Showing posts with label Neal Davies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Neal Davies. Show all posts

Monday 21 March 2016

Some Tweeting from Easter at King's 2016

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2016 (20 to 27 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


21 March

Mini-reports from Easter at King's : the annual festival, in concert and in choral services, of Passiontide music and texts for Holy Week



Bach's St John Passion ~ The Academy of Ancient Music, conducted by Stephen Cleobury ~ Monday 21 and Tuesday 22 March at 7.30 p.m.


A battle of wills - and world-views - between a baritone (Roderick Williams) and a bass-baritone (Neal Davies)




Some instrumental assets among The Academy's regulars




The vocal cast for the Choir's recording of the performances



Catching up properly with Bojan Čičić (after seeking a solution to temperature-sensitive period instruments and the huge South doors of King's College Chapel on Monday)




Services of Sung Compline (one of the daily Offices, before it was merged with that of Evensong) ~ The National Youth Choir of Great Britain, directed by Ben Parry ~ Tuesday 22 March (and also Wednesday 23 and Thursday 24 March) at 10.00 p.m.







Britten Sinfonia (@BrittenSinfonia) and Britten Sinfonia Voices, conducted by Eamonn Dougan (@ejdougan), in a programme of Byrd, Bach, Shostakovich (arr. Barshai) and James MacMillan (@jamesmacm), plus a short tribute to Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, on Wednesday 23 March at 7.30 p.m.





Instead of Tweets, some comments on the Sinfonia with Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 110, arranged as a Chamber Symphony, Op. 110a

* A sympathetic transcription by Rudolf Barshai, which makes the most of the orchestra’s deep, full sound

* As a Chamber Symphony (with the leader sometimes in an obbligato role ?), the work has a different character

* Fire in its belly (Allegro molto) - fast and insistent

* On an emotional level, made unacceptable, by being acceptable with full strings ?

* Amidst passion, hollowness afterwards (Allegretto), with aetherial solo violin and muted violas

* We may never know how much of this quartet was an elegy for DSCH, Dresden, or both, but the repeated three-note pattern (in the first of two movements marked Largo (Largo (I)) here feels militaristic (with inescapable threat when we can hear the sound of the drone ?)

* The solo role for the leader re-emerges at the end (Largo (II))






In tribute to the memory of ‘Max’ (who died on 14 March 2016), James MacMillan’s Seven Last Words was seamlessly preceded by his ‘Lullabye for Lucy’ (1981)






Some other responses to the MacMillan






The BBC Concert Orchestra (@BBCCO) and BBC Singers (@BBCSingers), conducted in Palestrina, Schubert and Haydn by Stephen Cleobury (@SJCleobury) ~ 24 March (Good Friday) at 7.30 p.m.




Next, Schubert, the Symphony No. 4 in C Minor, D. 417 (where the composer’s age should be immaterial)











Stephen Cleobury, conducting The Choir of King’s College Chapel and The Hanover Band, in Handel’s Brockes Passion (1715-1716) ~ 26 March (Holy Saturday) at 7.30 p.m.







Similarities (which may modify what we think of as typically of Bach) :

* Effects and certain moods

* Figurations brought out, e.g. by the oboe, within themes

* The onward impulse of a harpsichord cadence into recitative, or a brief instrumental phrase that leads to an aria

* Eilt, ihr angefochtnen Seelen – the words and the interjections are there from Handel



Dissimilarities (amongst many such places) :

* Short choral interjections (the first being two lines, beginning Wir alle wollen eh’ erblassen)

* Number and use of soloists (trios and quartets), even if Bach may have wished to do so (and Handel was led by his text)

* In Bach’s work, the calls for crucifixion are more ferocious (use of the turba Chorus in the St John)

* Differently paced, especially in the concluding numbers




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)