Ensemble Photo Simon Jenner
Simon Jenner, March 8th 2025
A J. S. Bach Flute Sonata, British song composers, a flute ensemble mainly playing arrangements by Herman Beeftink, and English madrigals from the Golden Age of the 1580s-1630s. A huge range in period and composition, with voices and flutes to the fore.
A last minute substitute had Karen Rash and Hugh O’Neill perform J. S. Bach’s Flute Sonata in E flat major BWV1031. That last moment wasn’t in the least in evidence here.
The Allegro moderato is taken at a moderate pace too and breathes beautifully. Their ‘Siciliano’ though brief is the floating heart of this work spun out like spindrift. The Allegro is in fact the longest movement and O’Neill’s feeling for Bach allows Rash’s radiance to flood through too.
Ensemble. Chapel Royal SMC Brighton. Photo Simon Jenner
Soprano Carol-Anne Grainger and pianist Kevin Allen followers with a charm of British sings.
Cecil Armstrong Gibbs (1889-1960) is one of those compare born from a well-known mercantile family like Thomas Du hill. His ‘The Lamb and the Dove’ is interesting. A d recondite, individual.
Though known for orchestral and chamber music John Ireland (1879-1962) wrote fine songs including his setting of contemporary John Mansfield’s ‘Sea Fever’s. ‘Skylark and Nightingale’ shows what a fine composer for the piano Ireland is and how sparing and chordal his accompanying is. Grainger floats again across this haunted pastoral, a bit like a Paul Nash in mode if there’s a visual analogue.
Arnold Bax (1883-1953) is famous for nearly everything but songs, with his symphonic poems seven symphonies chamber music and piano music including his four terrific piano Sonatas.
‘White Peace’ though has roots in Bax’s adopted Irishry and indeed Nationalism. Dedicated to his mother it’s probably his best-known song and has wonderful chromatic drops and troggs for the soprano which Grainger negotiates superbly. Bax is always unexpected. Even here there’s latent symphonic powers and a sense of something massive withheld.
‘Shieling Song’ is about white cows and the piece, more attractively extrovert is almost Straussian in its flaming out and exuberance.
Michael Head (1900-76) is almost exclusively known for his songs. Alongside Finzi the last composer known for songs before Britten, his exquisite pieces have slowly crept back into the repertoire.
‘A blackbird singing’ is a purely lyrical work, shorn or Ireland’s or Bax’s huge shadows. It’s also exquisite, modal, a touch of the harmonies you might see infected through Vaughan Williams and Howells, but incredibly faint. There’s also a tiny feel if Novello here too. We’re moving into another.
‘My beloved’ is more upbeat and again memorable for carrying a ballad-like melody in the piano.
Allen is deeply versed in Bax and Bridge as is Schoenberg and Brahms. Grainger makes a deep impression as a soprano we should hear more of soon.
Ensemble Chapel Royal SMC Brighton. Photo Simon Jenner
A very different flute composition follows to counterpoint Bach played by flautist Helen Dobbie and the Elysium Ensemble Quartet who made an impression in August at All Saints.
Herman Beeftink (b 1953) has written and arranged four linked pieces whose titles inspire confidence in a resolutely tonal composition!
‘Moon River’ hardly needs introduction though Beeftink gives it a brief one. The ensemble rebel in the part-writing and the sheer sweet-toothed verve of this evergreen.
An ensemble favourite ‘Twilight’ ‘followed with piano accompaniment sounding for three seconds like the opening of ‘Wuthering Heights’ for a moment but soon moves into Dublinesque. The stronger flavoured of three flutes riding over the piano then ravelling backwards is affecting, as is the piano solo rather magically introducing the central section. Bon-bons in snow, but with a tiny fleck of toughness too from the original.
The Bach/Gounod ‘Ave Maria’ is naturally a world from the opening C major Prelude to Bach’s Book 1. Here the melodic profile of Gounod’s already soft-centred melody is served up with sumptuous harmonies. Schmaltz but sweet. What’s good here is the opening out of that original counterpoint and different voices emerging.
‘Celtic Forest’ like ‘Twilight’ is another piece you might see emerge from a film in this dream-like suspension of time. And suspension of breathing too in this lightly inflected and beautifully controlled set of performances. Delightful.
Chapel Royal SMC Ensemble Brighton Photo Simon Jenner
Soprano Sherrie Spinks, alto Katy Friese-Greene, tenor Bob Sheen and baritone Simon Madge perform English madrigals. The golden age was roughly 1587-1637 in England. Sonnet-writing -also originally Italian imports – was the core of the settings. Though the sonnet vogue itself was even shorter mainly the 1590s along with the history play.
The group introduce the songs with a brief running commentary too.
John Dowland (1563-1626) best known for his lute computing comes a close second with his vocal works. But he didn’t naturally compose for madrigals so much as kite sings. He made arrange for parts to be doubled into four, and these are variably successful.
‘Fine knacks for ladies’ is lighter than the “semper Dowland semper dolans” he was famed for. That comes later.
This, celebrating true love over ‘trash’ is a veiled admonition for women not to bother about finery. Since men want nothing of it, nothing at all. This simple atrophic song wears its faintly misogynistic message lightly. It’s not a wholly natural fit for the madrigal but moves well.
It was a smart idea to follow with songs composed by one of the madrigalian greats,,John Wilbye (1574-1638).
Wilbye the son of a Suffolk tanner was adept at persuading printers to publish him. Many survive. It’s a far more reflective setting. Whilst Dowland reflects more the open writing of Thomas Morley (see later) ‘Adieu sweet Amyrillis’ is a chromatic, searching work, by one of the finest composers of the genre. This is high art. It’s dying falls and depths recall the younger Orlando Gibbons.
‘Thus saith my Cloris bright’ indeed Aldo pre-echoes one of Gibbons’ Cries with its descanting an introduction, then entering a robust pinball-effect as the words bounce across. It’s still very minor-keyed though.
‘Lady when I behold’ is slightly more extrovert with it’s piling on of voices and effects. Thrilling stuff.
Chapel Royal Photo Simon Jenner
North-west born John Bennet (c.1580-after 1614) is known in the middle ranks His ‘Weep, O mine eyes’ shows how exquisitely he wrote too. Influenced like many by Morley he produced a book of 19 songs. A have too to Dowland’s song ‘Flow my tears’. This is remarkable, at the level of Wilbye’s ‘Amyrillis’ and for that matter both in the level of the originator of the genre, Monteverdi. Slow-moving with harmonies that flourish in private, it’s riveting.
Thomas Morley (1557-1602), taught by Byrd, was in a sense the founding father of the English madrigals and his ebullience is shown in his ‘April is in my mistress’ face’ with less of the shadows informing his successors. This roundelay sense of words is exuberant and inventive with assure touch of part writing with lines suspended over it. Masterly and indelible it carries profundity too, despite the usual sexual importuning.
Dowland returns to close with ‘Come, heavy sleep’ is more typically Dowland bring dolans. This is absolutely realised as a madrigal, despite some wandering tonalities – a feature of English madrigals generally – that only amplify it’s qualities.
The extraordinary low-lying harmonies are memorable for the consolatory hymn-like slow ascension to the refrain. It ranges over several moods in its invocation to sleep. Playful and cat-like in its humour and sexual innuendoes, it’s also light on its feet.
A feast tonight with teeming variety and accomplishment. A superb evening.
Sussex Musicians Club Chapel Royal
Chapel Royal, North Road Brighton
http://www.sussexmusicans.co.uk
C. P. E. Bach, Chopin, Poulenc, Rachmaninov, Shostakovich played by six young artists. A very brief night, lasting under 40 minutes, but an invigorating snapshot of tomorrow’s musicians.
