Simon Jenner, March 14 2026
The evening started three minutes early! The Brighton Guitar Quartet (Ruari Gain, James Harry, Simon Hopkins, Oliver Thereaux) performed a diversity of musical creatures. First up a piece by Berndt Rest entitled ‘Velo!’ It’s sonority isn’t far removed from The Deer Hunter‘s a delightful sorbet.
It was followed by an arrangement from Bizet’s Carmen by Gary Spolding if the famous ‘Habanera’ taken at the same tempo as the singer would have. More of the habanera rhythms come out though it’s also a restrained and refined treatment. It’s also the most extended by far enjoying several virtuosic sections.
Born in 1950, Paulo Bellinati’s piece ‘Baiao de Gude’ is similarly minimal and even more melodically gracious in its upbeat strummy language with some gleaming passagework and brief flurries of exciting cross rhythms. Quite hypnotic. A fine finale.
Another quartet followed: Sherrie Spinks, Katy Friese-Greene, Bob Sheen, Simon Madge in a classic SATB line-up.
Anton Bruckner is not known enough for his short often pithy liturgical settings. His ‘Locus Iste’ is an arrangement of another. There’s a feel of Tannhauser’s main themes tinting this devotional piece. The blend and solos were really well taken.
Shenandoah followed with it’s soprano and alto lines entwined and supported by lower voices. Philip Lawson (b.1957) set his ‘Gaelic Song’ in a bit dissimilar vein. The opening recalls the solo soprano vices in Holst’s ‘Tomorrow shall be my dancing day’s and Vaughan Williams. But it becomes boppier and more recent Kings Singer settings come to mind.
Gerald Finzi’s joyous ‘My spirit sang all day’ recalls the madrigalists of the early 17th century. It’s different from his singing settings. By contrast, his friend and mentor Vaughan Williams’ vocal output isn’t as known as it should be. ‘The Turtle Dove’ is a stunning setting. Modal and steeped in his study of the Tudor polyphonies and the folk songs he collected, it has the force of a secular hymn and love song. The solos are rapt particularly the baritone’s.
Parry’s ‘My Soul’ is a balm afterwards with its lengthy setting of metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan. A fitting conclusion with hints of the nodal world Vaughan Williams would inhabit..
Rachmaninov’s Cello Sonata in G minor Op 19 succeeded his Piano Concerto No.2 and comes from his recovery in 1901. It’s a big bones piece in four movements performed here by cellist Ben Alexander with Alex Sinclair performing the equally virtuosic piano part.
The Lento moving to the Allegro Moderato is sweeping in scope and melodic content, starting slow and then majestic in its expansive argument. The Allegro Scherzando follows with a sharp sided mm mordantly witty flavour. The rhapsodic Andante develops a long breathed raptness over what seems a vivid summer, rising to an impassioned climax before subsiding to an equally romantic coda.
The finale in Allegro mosso is brilliant with assertive cascades and a feel of a cascading homecoming and jubilation. Someone who has won through.
The playing is consummate and both soloists relish the interplay. Alexander knows how to insinuate and never overstate a cello line and Sinclair weaves his piano throughout. There’s a forthrightness and confidence that simply brims over and could be heard anywhere.
Finally Franz Danzi’s Piano and Wind Quintet comes as a piece written shortly after Beethoven’s and further back Mozart. Inspired by these examples Danzi who was born between both in 1763 and died in 1826 (hence this bicentenary choice), was also an inheritor of the Czech wind tradition. He wrote his quintet around 1811.
Returning after their success in the Mozart Piano and Winds Quintet in E flat K452 last year, pianist Stephen Engelhard, Alex Pearson on oboe, clarinetist Stella Knight Natasha Witt’s on horn and bassoonist Martha Leigh dispatch the three movements with brio and dash.
The opening Larghetto with emphatic piano calls to attention gives way through a memorable blend of wind instruments to an Allegro and the argument proper. There’s a Mozartian feel to the formal blasts like the opening of the overture to The Magic Flute. In fact the Quintet is often a serious work. More so than the Mozart with its joyous galant cut; or the burly ambitious Beethoven. Nevertheless it eases into a more Mozartian second subject before returning to the dark-hued winds of the opening.
An attractive Andante sostenuto doesn’t drag but insinuates a quiet amidst its own perkiness. The drawing out of solos and the almost adagio feel of this movement is ripped by the piano that expands to the more ding-like major keyed hue of this section. Speeding up on occasion brings a sunlit classical cut to everything.
Nevertheless it’s not in the least bland. There’s plenty of chromaticism. This is a world where Beethoven has trod a measure and late Mozart and Haydn have tinctured the chromatic palette.
Finally the dark-hued Allegretto finds Danzi not in his delectable comfort zone but willing to project a little melancholy into his finale, before things can lighten. Full of spirit and elan, blending all the Quintet with an assertive cantus firmus on the piano. A real gem, surely fit to be heard alongside the Mozart and the Beethoven inspired by that work; this makes an absolutely worthy third.
A superbly played and lengthy evening with no longeurs. And a first-class concert with balance in the music chosen and executed. Rarely has each performance been of a universally high standard.
Chapel Royal Brighton Photo Simon Jenner
Oboist Alex Pearson and pianist Stephen Engelhard present two items each by Handel and Bach. Handel’s Oboe Sonata in G minor Op 1 No. 2 is a plaintive aria-riven piece that might date from his time at Cannons, residing with the Duke of Chandos 1717-19. Or earlier. The movements are typically slow-fast-slow-fast here telescoped into two. It’s like two early Italian arias yoked together, full of wintry resolve.
Before the next Handel Oboe Sonata, Engelhard plays two Bach Preludes in the keys of the Handel: G minor and A minor respectively. The G minor BWV 885 is famed for its tragic measure and tread in a two-note tied fashion. The A minor BWV 889 despite its equally steady tempo this is a spikier more harmonically challenging work. A fantastic spiral of false notes unwinds and cascades out. Quietly gripping.
Handel’s Oboe Sonata in A minor Op 1 No.4 is a more pastoral affair than the G minor. We leave grieving, G minor’s baroque key for the subject, into the melancholy pastoral of A minor. It’s more instrumental in feel with a more complex slow movement and a resolute fast section. Again tunefully insistent it takes on the character of a heroic aria. The gentler aria that follows is a little bit “parlando”, that is as if speaking. Finally a more upbeat finale still wedded to the minor. Again bold and resolved. Immensely satisfying.
Chapel Royal Photo Simon Jenner
Beatrice Sales who often plays the viola tonight reverted to the violin and rekindled her musical partnership with pianist Andrew Biggs. Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No.4 in A minor Op 23 is slightly overshadowed by the Op 24 ‘Spring’ Sonata. But it’s fascinating and ground-breaking in its own right. Starting with a fluid and skittering Presto it’s clear this work and these players have a keen sense of direction. It’s a strong opening followed by a more graceful and classical Andante scherzoso, piu Allegretto which more than keeps the work in motion. There’s no Adagio here and the quirky off Ruth’s carry into the Allegro molto finale. This is dark and in many respects the most powerful movement of all. Propulsive and even tragic in its resolve it builds tremendously like a prophesy of the ‘Tempest’ ‘Kreutzer’ or Appassionata’ Sonatas. It then winds down to a sotte voce conclusion, still unconsoled. A terrific end to a universally strong set of performances.
Next Concert Saturday February 14.
Chapel Royal. Photo Credit Simon Jenner
