This recent YouTube discovery
might amuse readers. I think it’s brilliant!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRhjWdr-LAA
Mainly (but not exclusively) on music and musicians
This recent YouTube discovery
might amuse readers. I think it’s brilliant!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRhjWdr-LAA
Martyn Brabbins submitted his resignation tonight (15 October) after seven years as music director of English National Opera, saying that he could not continue to serve in a company whose board was proposing heavy personnel cuts to the orchestra and chorus.
He issued the following statement:
‘As Music Director of English
National Opera for the past seven years, and Head of its orchestra, chorus and
music staff, I cannot in all conscience continue to support the Board and
Management’s strategy for the future of the company. While my feelings on this
have been developing for some time, it reached its nadir this week, with the
internal announcement of severe cuts to its orchestra and chorus from 2024/25
season. In protest, this afternoon I tendered my resignation with immediate
effect.
‘Although making cuts has been
necessitated by Arts Council England’s interference in the company’s future,
the proposed changes would drive a coach and horses through the artistic
integrity of the whole of ENO as a performing company, while also singularly
failing to protect our musicians’ livelihoods.
‘This is a plan of managed
decline, rather than an attempt to rebuild the company and maintain the
world-class artistic output, for which ENO is rightly famed.
‘I urge ACE to reassess this
situation and recognise the devastating implications their funding decisions
will have on the lives of individual musicians, as well the reputation of the
UK on the international stage.
‘My wholehearted thanks and
support go out to the entire ENO team, especially those in the departments I
oversaw. I am incredibly proud of everything we accomplished, and I sincerely
hope that the company will find a path that puts exceptional artistry front and
centre of its future.’
CHURCH TIMES, 29 SEPTEMBER 2023
This late celebration in Hadleigh was
enjoyed by Garry Humphreys
THE Suffolk Villages Festival began in
1988 as the Stoke by Nayland Festival of Georgian Music, and since then has
gone from strength to strength, offering programmes of music from the Middle
Ages to the 19th century, sacred and secular, vocal and instrumental, including
semi-staged and concert performances of early operas, all under the artistic
direction of the musicologist, harpsichordist, and conductor Peter Holman.
Although there are concerts from autumn
to spring, the Festival itself takes place over the August Bank Holiday, this
year encompassing music by Bach (at Stoke by Nayland), Mozart, Haydn and
Beethoven (the Revolutionary Drawing Room Quartet at Wivenhoe), Elizabethan and
Jacobean virginals music (Steven Devine at Sudbury), and ending with Purcell’s The
Fairy Queen (directed by Peter Holman at Hadleigh).
It was at St Mary’s, Hadleigh, that
this year’s Festival opened with a concert postponed from last October because
of Covid: “Heinrich Schütz: Drama, Virtuosity & Splendour”, featuring the
tenor Charles Daniels with the vocal ensemble Psalmody and the John Jenkins
Consort, directed by Peter Holman. The concert was originally planned to mark
the 350th anniversary in 2022 of the death of Heinrich Schütz.
Schütz was Johann Sebastian Bach’s
greatest predecessor, renowned for his vivid and profound biblical scenes — “a
counterpart to Rembrandt”. The focus was on his work for the Dresden Court
during the Thirty Years’ War, with music ranging from virtuoso solo motets
(sung by Daniels) to large-scale pieces for multiple soloists, divided choirs,
a five-part string consort, harpsichord, and organ.
A pre-concert talk by Professor Stephen
Rose of Royal Holloway, University of London — “Schütz and the Thirty Years’
War” — was an enthralling and illuminating introduction to the
background. It pointed out the limitations imposed by the War and resulting in
music on a smaller scale than would have been normal (and musicians sometimes
not receiving payment for a year or more), besides reflecting the spirit of the
times.
Schütz, well aware of developments in
Italy, spent time in Venice in the early years of the 17th century, studying
with Monteverdi and subsequently using Italian-style ornamentation and
sometimes Latin words, which did not conflict with Schütz’s German
Protestantism; for Latin was regarded as a sort of lingua franca.
What this concert demonstrated more
than anything was Schütz’s remarkable range of textures, emotions, and
atmosphere, deriving from the use of different forces: solos, groups of voices,
and the full choir. Striking moments were Himmel und Erde for
three basses and Saul, Saul, was verfolgst du mich?, with its
restless invocations of the crowd.
The heaviest responsibility was that of
Charles Daniels, who sang several of Schütz’s solo pieces from Symphoniae
Sacrae and the Geistliche Konzerte, besides taking part in
larger-scale works, dispatching the coloratura with intense conviction.
Soloists from Psalmody were also heard, the sopranos Gill Wilson and Annabel Malton
and the tenor Zachary Kleanthous being particularly worthy of mention.
There was instrumental music, too, from
the John Jenkins Consort. For me, the highlight of the evening was their
playing of Johann Rosenmüller’s Sonata da Camera (1667) — such delicacy and
vitality. The bass-violin continuo player, Louise Jameson, must be
congratulated for her artistic underpinning of every piece in the programme.
Drama, virtuosity, and splendour was,
indeed, what we heard from these different combinations of voices and
instruments — heavenly music despite the War — and an imaginative and enjoyable
introduction to this year’s Festival.
In the circumstances, his comments are more amusing than perhaps he intended!
- Present 123 years
It seems much, much longer.
- 117 years 7 months
**** NOW with added HOME STUDIO ****
It seems longer.
- 97 years
Message from the composer James MacMillan:
An Adjournment Debate
has been scheduled today [29 March] for Parliament on funding and support for
classical music. I was asked for a quote by BASCA [the British Academy of Songwriters,
Composers and Authors]:
“The damage being done
to classical music by people who should know better – at the BBC and the Arts
Council – could impact disastrously on the musical culture of this country in
the coming years. Musicians have been nurtured by these organisations over the
years and the UK has earned an enviable international reputation for its music
as a result. To see these erstwhile allies of culture now turn on us for short
term mean-mindedness or ideological prejudice is a body blow for British music.
Those responsible need to step back and reassess why they have had any
involvement in music and culture in their lives. Let them see the bigger
picture – British music is a success story. Please don’t ruin it.”
Here’s
a link to the debate:
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2023-03-29a.1112.0&p=10648
Here’s a link to a collection of the various
objections to the BBC music cuts:
https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-planned-closure-of-the-bbc-singers/u/31411886?recruiter=217560781&utm_source=share_update&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=share_twitter_responsive&recruited_by_id=ff294560-a26c-11e4-b710-cbeac53b4f99
In addition, the composer John Adams has written:
‘As an American conductor and composer my
admiration for British musical culture knows no bounds. For all my life the BBC
has been the go-to access for its phenomenal orchestras and choruses, its
commitment to opera and new music ensembles and for providing a platform for
generations of brilliant and imaginative composers. But now we Americans hear
only the worst stories coming from the UK, as if the country is on a determined
self-destruct freefall. The BBC now apparently wants to join the march to the
bottom by cutting its invaluable institutions. Like the crazed character in the
movie The Banshees of Inisherin, it is determined to lop off its
own fingers, one by one. I am honored to add my name to this list of composers
to ask the BBC to come to its senses and cease trashing the best thing it
possesses.’
John Adams, 14 March 2023