News
Review of Christmas Concerts 2011
Baslow Choir’s Christmas Concert at Curbar has become such a
calendar regular that last year’s cancellation on account of the
freeze upset the natural order of events. Normality was resumed
with this year’s concert, staged as is now customary on two
successive evenings. It was good to see and listen to the choir
entering into the spirit of the season with a mixture of
well-known Christmas pieces and popular carols, some of them with
the audience joining in, interlaced with less usual items to
challenge the listener and broaden the fare. The choir displayed
their customary self-assurance under their musical director,
Andrew Marples, with his illuminating and entertaining asides to
the audience introducing the lesser-known works. Alison Wheeldon
on the piano and, scarcely visible but no less accomplished,
Robert Girdler on the organ were there to provide the musical
accompaniment.
Particularly striking in the first half was John Rutter’s
rhythmic “Jesus Child” – a difficult and attractive piece
introduced by Andrew Marples as a “bit of bop” which, despite a
momentary loss of control in the middle, was well executed. This
is a work to search out and listen to again. It followed a
delightful song, “Myn Lyking”, by R. Terry. Later the choir sang
Telemann’s striking “Laudate Jehovam” and concluded the first half
with Handel’s ever-popular “For unto us a child is born” from the
Messiah. A rousing performance of “And the glory of the Lord” from
the Messiah introduced the second half followed by another lovely
Rutter composition called “Angel tidings”. Other items included,
most interestingly, three local carols, one from Hathersage,
another from Eyam (perhaps sung originally in the local Hall?) and
the third, a hymn-like piece from Dore across the county
boundary. The evening concluded with an imaginative medley of
Christmastide tinsel tunes assembled by Andrew Marples to put the
audience into appropriate seasonal mood for the journey home.
Other entertainment was provided by Plague o’Bells. Ten pairs of
dextrous hands performing under the direction of Robert Wright
demonstrated the versatility of the hand bell. The haunting
purity of sound achieved by the players, together with their
ability to combine rhythm, precise togetherness and, where needed,
a muffled percussive effect, enabled this remarkable group to
enchant and delight the audience with their playing. If required
to choose just one for mention, your reviewer would select a
recently written and moving piece called “Nearer, my God, to thee”
by the choir’s former director, Michael Coe. It was composed, we
were told, to mark the centenary next year of the sinking of the
Titanic.
Celia White and, in the second half, Gill Donmall-Hicks, both
members of the choir, stepped forward with readings to add further
variety to the evening’s entertainment. What a joy, it was, to
admire their clarity of diction and sense of timing as well as the
humour of their spoken words.
Congratulations and thanks to all involved for an evening of fun…
and for the wine and mince pies in the interval.
Bill Blackburne
Review of Summer Concert 2011
Baslow Choir’s Summer Serenade, held on Saturday 25 June in the lovely setting of Baslow Church, seemed to gather momentum as the evening progressed. It started modestly with a pastoral song called “The water journey” composed by the Choir’s former musical director and his wife, Michael and Sue Coe. Then, after “Echoes” by Arthur Sullivan (a pleasant enough song but not, perhaps, that composer’s finest oeuvre), it progressed to the Choir’s main work of the first half, five choral parts of Mozart’s Missa Brevis in D Minor. The Choir performed this striking composition with vigour even if, at times, a little more care with the dynamics might have been better.
The middle of the first half was devoted to two clarinet works, dextrously and charmingly performed by Thomas McFarlane whom those present at the Choir’s Spring Concert will recall as an exceedingly talented 18 year old (soon to be “lost” to medicine). On this occasion we were treated to two movements from Saint-Saëns’ Sonata op 167 (the first hauntingly beautiful and the second played with great animation) and two movements from Thomas Dunhill’s Phantasy Suite op 91.
The Choir then came fully into their own with fine performances of that great choral favourite, Faure’s Cantique de Jean Racine, a delightful song (“Departure”) by Mendelssohn, and The Ash Grove (with Thomas providing a clarinet addition to the piano accompaniment) and Dashing away with the Smoothing Iron, in arrangements by Goff Richards from his “Cycle round Britain”.
Who is there (at least of mature years) who does not recall Ronald Binge’s Elizabethan Serenade? This popular work, in sung form and with clarinet and piano accompaniment, got the second half off to an arresting start. The evening then moved to what your reviewer thought showed the Choir at its best. This was a performance of Bob Chilcott’s Little Jazz Mass, composed in 2004. The five choral pieces, mirroring those of the Mozart’s Missa Brevis performed earlier, are, as the work’s name indicates, in jazz mode. Think of it: the Latin of the Mass combined with swing and syncopation! Baslow Choir has a talent for music of this kind. Their ability to handle music of this genre was again evident from the singing of five “Gospel” songs arranged by Ken Burton as “Feel the Spirit!” which concluded the evening in grand style.
Separating the Chilcott and the Burton was another clarinet interlude. Thomas’s performance of Weber’s showpiece Concertino showed him at his impressive best. He followed this up with Acker Bilk’s Stranger on the Shore. To say that Thomas did not quite catch the silky tone of Acker Bilk himself is to carp at excellence. It is greatly to be hoped that medical studies will not rob us of his presence in the future.
No review would be complete without acknowledging Chris Flint’s skill as piano-accompanist, John Weller’s confident tenor solos in “Feel the Spirit” and, not least, Andrew Marples’ overall direction (interspersed with chatty explanations to the audience). To the Choir: bravo!
Bill Blackburne
Review of Spring Concert 2011
It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. And so it proved at the Baslow Choir’s Spring Concert given in Ecclesall’s splendid Parish Church on 16 April. The original aim had been to perform Tippett’s Child of our Time. The cancellation of the choir’s Christmas Concert because of December’s snows called for a programme for the April event which demanded more modest resources. The programme selected was nevertheless every bit as challenging for the performers and as pleasurable for the audience as the Tippett would have been.
The evening started with Rossini’s lively overture to The Italian Girl in Algiers played with gusto by the South Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra. The strings began a little hesitantly but had risen fully to the occasion by the time this very popular work got into its stride under Andrew Marples’ energetic direction. The woodwind were quite excellent. The only pity was that there was no opera to follow.
Elgar’s lyrical Scenes from the Bavarian Highlands took up the rest of the first half. Holidays by the Elgars in Southern Bavaria had fired the composer’s imagination to set to music six poems by his wife which she had written in the style of local folksongs. The result is a delightful and contrasting medley. The choir responded well and sensitively to the varying moods of the songs. The flavour of this most beautiful part of Germany is well captured in the lively brass and the folksy flavour detectable in some of the songs. And, of course, there were those distinctive Elgarian cadences to remind us of the composer’s identity. The climax was achieved in the beautiful fifth song entitled “On the Alm”.
Copland’s Concerto for Clarinet premiered in 1950 by Benny Goodman is not an obvious concert selection. It is a tribute to imaginative programming that this bold choice was made for the start of the second half. The soloist, Thomas McFarlane, still at school in Dronfield and with a place in Oxford to read medicine, performed this exacting work with great self-confidence and amazing dexterity. He was well accompanied by the orchestra’s strings with harp and piano. The result was quite delightful. Your reviewer thought that the performance merited at least a second bow if not a third. As for Thomas, medicine’s gain will be music’s loss.
The remainder of the evening was devoted to Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, a setting to music by Coleridge-Taylor of verses from Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha. The choir, with orchestral accompaniment, obviously relished the opportunity provided by this once very popular late-Victorian concert piece to show what they can do. It has a catchy melody which the choir repeats from time to time. The middle section, a mystical song which is the highlight of the Feast, featured tenor, Andrew McPhee, whose fine voice and clear articulation provided a nice balance to the ballad-like choral parts that preceded and followed it. It was a splendid climax to a most enjoyable evening.
Bill Blackburne
