May 3rd 2019
A tradition has evolved in recent years for the renowned Sherborne Abbey Festival to be opened with a concert given by the advanced instrumentalists of Sherborne School, and this year was no exception.
Fitting of the opening to the concert and the festival was a piece by the most decorated British composer ever to have lived, and founder of a contemporary music festival in rural England: Benjamin Britten. His Fanfare for St Edmundsbury (written for three trumpets (Will Banks (U6b Sch. Mus.), Jordan Mwangola (L6e Exh. Mus), Jonathan Post (5a, Exh. Mus), positioned at the extremities of a church) is typically oblique in its relationship to past musics. The piece opens not with a blaze of fortissimo exuberance, but instead a dignified solo trumpet ascending and descending a simple arpeggiaic line. This is then answered in a different key by a skipping reveille from the second trumpeter, which is in turn responded to by a more ebullient call marked ‘heroic’. The three trumpeters then repeat their individual parts together, retaining the conflicting keys and meters, producing a dense texture in which each of the parts retains its individual identity, while contributing to a greater whole. A fitting metaphor for the music festival and the perfect curtain raiser to the concert!
The L6 Wind Quintet then took to the stage, playing the first movement of Carl Nielsen’s Wind Quintet, a cornerstone of the repertoire. Having previously worked with members of Sirocco Winds (one of last term’s Tindall Visiting Artists), this additional advice made for an assured and poised performance, producing a powerful account of Nielsen’s tribute to the members of the Copenhagen Wind Quintet and their sometimes conflicting personalities. A significant challenge in this piece is not only to maintain the stamina for the duration of the movement, but also balance the rhythmic, almost 'dancelike' elements requiring crisp articulation with the more flowing melodic passages denoting Nielsen’s enduring fascination with nature as a source of artistic inspiration.
Another of the school’s ensembles continued the concert with the Piano Trio (Ciaran Smith (5b), Jack Pyman (4e), Marcus Bradley (4e)) performing one of Frank Bridge’s miniatures. Playing from memory, the Trio took full advantage of the opportunity to communicate between one another as the piece unfolds in a dialogue between the two string instruments, rhythmically and harmonically supported by the piano’s accompanimental material.
The Duo of violinist Alexander? Hobbs (5c Sch. Mus.) and pianist Isaac Bingley (5e Sch. Mus.) then took to the stage to perform an extract from Schubert’s Sonatine in G minor. A not inconsiderable technical challenge for both pianist and violinist, but the Duo attacked it with lively tempo and precise articulation throughout.
Next was Benedict Mercer (L6b Sch. Mus.), the first of two diploma holders in the concert. Selecting Reinhold Glière’s Valse Triste from his diploma programme, Benedict took full advantage of the luxuriant acoustic of the Abbey to produce a moving and musically mature performance befitting the opulent late Romantic style.
Having performed last week in the soloists’ recital, Hector took to the stage once again, this time with a piece of demanding French repertoire: ‘C’. by Poulenc, a setting of a text by the surrealist poet Louis Aragon. Accompanied by a strikingly colouristic piano part, Hector’s light tone and controlled legato payed fitting homage to the haut-contre tradition of high tenor vocal writing in French music.
The penultimate performer was Freddie Graham (U6c Sch. Mus.), presenting a piece from his LTCL recital programme, the third movement from Paul Creston’s Saxophone Sonata. While all repertoire at this level is necessarily demanding technically, Freddie’s account was especially notable for its musical challenges in communicating with the piano accompanist, multiplied by the need to project into such a vast space, but deftly navigated.
To close the concert, the Brass Quintet (Will Banks (U6b Sch. Mus.), Jordan Mwangola (L6e Exh. Mus), Benedict Mercer (L6b Sch. Mus.), Monty Westall (L6c Sch. Mus.), Tom Dubois (L6a)) played a collection of pieces by Ludwig Wilhelm Maurer, a now sadly neglected composer of the early German Romantic era, and otherwise notable as the violinist at the premiere of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Cast as a set of miniatures in a variety of styles, the set showed off the group’s ensemble skills, particularly in the moments where the two trumpet parts entered into antiphonal dialogue. To close the concert, the group’s warm tone was exploited in a performance of Harold Arlen’s misty-eyed classic ‘Over the Rainbow’, an audience favourite and rounding off another concert showcasing the full depth of musical talent at Sherborne.
Elliott Park, Music Teacher
