolly! cast members Jamie Benson as Barnaby Tucker, left, Helen Spencer as Dolly Levi and Stuart Sellens as Cornelius Hackl
Musical of the week: Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company in Hello, Dolly!, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, February 8 to 11, 7.30pm and 2.30pm Saturday matinee
KATHRYN Lay makes her JRTC directorial debut alongside musical director husband Martin Lay as the Joseph Rowntree Theatre’s in-house fundraising company kicks off the Haxby Road theatre’s spring season with glitz, glamour and a troupe of tap-dancing waiters in the Broadway classic Hello, Dolly!
Featuring Put On Your Sunday Clothes, It Only Takes A Moment and the title number, Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart’s musical is the JRTC’s most ambitious production to date. NHS psychiatrist Helen Spencer plays Dolly Levi, the strong-willed widow and self-proclaimed match-making meddler, who strives to woo tight-fisted millionaire Horace Vandergelder while spreading joy and confusion among everyone she encounters in 1885 New York. Box office:01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Reflective:Harry Baker will be feeling Unashamed at The Crescent, York
Poet of the week: Say Owt presents Harry Baker: Unashamed, The Crescent, York, Wednesday, doors, 7.30pm
WORLD poetry slam champion, poet and maths graduate Harry Baker likes to write about the “important stuff”. Hope, dinosaurs, German falafel-spoons and such like.
His work has been shared on TED.com and viewed millions of times worldwide, as well as being translated into 21 languages. Post pandemic lockdowns, he is delighted to be back on stage with his “most heartfelt, playful, unashamedly Harry Bakery” show to date. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
Richard Dawson: The past, present and future is here at Selby Town Hall
One for the future: Mediale presents: Richard Dawson, Selby Town Hall, February 11, doors, 8pm; on stage, 8.30pm; no support act
AUDACIOUS Northumbrian psych-folk and exploratory rock singer-songwriter Richard Dawson is welcomed to Selby Town Hall for the opening night of Selby Creates’ winter arts programme.
Dawson will be showcasing his latest album, last November’s The Ruby Cord, a grim, sinister vision of times ahead that journeys into an immersive, solipsistic metaverse 500 years from now to complete a trilogy focused on the medieval past (on Peasant), the present (on 2020) and the sci-fi future. Box office: selbytownhall.co.uk.
Steve Knightley: New one-man show in Pocklington
Solo venture of the week: Steve Knightley, Pocklington Arts Centre, February 11, 8pm
ONE half of folk/roots duo Show Of Hands since 1992, Steve Knightley will be performing material that surfaced over two years of isolation and inactivity in his new one-man show.
Insights, anecdotes and a bunch of new songs will attempt to chronicle and draw a line under an “extra episode in all our lives”, alongside Knightley’s headline-refreshed renditions of Bristol Slaver and You’ll Get By and covers of Forever Young and The Boys Of Summer. Box office: 01759 301547 or pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Resol String Quartet: Stepping in for the Fitzwilliam String Quartet tonight
Late replacement of the week: Late Music presents Music On The Edge: The Lapins, today, 1pm; Resol String Quartet, tonight, 7.30pm, both at Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, York
AFTER the Fitzwilliam String Quartet unavoidably had to pull out of Late Music’s February evening concert, Fitzwilliam viola player Alan George has found a replacement quartet at very short notice. Step forward the Resol String Quartet, formed at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2018.
“They came up to St Andrews for a masterclass with us – plus a concert in the town a few weeks later – and everyone was very impressed,” says Alan. “We’ve already recommended them for our university series.”
Resol String Quartet’s alternative programme of string quartet music for tonight features works by Haydn, Julian Broughton and Beethoven and Alasdair Morton-Teng’s arrangements of traditional tunes.
Late Music’s February brace of concerts opens with The Lapins – Susie Hodder-Williams, flute, Chris Caldwell, saxophone, and James Boyd, guitar – performing Music On The Edge at lunchtime.
World premieres of David Lancaster’s Au Lapin Agile, Gwilym Simcock’s Suite for Solo Flute and new works by David Power and Hayley Jenkins will be complemented by the British premiere of Athena Corcoran-Tadd’s Confluence (Hope Is A Boat) and Bach and Tippett pieces. Box office: latemusic.org or on the door.
The Lapins: Performing Music On The Edge at Late Music’s afternoon concert today
Relaxing afternoon: Lillian Hetherington, Mille Mazzone and Michael Capecci,Dementia Friendly Tea Concert, St Chad’s Church, Campleshon Road, York, February 16, 2.30pm
UNIVERSITY of York music students Lillian Hetherington, Mille Mazzone and Michael Capecci play violin and piano works by Wieniawski, Schostakovich and Dvorak.
As usual, 45 minutes of music will be followed by tea and homemade cakes in the church hall in a relaxed afternoon gathering ideal for those who may not feel comfortable at a formal classical concert. No charge but donations are welcome for hire costs and Alzheimer’s charities.
Re-enchanted: Josie Long at the double at The Crescent. Picture: Matt Crockett
Longer time in York: Burning Duck Comedy Club presents Josie Long: Re-Enchantment extra matinee, The Crescent, York, February 18, 3pm
AFTER her 7.30pm gig sold out – as had her last appearance at The Crescent in Lefty Scum – comedian Josie Long has added a matinee performance of Re-Enchantment. Inspired by London feminist writer Lola Olufemi’s sentiment that “after defeat, re-enchantment is necessary”, Josie’s new stand-up set is infused with humanity, compassion and some brief political rants.
The triple Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee, underdog Fringe hero and delirious new mother returns with a show about the changes wrought by time, passion, moving to Scotland and loving the world under – let’s face it – difficult circumstances.
“Josie is one of our all-time favourite comedians, so we’re very excited to bring her new show to York and add an extra matinee show as well,” says Burning Duck promoter Al Greaves. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.
In Focus: York Ice Trail’s 36 sculptures this weekend
A Journey Through Time, Parliament Street – Make It York
Growing The Future, Parliament Street – Dalby Forest
Cash-asaurus T-Rex, Parliament Street – YorkMix Radio
York to London Skyline, Parliament Street – Grand Central
Atey Ate Miles Per Hour, High Ousegate – Ate O’Clock
121 years of making magic, Spurriergate – Grand Opera House, York
Every Moment Matters, North Street – Park Inn by Radisson
Where ever I lay my hat…. , Station Rise – The Grand, York
100 years of LNER, Station Road – LNER
York Quest App: The Roman, Micklegate – York BID
The Enchanted Unicorn, Middletons – The Hole In Wand
Ginny the Dragon, Middletons – York Gin
20,000 Leagues Under the Ouse, Middletons – City Cruises
The Monstrous Chimera, Middletons – Middletons
York Quest App: The Butcher, Kings Staith – York BID
Coppergate Viking, Coppergate Centre – Coppergate Centre
E.T. Comes Home, Piccadilly – Spark: York
York Quest App: Dick Turpin, Walmgate – York BID
Adventure Is Out There, The Stonebow – Hiscox
York’s Chocolate Story Clock, Kings Square – York’s Chocolate Story
Erupted Volcano, Grape Lane – Lucia Bar
The York Rose Diamond by Kay Bradley, Low Petergate – Bradley’s Jewellers
Minus 200 Degrees Coffee, Low Petergate – 200 Degrees Coffee
York Quest App: Anne Lister, Goodramgate – York BID
Gothic Grotesque, Minster Piazza – York Minster
Celebrating 100 years of Flying Scotsman, High Petergate – National Railway Museum
York Quest App: Guy Fawkes, Gillygate – York BID
The Pearly Cow, Clifton – No .1 Guesthouse
Layers of Time, Exhibition Square, St Leonard’s Place – North York Moors National Park
York Quest App: Wally Herbert, Museum Street – York BID
Ryedale Roman Hoard, Museum Gardens – Yorkshire Museums Trust
Greek Minotaur, Lendal – The Judge’s Lodging
Busloads To Love!, St Helen’s Square – York Park & Ride
The Bettys Express Train, Davygate – Bettys
Fire Breathing Dinosaur, St Sampson’s Square – Cut and Craft
Live Carving by Icebox, St Sampson’s Square – York Ice Trail
Fact File
THE last York Ice Trail took place in March 2022 after a pandemic-enforced one-year hiatus. More than 40 ice sculptures lined the city streets, with 25,000 people participating in the trail.
Post-pandemic, York Ice Trail appealed to more residents than pre-pandemic in 2020, increasing from 23 per cent to 39 per cent.
Highlights
THE grounds of Middletons Hotel will be transformed into a mystical world of mythology, including four ice sculptures and photo opportunities throughout the day. York Gin, City Cruises and The Potions Cauldron will be on site, with crafts, competitions and surprise creatures.
Sister proper The Judges Lodgings features an ice sculpture too. Check out the Thwaites Shire Horses in all their finery.
On the anniversary front, the National Railway Museum celebrates Flying Scotsman’s centenary with an interactive sculpture. The Grand Opera House marks 121 years of making musical magic and LNER highlights its 100-year milestone.
York’s chocolate heritage will be rendered in ice with York’s Chocolate Story’s working Terry’s Clock Tower with a hot chocolate twist.
Learn more about York’s history with York BID’s six sculptures, all inspired by York historical figures that can be found on the York Quest app.
Busloads To Love, by main sponsor York Park & Ride, offers the chance to be the driver and take a selfie. The sculpture, celebrating the importance of the bus in public transport, will be situated on St Helen’s Square.
Travel from York to London with Grand Central’s Skyline sculpture, or be transported into another space and dimension with Hiscox’s adventure-bound sit-on space shuttle. For those wanting to go back to the future, discover Ate O’Clock’s DeLorean-inspired Atey Ate Miles Per Hour sculpture.
Live ice carving across the weekend at St Sampson’s Square will show how Icebox’s sculptors bring the ice trail to life.
Quotes
Sarah Loftus, Make It York managing director, says: “York Ice Trail 2023 will spark imaginations, transporting visitors across time and dimension from sculpture to sculpture. Our ice partners at Icebox have done a phenomenal job at bringing the ideas to life and we can’t wait to see all 36 sculptures line the streets of York.”
Councillor Keith Aspden, City of York Council leader, says: “The York Ice Trail brings imaginative, ‘cool’ and unique sculptures to York’s streets and is much loved by residents and visitors, so it’s excellent to see the event return once again. This year’s theme and creations are paying a fitting tribute to York’s rich history and imagination of our local businesses.”
Greg Pittard, Icebox managing director, says: “It is our privilege to be returning as the sculptors for the second year for York Ice Trail 2023. From mammoths to DeLoreans, the carvers have been working non-stop since late-August to deliver A Journey Through Time. This year’s theme has inspired some incredible designs and we can’t wait to unveil all of this year’s ice creations.”
John Godfrey, of First Bus in York, says: “We would encourage everyone planning to come and enjoy the Ice Trail to think about sustainable travel to get here and consider leaving the car at home or using the Park and Ride network. This helps avoid congestion, which makes travel around York easier, especially with such an event creating a bustling and lively atmosphere.”
Late Music presents Gemini, Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, York, December 3
NICOLAS LeFanu’s 75th birthday earlier this year was celebrated in fine style by one of our most distinguished and long-lived groups, Gemini, itself only a year short of its half-century. Two of her own works framed eight others, including one by her husband David Lumsdaine.
Gemini is a flexible ensemble led from the clarinet by Ian Mitchell. Here he was joined by a piano trio for the premiere of LeFanu’s appropriately titled Gemini Quartet, newly commissioned and written only this summer.
As an opener it was designed to reflect how we welcome others, in a dozen or so brief “bagatelles” (her word), some of only a few seconds. It charms with surprises, moving seamlessly between comfort and anguish, impressionism and rhythm, sometimes noisy, more often gentle, using the instruments in a variety of different groupings. Gemini delivered it with loving care. I could only have wished its 13 minutes had lasted longer.
At the end of the evening, more than two hours later, we heard her Piano Trio of 2003. Its single movement is rhapsodic, all its material developed from high harmonics and tremolos, which are soon amplified by a piano solo. It charts a fascinating course between nerviness and relaxation, the two moods changing between strings and piano, as dialogue influences their responses to one another.
As always with LeFanu, her orchestration is imaginative. It eventually reaches a harmonious conclusion, with trills in the piano as the strings disappear into the ether. Gemini interacted intuitively throughout.
Only a handful of the other works on the programme reached these levels. One of them was another premiere, David Lancaster’s Hell’s Bells Bagatelles, inspired by church bells, especially those of York Minster, and conceived over the last five years.
In his words, its five sections may reflect ecstasy or doom, but within those extremes his use of rhythm verges on dance most appealingly and pizzicato cleverly and regularly evokes the percussive ping of bells.
Lumsdaine’s Blue Upon Blue (1991), for unaccompanied cello, also fell pleasingly on the ear, combining slow melody with more urgent, un-tuned ‘commentary’ from wood, gut and hair, and transitioning between the two by means of glissandos. Sophie Harris teased out its essential lyricism with focused intensity.
Thomas Adès’s suite from his 2005 opera The Tempest was predictably clear-cut in its reactions to six Shakespearean scenarios, always with an ear to vocal characteristics in the four instruments.
Space forbids discussion of the other works, most of which fell into the category of vignettes. For the record they included two pieces without piano, Dorothy Ker’s Water Mountain (1999) and Blaze And Fall (2017) by Charlotte Bray, Martin Suckling’s Three Venus Haikus (2009), setting poetry by George Bruce, and two lockdown pieces for solo piano (Aleksander Szram) by Janet Graham, Church Blackbird and Advent Thoughts. All had something positive to offer.
But most of all we were reminded just how valuable an asset Nicola LeFanu is to York, Yorkshire and well beyond. Many happy returns!
Nicholas Carter: Musical director of the Micklegate Singers
Late Music presents Micklegate Singers, Unitarian Chapel, St Saviouragte, York, December 3
LATE Music’s latest double-header – two concerts in one day on the first Saturday of autumn and winter months – welcomed the Micklegate Singers under Nicholas Carter at mid-day.
They belong under the Late Music umbrella: they established a reputation early on, under their founder-director Dennis Freeborn, for tackling new and often challenging repertoire.
This one was seasonal, entitled And There Were Shepherds…, but wisely included several Renaissance pieces alongside some 20th century favourites and others on which the ink was barely dry, the most recent being a new commission from James Else enjoying its premiere.
The Road Of Evening is a setting of Walter de la Mare’s Nod, which speaks of an old shepherd and his dog, Slumber-soon, and by inference of God tending his flock through the ages. Its Christmas message is negligible, but Else’s modal evocation of serene solitude is effective, if without focusing on any one aspect of the poetry.
Another premiere came with Absence, a setting by Joe Bates of various texts taken from William Penn’s More Fruits Of Solitude. This was the second of three pieces commissioned by the Micklegates from student composers at the University of York.
Bates’s penchant for parallel fifths is reminiscent of Vaughan Williams, although his use of two texts in conjunction, one in female voices, one in male, is certainly unusual – but it works. Humming later contributes to a sense of resolution from the conflicts of life; again, not specifically seasonal, but offering imaginative food for thought.
There were four other 21st century pieces. Bob Chilcott’s moving setting of Clive Sansom’s The Shepherd’s Carol (2000) was smoothly atmospheric, while the angular lines and bouncy rhythms of Cecilia McDowall’s Now May We Singen (2008) were the best projected of the evening.
The climax of U A Fanthorpe’s stunning poem BC – AD was not quite captured by David Bednall’s chordal setting of 2013. More effectively meditative was Alexander L’Estrange’s Epiphany Carol of the same year.
A Jonathan Dove lullaby joined other established favourites by Holst, Leighton, Poulenc and Richard Rodney Bennett, whose sensitivity to words was especially notable. The three Renaissance pieces, healthy reminders of a 500-year tradition of Christmas music, were by Palestrina, Lassus and Dering, all keenly negotiated.
The Micklegates tended to go easy on their diction in slower numbers, but in general we should rejoice that they are back from lockdown in fine fettle.
The Elysian Singers: “Intelligent programme linked settings by different composers of the same or similar texts”
ALTHOUGH unable to welcome back Late Music last month due to an unfortunate clash, I do so now with open arms.
Steve Crowther has had to work miracles to keep Late Music afloat and bring it back into action, and he will doubtless feel amply rewarded by the appearance of the London-based Elysian Singers and the excellent turnout they elicited.
Their intelligent programme, directed by Sam Laughton, linked settings by different composers of the same or similar texts. The result stretched back as far as the 13th century, but was brought right up to date with three new commissions.
Part of Psalm 95, taken from Rachmaninov’s Russian orthodox treatment of the All-Night Vigil, inspired Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s effective Bogoroditse Devo (Rejoice, O Virgin), which was essentially tonal and included a gently rolling alto line underpinning a soprano melody. Both were sung in Russian.
The anonymous mediaeval setting of Edi Beo Thu, Hevene Quene (Blessed Are You, Queen Of Heaven) was picked up in Kerry Andrew’s setting, which she additionally framed with the words ‘O virgo splendens’. Her spare harmonies, although unmistakeably modern, reflected the early setting’s approach. The choir treated its triplet figures smoothly.
There were echoes of the past, too, in the next piece. Tom Armstrong’s setting of Emily Brontë’s poem No Coward Soul Is Mine, here enjoying its premiere, uses antiphons from Vespers for Whit Sunday, so that the text emerges in striking unisons, thereby gaining emphasis, an extraordinarily powerful effect.
Brontë enjoyed a strong Christian faith, fearless about death; Armstrong clearly senses this. He uses techniques of imitation and overlapping lines, sometimes giving the plainsong slow treatment in the men’s voices with contrasting momentum in soprano and alto lines. The Elysians were especially persuasive here.
Thea Musgrave’s witty juxtaposition of poems by Herrick and Edwin Morgan with the anonymous I Saw A Peacock With A Fiery Tail, in her imaginative journey On The Underground (Set 2), made a pleasingly comic interlude, the reprise of Herrick’s Dreams making a rueful postlude to the perky staccato of the other poems.
The choir was equally alive to Britten’s word-setting in his Five Flower Songs, which have deservedly become choral staples over the past 70 years.
There were two further premieres after the interval. David Power’s minimalist setting of the opening words of St John’s gospel, The Transfiguration, was cleverly built around an insistent refrain, ‘God spoke, light shone’. It does not deal directly with the transfiguration story, but suggests light at the end of any tunnel of trouble – as in present times. Those four words certainly shone through, often at the top of the spectrum.
The story of the Sirens’ search for Proserpine, as told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, was the inspiration for David Lancaster’s Feathers, since Demeter gave them wings for the task. Opening with a very high soprano solo, suggesting soaring flight, its slow, rhythmless progress was beautifully sustained by the choir.
An interesting setting by Ivor Gurney of a Robert Bridges poem on John Milton was contrasted with a deeply elegiac prayer, Requiem, by John Duggan to words of Gurney, which was much the more touching of the two.
There was distinguished company in a James MacMillan folksong and Judith Weir’s My Guardian Angel, which involved the audience in a threefold Alleluia. And it was impossible to suppress a smile at the creamy Victorian harmonies of Bantock’s response to ‘My Love Is Like A Red, Red Rose’, lovingly caressed by this superb group.
Review byMartin Dreyer
YorkLate Music continues with two events on December 4; full details at latemusic.org.
