Katya Shikhova’s artwork for Loneliness in the Digital Age
THE topic of Loneliness in the Digital Age will be highlighted in next weekend’s independent exhibition at SPARK: York, Piccadilly, York.
Directed by Katya Shikhova, this public multimedia arts exhibition project explores “connection and isolation in today’s chronically online world”. Admission will be free.
The exhibition on November 29 and 30 is organised by University of York students and recent graduates. Taking part alongside Katya will be Anna Wilkinson; Anzhelika Nikolaeva; Boaz Parnas; Charlotte Jones; Fierce Fine Art; Harvey Ryan; Heather Jones (Fern and Heather Art); Lyra Robinson and Rohit Jayade.
“Our aim is to create a platform for artists, support York’s growing art community and ensure that proceeds from sales and donations go toward helping participating artists cover the costs of their practice, from transport to materials,” says creative director Katya, who is in the final year of her Business of the Creative Industries studies.
Anna Wilkinson’s artwork for Loneliness in the Digital Age
“I’m considering a career in art management, and together with my student friends, we’ve decided to organise this exhibition.”
Explaining the focus on Loneliness in the Digital Age, Katya says: “I’ve noticed that more and more people are raising concerns about communication in the contemporary world.
“With the increasing popularity of such TV shows as Adolescence (2025) and Severance (2022-2025), these concerns have become more visible. What is particularly interesting is that it seems not only older generations are concerned, but also people who grew up alongside rapid digital development.
Rohit Jayade’s artwork for Loneliness in the Digital Age
“More and more young people have begun noticing signs of depression, partially triggered by decreasing real-life communication and increasingly chronic online behaviour. Therefore, my team and I decided to reflect on this issue through the prism of contemporary art.”
Katya and her cohorts in the LitDA team created an open call for artists in the UK who wanted to engage with this topic, showcase and maybe sell their work and explore the themes of the exhibition together.
“We received around 40 submissions and selected ten works to be exhibited at SPARK Studios. Some of the selected works include photography, paintings, a digital painting and an abstract visualisation,” she says. Limited prints by exhibited artists and some who were not shortlisted will be on sale.
The poster for the Loneliness in the Digital Age exhibition
“I would like to highlight that submissions were free,” says Katya. “Artists will be financially supported, with each artist receiving an allowance for transportation and commuting costs, and the main source of funding for the exhibition is donations. We’re very keen on supporting the artists as much as we’re able to.”
Loneliness in the Digital Age will be on show on November 29, 1pm to 7pm, and November 30, 11am to 7pm. In addition, a limited-entry, invitation-only event for friends and family will be held at 7pm on November 29. “This will be a great chance to hear directly from the artists about their works and the theme of the exhibition,” says Katya. “The audience will have the opportunity to ask questions.”
Professor Peter Burman seated by “Perspective Is The Temple Of Decision” in 2019
PROFESSOR Peter Burman, co-founder of York Art Workers Association (YAWA), will be the association’s guest speaker at December 1’s meeting at Southlands Chapel, 97 Bishopthorpe Road, York, at 7.30pm (doors 7pm).
Prof Burman, formerly of the University of York, is a long-standing member of the Artworkers’ Guild in London. On his move to York, he co-founded YAWA to bring together people working in the traditional craft skills in and around York.
He will reflect on his “life on the edge” between conservation and creativity. Soon after completing his studies in History of Art at Cambridge, he became assistant secretary to the Council for the Care of Churches, where he remained for 22 enjoyable years.
During that time he became an active member of the Art Workers’ Guild, and when he joined the University of York to lead the Centre for Conservation Studies at King’s Manor in 1990, he jointly founded the York Art Workers Association in 1994.
Meetings are held on the first Monday of each month to hear talks by a wide variety of renowned craftspeople from all over the country. Anyone who has an interest in art, crafts, buildings, their contents and surroundings, is welcome to join. Non-members are welcome to attend too.
Admission is £3 for members; £7 for non-members, with no need to book. Feel free just to turn up!
A copy of YAWA’s 2026 programme will be available at the meeting or can be obtained from www.yorkartworkers.org.uk.
THE evening belonged to Schubert, but not altogether as you might have expected him.
With his irrepressible desire to push boundaries, baritone Roderick Williams – who is also a composer in his own right – has rewritten the piano accompaniment to Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin, for string quartet. It was an audacious move, which opened up new angles on this much-loved song-cycle.
There is no denying that there were minuses as well as pluses in this approach. Right from the start the piano’s percussiveness was absent. The mill-wheels barely rattled, the stones did not resound and the stream was at times barely a ripple compared to Schubert’s full-blown mill race: the piano does water better than strings.
And yet. There is no decay in string sound. So whenever Schubert put a separate melody alongside the singer’s line, the two voices were generally better balanced. There is also more physical drama in watching four string players in action than one pianist can deliver: the Carduccis certainly let you know when they need to be heard. The tone quality from each instrument is more variegated and thus at times easier to discern.
A few samples must suffice to demonstrate the subtlety of Williams’s orchestration. Where the piano repeats the music for each verse, Williams often writes something different. Thus in ‘Morning Greeting’ we had a touch of tremolo illustrating the little flowers shrinking from the sun, this a song in which voice and strings combined especially well. He had largely omitted the first violin at the start of ‘Thanksgiving to the Brook’, giving a darker texture.
In ‘Curiosity’ (No 6), the pauses between phrases were telling. The word ‘Ja’ here was forceful, but led into a prayerful final verse, where the sustaining power of the strings made the mood altogether more wistful.
Carducci Quartet
The following song, ‘Impatience’ benefited from very light strings, Mendelssohn-style, but the tempo was too fast to allow quite enough breadth on ‘Dein ist mein Herz’.
In the central verses of ‘Shower Of Tears’ (No 10), the legato lines of both voice and strings intermingled delightfully. At the end of ‘Mine!’, Williams stood for effect, where otherwise he remained seated on a piano stool; the quartet had lent urgency to the song.
Staccato strings heightened the vocal anger behind ‘The Huntsman’ (No 14) and, with resentment building, the dark atmosphere of ‘The Good Colour’ made it quite clear that the game was up for our lovelorn lad.
So Williams ended ‘The Wicked Colour’ boldly as the lad said farewell, after which viola and cello pizzicato alone opened ‘Dry Flowers’, typifying the empty moment. Yet that song finished in a blaze, each of the repetitions of the last stanza more intense. The dialogue between lad and (seductive) brook ended with a lovely postlude, before the touching final ‘goodnight’.
It was a treat to hear this version, not least for the way it uncovered new vistas. It was sung in German and, of course, in lower keys than the original tenor. But Williams was immensely alive to Schubert’s nuances – and the Carduccis, to their credit, were with him every step of the way.
They had opened the evening with Schubert’s Tenth Quartet, D.87 in E flat, dating from November 1813, with pronounced shading, especially in the fast outer movements. Some of the accompaniment figures from the 16-year-old composer were a touch rudimentary, but his melodic gift was already blossoming here.
Bojan Čičić: “Three-line whip for any lover of the Baroque violin”
THE appearance of Bojan Čičić in this neck of woods is a three-line whip for any lover of the Baroque violin. He scoots all over Europe directing top-notch ensembles, but always seems to find time to fit York into his crammed schedule.
Here he was leading the Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) – a dozen strings and a harpsichord – in a Bach programme entitled Concerto Heaven: three concertos and an ouverture, providing the festival’s finale.
Bach’s ‘ouvertures’ are essentially suites; here, in No 3 in D major, an intro, an air and four dances. The dances were truly balletic and the final gigue had a comfortable lilt.
The concertos contained the real fireworks. The first, BWV1041 in A minor, was actually clean and unfussy – until its furious finale. Wonderfully vivacious, too, was the opening Allegro of the D minor Concerto, and its finish, after the solemnity of its slow movement, a real tonic.
But between these two we had a sensational account of BWV1042 in E major. Here Čičić elected to have merely five strings and harpsichord as accompaniment. There was a dazzling cadenza in the first movement, in which one could have sworn he was playing several instruments at once, so rapid the figurations and so distinctive the registers.
Yet equally mesmerising was the wistful Adagio, while his capricious episodes in the rondo-style finale were never less than tasty.
We should not forget that the AAM, now over half a century in being, offers consistently thrilling support which gives wings to Bojan’s flights of fancy. A wonderfully upbeat finish to the festival.
The fez, the spectacles and the bow tie: Damian Williams’s Tommy Cooper, Bob Golding’s Eric Morecambe and Simon Cartwright’s Bob Monkhouse in The Last Laugh. Picture: Pamela Raith
AFTER five hollow weeks in New York, Paul Hendy’s love letter to the quintessentially British – even English – humour of Tommy Cooper, Eric Morecambe and Bob Monkhouse opens its UK tour in old York.
Morecambe & Wise may have appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show 16 times, Cooper on six occasions too, but if ever affirmation were needed that the USA and UK are divided by a common language, then the Big Apple audiences’ bewilderment at their reactivated larks in Hendy’s 90-minute play provided it.
Unlike last summer’s Edinburgh Fringe premiere and February and March’s West End run at the Noel Coward Theatre, it was more a case of ‘no laugh’, rather than ‘last laugh’, judging by the New York recollections of Hendy’s cast at the question-and-answer session that followed Wednesday’s matinee.
Hendy just happened to be there too, adding further insight into his affectionate play, and his hand-picked cast – who first appeared in his 19-minute film version in 2016 – will be on hand after each performance to take more questions. Well worth staying for their banter, nostalgia and comedic camaraderie, prompted by questions deposited in a Cooper fez in the interval.
Damian Williams’s Tommy Cooper, minus trousers, Bob Golding’s Eric Morecambe and Simon Cartwright’s Bob Monkhouse in a moment of musical camaraderie in The Last Laugh. Picture: Pamela Raith
If Hendy’s name is familiar to you, he is the writer of York Theatre Royal’s pantomimes under the fruitful partnership with his Evolution Productions company since 2020. You will know his style too: meticulous crafting of puns, putdowns and pratfalls, allied to a rebellious streak and a passion for storytelling.
Those qualities will be seen again in Sleeping Beauty from December 2 to January 4 2026, and they are writ large in The Last Laugh, his exploration of what makes comedy work, what drives comedians to perform and at what cost, and why the laughs last long after their passing.
Hendy, a jokesmith who lets others do the telling, has chosen his comedians carefully for his study: Cooper and Morecambe, who died within six weeks of each other in 1984, were naturally funny, but whereas Cooper merely had to walk on stage to engender laughs, using silence like no-one else, Morecambe needed partners, whether Ernie Wise on stage, or writers for him to then apply his alchemical gifts of timing, mannerism and mischief.
Hendy, by his own admission, is closer to Monkhouse, the craftsmen who would chisel away at a gag like a sculptor until it had the right balance and comic weight, honed and polished to the last word. He kept his jokes in books; he knew who wrote every famous line; he knew how to deliver a punchline.
After all, it was Monkhouse who quipped: “People used to laugh at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian. Well, they’re not laughing now.”
The Last Laugh writer-director Paul Hendy
You can imagine Hendy applying such fastidious skills when writing The Last Laugh, pulling the strings as a writer must to make a piece of theatre with resonance and meaning, rather than rely on an overload of familiar jokes.
He does so by placing the comedy triumvirate in a dressing room of memories, where one wall is filled with black-and-white portraits of comedians, all dead, from Sid Field to Sid James, with the space for one more. Then he lets them chat, lock horns, reflect, perform to each other, and dress for their next performance.
He entrusts the roles to two of his regular dames, Bob Golding and Sheffield Lyceum’s Daman Williams, and Simon Cartwright, who first made his name as an impressionist. Golding first played Eric 16 years ago in his own Morecambe show; Williams had wanted to follow Cooper on to the stage since childhood days; Cartwright knew Monkhouse, working on his act with him.
Williams’s Cooper enters first, after a spluttering and fizzing of the lights that frame each dressing room mirror and the pre-show ghostly sounds of comedians past. Williams, in his underwear, is wearing huge yellow bird’s legs.
In New York, a woman objected to his lack of trousers. “It was going to be a long night,” Williams shrugged in the Q&A. He goes on to give a towering performance as the play’s fulcrum, not an impression, but a full picture of a giant of comedy, amusingly dismissive of others, a quick thinker, an astute observer and both inventive and re-inventive.
Damian Williams’s Tommy Cooper: Comedy magic in The Last Laugh. Picture: Pamela Raith
Cartwight has the Monkhouse manner and voice off to a T, a man of candour, kindness, precision, admiration for others and forensic knowledge, with Hendy dropping in stories that may not be familiar but make for a rounded portrait.
Golding’s love of Eric is in every moment, every movement, from the pipe smoking to the chirpy demeanour, while resisting too much twitching of the spectacles. Again, as with Cooper and Monkhouse, Hendy judges so well what to include of Morecambe’s life story, in particular his resolute devotion to working with Wise.
Who has The Last Laugh? No, it would be wrong to give away the ending, but let’s say it could not be more moving. Joy and sadness, the two faces of theatre, are never more interlocked than in Hendy’s finale.
We miss these comic titans, the fez, the spectacles and Bob’s books, but you will have the first laugh, the last laugh and so many more in between in their memory.
The Last Laugh, Grand Opera House, York, 7.30pm tonight; 2.30pm and 7.30pm tomorrow. Box office: atgtickets.com/york.
The tour poster for Paul Hendy’s The Last Laugh
The Last Laugh cast and writer visit Borthwick Institute’s archive of Eric Morecambe notebook and diaries
The Last Laugh actors Simon Cartwright (Bob Monkhouse), Damian Williams (Tommy Cooper) and Bob Golding (Eric Morecambe) take a look at the Borthwick Institute comedy archives
THE cast and writer of The Last Laugh undertook an emotional trip to the Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York on June 11 to view the notebooks and newly acquired diaries of Eric Morecambe.
Writer-director Paul Hendy and actors Bob Golding, Damian Williams and Simon Cartwright, who play Morecambe. Tommy Cooper and Bob Monkhouse respectively, were joined by the archive team for a private viewing.
The collections include original material for the Morecambe and Wise 1977 Christmas BBC Special, written in Morecambe’s distinctive handwriting, together with notebooks, diaries and jokes owned previously by legends of British comedy.
Gary Brannan, keeper of archives and research collections at the Borthwick Institute, with The Last Laugh actors Damian Williams, Simon Cartwright and Bob Golding
Hendy said: “As a lifelong fan of Eric Morecambe, it’s been absolutely fascinating to visit the archive. To be able to read Eric’s joke books, written in his own hand, is incredible and actually quite emotional”.
The Borthwick Institute’s comedy collections, acquired by the university, provide an insight into the history of British entertainment. Gary Brannan, keeper of archives and research collections, said: “It’s been a delight to welcome the cast of The Last Laugh to Borthwick and we have loved seeing them connect and with our amazing archives.
“We always say that archives aren’t just records of the past; they are a source of modern creativity, so it has been wonderful to see the cast bring this material to life.”
The actors were thrilled to look at the original documents. Cartwright said: “The archive has been an absolute joy to discover. I was particularly thrilled to find two original radio scripts written by Bob Monkhouse and his writing partner, Denis Goodwin. It serves as a reminder of Bob’s longevity in the industry – over 60 years.”
The Last Laugh writer-director Paul Hendy, centre, with Gary Brannan and Simon Cartwright studying documents at the Borthwick Institute
In the dock: Tigerslane Studios’ cast for the prosecution and defence in Murder Trial Tonight III – The Doorstep Case at York Barbican and Sheffield City Hall
“THIS isn’t just a theatre play; it’s a social experiment,” says Graham Watts, West End director of the courtroom drama series Murder Trial Tonight. “We aim to challenge perceptions and engage our audience in a way that goes beyond traditional theatre.”
Welcome to Tigerslane Studios’ third season of Murder Trial Tonight – The Doorstep Case, wherein storytellers, technicians and performers break down the fourth wall and bring a true-crime story to life, on tour at York Barbican tomorrow night and Sheffield City Hall on Wednesday, both at 7pm.
In case number three, a mother returns home in the early hours of the morning after a night out celebrating her birthday, only to find her daughter murdered on her doorstep. The daughter’s boyfriend has been charged with the murder. Is he guilty of murder or is the killer still at large? Book your seat on jury service now to decide – and then learn if you were right.
The show begins on screen, giving the backdrop and opening to the case, followed by a live murder trial, immersing the audience in a fast-paced courtroom experience, wherein they play a crucial role as members of the jury.
What happens? Both the prosecution and defence will present their cases and cross-examine witnesses, whereupon the audience will deliberate and deliver their verdict: Guilty or Not Guilt? At the end of the trial, footage of the murder will be revealed. Did the jury deliver the right verdict? All will be revealed on the night.
Please note, each season’s trial is based on a true story, with a disclaimer that names, events and dates have been altered for dramatisation purposes.
Court is in session tomorrow in York, where the Tigerslane Studios cast will include Joshua Welch, who studied writing, directing and performance in the University of York’s department of theatre, film and television from 2013 to 2016 and later gained a Masters in acting from the Drama Centre, London.
“I was in the University of York Drama Society’s project at Clifford’s Tower , where we performed a play by lecturer Lisa Peschel, based on research of theatrical performance in the Second World War Jewish ghetto at Theresienstadt,” he recalls.
Courtroom drama: True crime case plays out at York Barbican and Sheffield City Hall with the audience on jury service
“Recently I came back to the university to attend Michael Cordner’s farewell lecture and did a few performances on the campus but that’s the only time I’ve been back to York since leaving university.”
How did Joshua, 30, land a role in Murder Trial Tonight III? “One of my best friends, Lauren Moakes, who studied at York at the same time as me, was in last year’s cast for Murder Trial Tonight II and told me about the show,” he says. “I auditioned around Christmas and started rehearsals in January.”
Originally from Sheffield, Joshua lives in London, where he is an associate artist and performer for Kelly Hunter’s Flute Theatre, a company that makes Shakespeare shows adapted for performance to people with autism, with a focus on feeling and emotion. “We play to an audience of 12, who sit in a circle with the actors, who have met them that day,” he says.
“The whole play is acted out in a sensory drama game with each audience member getting a chance to play a part, and they age from seven to 70s.
“The performance is more about the atmosphere in each scene, which can be lacking in some plays, but in Shakespeare, the feeling is so different between each scene.”
Now Joshua is entering the world of crime for Murder Trial Tonight III. “I’ve always loved Agatha Christie, but this is different because it’s based on true events, without the big Christie revelation at the end,” says Josh.
“The audience has the power to change the whole thing , which will vary from night to night because it’s a fully live court case, where you hear from the prosecution in the first half and the defence case in the second, followed by the closing case from the prosecution and the defence.
The poster for Tigerslane Studios’ Murder Trial Tonight III – The Doorstep Case
“Then it’s completely up to the audience to decide if the defendant is guilty or not guilty, and it makes you realise how difficult it is to decide when there’s a ten-minute deliberation after the case and you hear people discussing what they think has or hasn’t happened.
“At the end [after they each give their verdict with the aid of a QR code and app] the percentage of the vote is revealed – and we find out how many people got it right or wrong.”
Joshua, who takes the part of witness for the prosecution Eddie Harper, has never served on a jury. “Doing Murder Trial Tonight makes you aware what a big responsibility it is to be on a jury, and each case highlights how important it is for both the prosecution and defence to deliver the case so that a verdict can be reached beyond reasonable doubt.”
You will not that tomorrow’s performance is not in a traditional theatre – or court house, for that matter – but at York Barbican, a venue more associated with concerts and comedy. “It’s been a great acting experience, the ‘gig’ nature of it, where the venues are so different and you have to adjust to the space,” says Joshua.
“It’s fun to do, presenting the case, where my character has a way he wants the case to go where everyone will say ‘he’s telling the truth’, trying to convince people of that. Interestingly, some nights you find you’ll play it differently: sometimes you have to focus on what you’re saying, not on what the audience are thinking, how they’re reacting.
“I like playing the halls because the spaces are vast, so it feels intimidating, which matches how nervous people can be when they take the oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in court.”
Joshua is delighted to be back on home Yorkshire soil at York Barbican tomorrow and Sheffield City Hall on Wednesday. “It will be a lovely walk down memory lane for me,” he says.
Tigerslane Studios presents Murder Trial Tonight III – The Doorstep Case, York Barbican, April 29, 7pm. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk. Also: Sheffield City Hall Oval Hall, April 30, 7pm. Box office: ticketmaster.co.uk/murder-trial-tonight-3-the-doorstep-sheffield-30-04-2025/.
THE concert opened with the student-led chamber choir Animas singing Messiaen’s O Sacrum Convivium. And very good it was too.
The singing was pretty much pitch perfect and the balance was impressive. The choir captured the contemplative, sacred mood of this devotional work well; the soprano Alleluia near the close had a wonderful stillness.
The performance of Fauré’s Cantique de Jean Racine, with its luxurious, quite intense choral wring with organ accompaniment, reminded me of the later Requiem. The tenors were impressive, always a good thing, and the performance left a ‘happy ever after’ glow.
The part-singing in Elgar’s My Love Dwelt In A Northern Land was confident and clean, with fine tenor and soprano contributions. John Seymour’s I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes is an unashamedly sugary-sweet setting and no less enjoyable for that.
It has to be said that Samuel Wesley’s Blessed Be The God And Father was, to use a cricketing term, a “poor shot selection”. Not even the sweetest of solos and earnest commitment from the choir could redeem this ridiculous piece of music.
Anyway, from the ridiculous to the sublime in the form of Rachmaninoff’s Bogoróditse Devo. The performance was richly rewarding with impressive dynamic range and contrasts.
Vox opened their set with Katie Laing’s Sea Shanty Mashup. This was an impressive work and an impressive performance to go with it. The stand-out sea shanty was the arrangement of the Cornish folk group Fisherman’s Friends’ Keep Hauling. Goodness me this was moving, but it is a deeply moving song.
Not for the first time, I would question the term “arrangement”, which doesn’t adequately embrace the creativity expressed in Ms Laing’s Mashup.
To be honest, I was genuinely nervous about any arrangement of Paul Simon’s masterly Sound Of Silence. I mean, it’s just perfect. But Ms Laing’s version was respectful, touching and impressive.
Another notable “arranger” was Milo Morrod, whose reworking of Runaway and Sh-boom stood out as being notably creative. A fine singer too.
I loved Ted Jenkins’s funky arrangement of Tom Misch’s Disco Yes, particularly the electric bass guitar imitation. So too, Vox’s arrangement of Fleet Foxes’ Mykonos, with the pizzicato ‘chirping’ accompaniment signing the song off.
But the “coolest a cappella group at the University of York”, nah, that accolade goes to the student-led gospel choir, Zamar. Dressed in majestic purple cassocks, swishing in time to the beat of the music, they were on a musical mission.
They opened their set with an energetic arrangement of the soul classic Ain’t No Mountain High Enough (Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell), originally sung by Diana Ross. And for a bonus point, used in the closing scene in the first, and best, Bridget Jones film.
Whatever Zamar sang filled the whole auditorium with a bouncing, infectious joy. Eva Cassidy’s How Can I Keep From Singing was quite delightful, as were Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Any Dream Will Do and Go Go Go Joseph arrangements.
Stephen Schwartz’s Wicked’s For Good has an instinctively engaging, albeit sugary tune. But what it lacks in originality was transcended by this full-on, infectious performance.
The set closed with a remarkable, inclusive version of Steven Taylor’s Hallelujah You’re Worthy. The audience were invited to join in the fun. Well, naturally, I didn’t, but what appeared to be the whole of the audience, however, did. They were in on the act. Standing up, jiving, arm rolls, the lot. It was like a Holy, cleansed version of the gothic, irreverent classic musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show, without suspenders or lipstick. Just great fun.
The finale brought the three choirs together in Olivia Ryan’s arrangement of Fleetwood Mac’s Go Your Own Way. They got on famously.
And that was that: great songs, impressive arrangements, talented and creative musiciansand singers. Who could ask for anything more.
The 24 & Manchester Baroque, J S Bach’s Mass in B minor, Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, March 28
TOWARDS the end of his life, Bach arranged his Mass in B minor in four sections, one of which, the Sanctus, was premiered on Christmas Day, 1724. So we are entitled to consider that we are now celebrating its 300th anniversary.
We may conveniently ignore the fact that two smaller passages – the Crucifixus (1714) and the Qui Tollis (1723) – were borrowed from earlier works and other parts were added in the 1730s.
Nevertheless, it brings some Lutheran imagination and sparkle to the very centre of the Roman Catholicism of the Dresden court, for which it may well have been intended. There was plenty of sparkle, too, in this account masterminded by Robert Hollingworth, which brought together University of York’s crack chamber choir, The 24 – here expanded to 35 – with the period chamber orchestra Manchester Baroque. It was deservedly a sell-out.
No performance with Hollingworth in charge would be complete without a quirk or two: it is tied into his DNA and can be part of his charm. Two obvious ones occurred in the Credo, where in place of multiple voices in a reverential pianissimo for the ‘Crucifixus’, he gave us the four soloists trying to sound like madrigalists, doubtless in the hope of making a bigger splash when full chorus plunged in at ‘Et resurrexit’.
A little later, he deprived the basses of their famous ‘Et iterum’ passage and assigned it to his soloist, with a consequent loss of excitement.
With one exception, Hollingworth had all the arias and duets sung from deep stage right, well over to the side, rather than centred in front of the choir. Immediacy was lessened. Distractingly, soloists had to emerge from behind the choir whenever required.
These aberrations aside, there was a great deal to admire. Before the interval, the choir sang without scores, which meant their attention to Hollingworth in the Kyrie and Gloria was total.
Even afterwards, when scores appeared intermittently, many singers barely consulted them, an impressive feat of memory that kept the choruses crisp. The choir remained seated for a prayerful ‘Qui tollis peccata’, a nice touch, the next best thing to kneeling.
It would be churlish to offer any criticism of Hannah Davey, the soprano soloist who stepped in at the eleventh hour. She was particularly effective in duet, notably with tenor Matthew Long in ‘Domine Deus’, alongside graceful obbligato flutes.
He blended well with the oboes and bassoon in ‘Et in spiritum sanctum’, making his voice part of the instrumental texture, and kept his tone nicely straight in the ‘Benedictus’.
Martha McLorinan’s mezzo tone admirably suited the ‘Qui sedes’ and she showed a lovely restraint in the moving ‘Agnus Dei’ with full violins in support. Frederick Long was the reliable bass in ‘Quoniam tu solus’.
Hollingworth’s tempos tended towards the brisk, which his choir seemed to relish. So too did the tireless orchestra, whose woodwinds positively danced their way through ‘Et resurrexit’. It typified the joyous aura of the evening.
THERE cannot be many full-time students of mathematics and philosophy in this country who are capable of the solo role in any violin concerto, let alone the Sibelius, which is one of the most demanding in the repertoire.
One such is a final-year undergraduate at the University of York, Anna Lezdkan. Her appearance was the centrepiece of an evening that included shorter works by Wagner and Richard Strauss after a modern Icelandic introduction.
Born in St Petersburg, Lezdkan has lived in this country since early childhood and had all her training here. She exhibited extreme calm under duress and despatched the testing cadenza early in the first movement with considerable panache, which compensated for some lapses in intonation in the upper regions.
Her eloquence in the slow movement was partially masked by orchestral accompaniment that tended to be heavy-handed, especially in the horns. But she managed its tricky double-stopping without difficulty.
The finale was a rumbustious affair, if undeniably exciting, tinged with gypsy colourings. But the rondo’s main theme emerged with clarity and Lezdkan dug into her octave swoops courageously. It was clear that she was well inside this score, despite the shortcomings noted above.
The evening had opened curiously with Clockworking, a work originally for string trio and tape but worked into an orchestral version in 2019 by María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir. Its seven minutes began mysteriously, slow and hushed, and gradually assumed rhythmic identity as clockwork shapes and snippets of melody appeared. Its climax was abruptly curtailed by a sudden diminuendo at the finish, as if the mechanism had developed a gremlin.
The Prelude and Liebestod from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde got off to an uneasy start, but the prelude as a whole built impressively into a long crescendo that was propelled by the main melody rising in the cellos. This in turn inspired the violins into a sumptuously swelling blend in the Love-death (Liebestod) itself, eventually subsiding beautifully with Isolde’s ardour.
John Stringer allowed the orchestra to let its hair down paradoxically at the close with Richard Strauss’s Festliches Präludium (Festive Prelude). It was composed for huge orchestra in 1913 for the commissioning of the new organ at the Vienna Konzerthaus. It presented here as good as argument as any for this orchestra to play in the Central Hall rather than the confines of the Lyons.
At its heart, unsurprisingly, lies the organ and William Campbell cannot be blamed for pulling out all the stops at the start, over an extended pedal bass. Thereafter he achieved a welcome blend, as wind and brass engaged in vivid dialogue, until they united in a splendid chorale against much exciting activity in the strings. There was no need to agonise over detail: the wall of sound was breathtaking.
British Music Society of York presents Maxwell String Quartet, Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, 7/3/2025
WHENEVER you programme a work as colossal as Beethoven’s Op 132, which lies at the very heart of his late string quartets, the problem is what to put with it.
The Maxwells opened with an eclectic mix of the old, the traditional and the contemporary, spotlighting the Beethoven after the interval.
In a nod to their Scottish roots, the players offered arrangements of two sets of traditional Gaelic psalms, as found in the Presbyterian churches of the Western Isles. These were intriguing in their closeness to Scottish dance, evoking the exciting rhythms of the ceilidh. One set would probably have been enough, however, given the similarities between the two.
Additionally, there is always the danger, when transcribing vocal music for instruments of dehumanising it, since words and melody need to speak together. This was particularly evident in the transcription of Byrd’s profound motet Ave Verum Corpus, where the nuances the composer attaches to the words were simply not present, making it literally disembodied.
The choice of motet was strange, in that the contemporary work here, the First String Quartet (Aloysius) by Edmund Finnis, dating from 2018, has five movements avowedly centred around Byrd’s setting of the prayer Christe, Qui Lux Es. It would have seemed logical to play this rather than Ave Verum by way of introduction.
The programme note told us of Finnis’s “versatile compositional voice”, a claim not borne out by this work. It is perfectly pleasing in an intimate way, largely slow-moving and ruminative, as if Finnis is searching out a way forward. It opens lyrically and then becomes wispy, if still transparent. The third movement, although pianissimo, is a little quicker, but like its predecessors was played virtually without vibrato.
Byrd’s hymn is treated like a chorale, its melody largely on the leader’s lowest string, before a finale that finally features some genuine counterpoint. Although largely restrained, its acceleration into the abrupt final cadence hints at what might have been. The Maxwells approached it respectfully, if ultimately without much obvious affection.
They brought admirable clarity to the Beethoven, unveiling its dramatic power by ramping up the tension in the highly chromatic first movement. The relative violence of the scherzo was tempered by a gentler trio in which the viola’s solo was notable.
In the Molto Adagio, which is arguably Beethoven’s most personal statement in any of his quartets, each solemn phrase of the chorale was tenderly introduced; although extremely extended, it seemed not a moment too long, so riveting was the detail.
The succeeding march came as sweet relief, before a searing first violin cadenza into the finale. Here the Maxwells threw caution to the winds, with accents stronger than ever and acceleration into the coda that took the breath away. This was theatre on a Shakespearean level.
