GScene Classical Notes

BY NICK BOSTON

So I should now be previewing all the exciting upcoming classical music concerts and performances in the Brighton Festival and Fringe, but sadly that’s not to be.

Other casualties include the Lewes Chamber Music Festival and the Lewes Festival of Song, scheduled for June and July respectively, and Glyndebourne has cancelled all performances in this year’s festival until at least July.

Many creative artists, including classical musicians and ensembles, have taken to social media offering all kinds of streamed performances. Of course the larger ensembles, such as opera houses and orchestras (the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House and the Berlin Philharmonic to name just a few), are better placed to weather the sudden loss in revenues. But it is the individual musicians and small ensembles, mostly working freelance, who will have lost out the most, with concerts and potential recording sessions all cancelled almost instantly, often with no prospect of being rescheduled.

I first thought I’d list lots of online opportunities and free concert and opera streaming services – but in fact, you can find those pretty easily anyway.

Better, think about how you might support musicians over the coming months if you can. I know this is affecting everyone in one way another, so musicians are not unique – and a freelance plumber or decorator can’t suddenly ‘stream’ their services online. But if you value music, performance and live arts in your life (and the explosion of sharing such things of late is evidence that most of us do), and can do one thing to support them in the coming months, here are a few ideas.

1. Purchase physical music

CDs, vinyl – from musicians, perhaps favouring the lesser known. Streaming and to a certain extent downloads bring in some income, but it’s slow and often pretty minimal – direct online sales will get income to musicians pretty much straight away, which is what’s needed right now.

2. Have tickets for a concert that’s been cancelled?

Hang on to them if there’s a rescheduled date, or if you can afford to, consider the money as a donation – especially if the musician has offered up any free performances online.

3. If you are listening to online concerts or performances

consider donating what you might have paid for a ticket – most streaming performances will have a link to do this. 4. Consider making a donation to the Help Musicians Coronavirus Financial Hardship Fund (www.helpmusicians.org.uk).

Hopefully, with support from those of us that can, when all this is over we will still have a strong and vibrant creative economy, and access to the wealth of music and performance that perhaps we have taken for granted before now.

If you’ve been prompted to take up on one of my suggestions, I’d love to hear from you. Perhaps you’ve bought some music you might not have otherwise, or made a donation for an online performance you have enjoyed – let me know via my contact details below.

Reviews, comments and events:

nicks-classical-notes.blogspot.co.uk

T @nickb86uk

nbclassical@hotmail.co.uk

Reviews

CLÉLIA IRUZUN & THE COULL QUARTET Treasures from the New World

(Somm SOMMCD0609). Brazilian pianist, Clélia Iruzun, has been joined by the Coull Quartet for a wonderful selection of Treasures from the New World –chamber music by American composer Amy Beach (1867-1944) and Brazilian composers Henrique Oswald (1852-1931) and Marlos Nobre (b.1939).

Amy Beach’s Piano Quintet dates from 1908, and is dramatic and richly Romantic. There is a clear debt to Brahms, and she even quotes from the finale of his Piano Quintet in the first movement. But there is a distinctive sound too, with dark harmonies contrasting with rhapsodic writing for the piano. Iruzun plays with suitable passion and the strings match with rich-toned energy.

Henrique Oswald left Brazil to study in Italy, and stayed there for 30 years, but returned to teach in Brazil for the rest of his life. His Piano Quintet, from 1895, has a mixture of European influences, with Brahms again showing through, as well as a more French tinge, reminiscent of Fauré. Again, Iruzun and the quartet play with passion, but also bring out the more inward mood of this contrasting work.

Poema XI, by contemporary Brazilian composer Marlos Nobre follows, with its sombre swirling melody performed with elegant warmth. Iruzun is joined by the quartet’s lead violinist, Roger Coull for Amy Beach’s Romance For Violin And Piano, Op. 23 – a beautifully heartfelt miniature, with a touching simplicity, concluding this highly enjoyable programme.

BARRY MILLS Elan Valley

(Claudio CC6040-2). Brightonbased composer Barry Mills (b.1949) has recorded several CDs of his music, and this one is entitled Elan Valley, after the orchestral work that opens it. This is an atmospheric, pastoral evocation of the Welsh landscape, drawing on a Welsh folksong at its heart. The orchestration is highly effective, with shimmering, watery strings and gentle harp and woodwind writing. The orchestra, the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra under Petr Vronsky, bring out the detail with great warmth here, and in the other orchestral work, Evening Rain –Sunset, composed for the Sussex Symphony Orchestra’s 20th anniversary in 2013. There are three concertos on this disc, one for mandolin, one for guitar and one for mandolin and guitar together. Mills obviously has an affinity for both instruments, and he makes good use of their melodic, rhythmic and subtle textural qualities. The double concerto is performed by Daniel Ahlert (mandolin) and Brigit Schwab (guitar), and in its four movements, Mills contrasts the lightness of touch of the soloists with relatively simple orchestral textures. The Guitar Concerto, titled The Travels of Turlough O’Carolan, places Mills’ arrangements of folk melodies by Turlough O’Carolan (1670-1738) alongside his own musical episodes evoking wind, sea, rivers, mountains and night.

So sometimes the guitar (here played by Sam Brown) has the folk tune, sometimes it accompanies and in the fifth of the six movements, Under the Stars, it is totally unaccompanied. This gives Brown the chance to show a great range of the instrument’s abilities, and he is particularly impressive in that solo movement, with its harmonics and subtle strumming effects. Folksong appears again in the Mandolin Concerto, this time an Irish folk song, My Singing Bird, and evocations of bird song are abundant here, as well as shimmering strings and dark whole tone scales.