News:

If you have difficulty registering for an account on the forum please email antespam@gmail.com. In the question regarding the composer use just the surname, not including forenames Charles-Marie.

Main Menu

Concert of new and classical music with organ

Started by David Pinnegar, July 05, 2012, 06:13:17 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

David Pinnegar

Hi!

Last night I had the pleasure of having been invited to St Bride's Church in London to a concert broadcast by Radio 3 and well worth hearing over the coming week:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01kbhs7

Judith Bingham's composition "Jacob's Ladder" follows Jacob's enlightenment from "Leaving Home under a Cloud" through "Anxiety Dream" and his vision of the Ladder . . . The instrument, based upon Compton inspiration, is extraordinarily large in specification
http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=K00109
and effective in any context. The 32ft expressed itself effectively in Judith's composition as did certain mixtures and a hard to place reed which may have been a Vox Humana. Can anyone on "Listen Again" possibly identify the stop used?

The Handel Concerto used a portable instrument tuned to Vallotti, which in my view is not strong enough to bring out the drama of key changes but it remained a superbly enjoyable performance by organist Daniel Cook and conducted by Nicholas Cleobury, most unassuming in appearance but a conductor who brings out the best of performers and the music literally miming the phrasing of each instrument he's leading.

Judith Bingham's new composition "The Hythe" muses upon the meaning of the word as a wharf and led to meditations upon the sea and sea travel being a metaphor for the journey of the soul to God. Dominated by the number 11 the composition is possibly more esoteric than obvious but passages significantly transported me.

The Stabat Mater formed the climax of the programme which shone most beautifully but I mused what it might have sounded like, sometimes with dramatic key changes, performed in Meantone rather than Vallotti? Can anyone find a translation of the words unsanitised and romanticised to Victorian literary and theological tastes of the day?

The concert was organised and sponsored by JAM, the John Armitage Memorial Trust. John "firmly believed that people could often achievce far more than they themselves ever dreamed they could" and the Trust furthers his work and memory by commissioning new compositions and encouraging their performance alongside classical music.

Best wishes,

David P