BWW Reviews: EVOLUTION AND REVOLUTION: ENGLAND Rediscovers Forgotten English Music

Reviewed by Ewart Shaw, 25th May 2014

Leigh Harrold writes the best program notes around. If you want to know why English music seemed to fade from European consciousness for three hundred years or so, read his concise history in the program to Evolution and Revolution: England.

If you want to know why the first fifty years of the 20th century saw a remarkable resurgence of creative energy, then just look at the music he programmed for the Kegelstatt Ensemble.

The Elder Hall, in intimate mode, was full for this engaging afternoon.

Scheduled violinist, Alison Heike, was called away for personal reasons a week before the concert. As Leigh remarked, it's a tribute to the strength and breadth of Adelaide's music scene that he could call on Lachlan Bramble (Elder Conservatorium Chamber Orchestra and Benaud Trio) to take the violin part in Britten's Phantasy Quartet, and Natsuko Yoshimoto, leader of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, for the Walton Quartet for Violin, Viola, 'cello and Piano.

These were the two major pieces in the program, the Britten finishing the first half, and the Walton the second. While Lord Britten and Sir William, as they later became, were major figures in British music, the two works in this concert were precocious achievements.

The Phantasy Quartet, Britten's Opus 2 was completed when he was 19 and studying at the Royal College of Music in London. It is written in one movement with six tempo markings, beginning and ending in a march rhythm. The work begins with a brusque and quiet pattern from the 'cello, played by Kim Worley, joined by the other two strings, plucked and bowed. Renae Stavely's oboe floated over the top with a long and serene arabesque of sound and, throughout the work, her voice commented on and flew above the strings.

The Walton was published when the composer was only seventeen. While it has the piano quartet configuration of instruments, it is titled as a work for violin, viola,'cello and piano. The strings begin quietly, then the piano thunders out above them and the work runs forward with a grand energy, full of adolescent enthusiasm blended with a very keen sense of the sonorities involved. The final two movements, the andante tranquillo and the allegro molto, were given with a balance and grace that was memorable.

The other works on the program though often brief were stylishly played. Anna Webb, viola, joined Leigh Harrold to play an arrangement by Percy Grainger of the Sussex Mummers Christmas Carol. It's a slightly morbid Christmas piece, 'O mortal man remember well that Christ our lord was born, he was crucified between two thieves and crowned with a thorn' are the words. The dark and slightly astringent viola tone was ideal, though it tended to disappear slightly into the lower register of the piano writing. The trio, by Gustav Holst, brought Alexandra Castle, flute, together with Renae Stavely, oboe, and Anna Webb, viola, in two short movements which concealed the composer's playful use of key signatures, three at once at one point, under a truly mellifluous play of voices. The six movement Divertimento, by (later Sir) Malcolm Williamson, brought Stephanie Wake-Dyster to join the other two woodwinds, in a work that was beautifully crafted and, as promised, diverting.

It was the Pastorale for clarinet and piano, written by (Sir) Arthur Bliss that encapsulated a whole genre of English music, the melodies in both instruments, the shifting harmonies, a distillation in sound of an English countryside untouched by the two great wars that scarred Europe in the decades from which these composers took their early inspiration.

This concert is balanced by the French edition, on August 17. It offers a variety of unusual music, including the Alkan Fantasy on Don Giovanni for four hands, and those hands will belong to Leigh Harrold and Coady Green. It promises to be great and the Kegelstatt ensemble keeps it promises.

If you happen to be on their mailing list they'll be in touch soon, so you can program their tenth anniversary concert season for next year.

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