Posted on by Richard Dove

Shining brass

Photo: Richard Dove
RICHARD DOVE is blown away by an ambitious brass ensemble

A Saturday morning concert always puts a spring in my step, particularly when the sun is shining and the venue is the ancient barn at Pilsdon in West Malling. This is the second day of the ever ambitious annual Music@Malling festival. Cups of coffee and tea and custard creams are being consumed as we listen to the fast-rising young quintet Connaught Brass tune their gleaming instruments. They arrived in the early hours after a trek across the country following a concert in Wales. Despite this they look fresh-faced and eager.

They stand in a semi-circle – tuba, horn, trombone and two trumpets. Elliot Carter’s arrangement of Purcell’s Fantasia on One Note sets the tone for a wonderfully varied repertoire. It is explained that Carter thought the one note was underdone and so this 20th century composer put his own slant on this Baroque piece. Indeed, we bounce between Baroque and the 20th century throughout the programme.

The interplay is stunning as the trumpeters take the lead and the tuba takes the pulse of the piece. After a resonant Vivaldi Concerto in F Major we move to unmistakable Leonard Bernstein and one of his final compositions, Dance Suite. These are brass vignettes with a quirky, bouncing, exuberant character which match the zest and energy of the ensemble.

Then, a surprise; the musicians move to all four corners of the barn to replicate Giovanni Gabrielli’s surround sound textures in St Mark’s, Venice. I stare at the high timbered ceiling as the sound merges and seemingly floats. This is virtuosity with imagination and a dash of daring.

We are transported from Venice to New York with Gershwin’s Three Preludes – a slice of Manhattan in West Malling. With their jazz traditions it is evident that Gershwin and Bernstein relish the sounds of brass and exploit the range of the instruments to the upmost. The mood changes with Dowland’s Flow My Tears, and this glorious melancholy embraces the Barn. How could such a varied programme be concluded? Well, the Connaughts deliver a magnificent finale with trombonist Will Foster’s arrangement of Kurt Weill’s Threepennny Opera. It has spoken interjections, piccolo trumpet, flugelhorn, multiple muted sounds (muting a tuba involves a very elaborate contraption) and even a pause for a custard cream as one trumpeter soloist seemingly gives up the struggle and wanders to the back of the barn. They first performed the piece at the Lucerne Festival where the guiding theme was “Crazy.”

The sheer verve of the playing just makes one smile with wonder and astonishment. It is evident why this chamber group won first prize in the inaugural Philip Jones International Brass Ensemble Competition. After a Gershwin encore they stride purposefully out of the barn as the applause resonates. We have all witnessed something very special and it’s not even lunchtime.  As we head out, the musicians are all sitting around a picnic table chatting. Friendship and virtuosity is a winning formula. Do keep a watch out for Connaught Brass.

Posted on by Stuart Millson

Sinfonia sparkle for austerity December

An American in Paris
STUART MILLSON is transported to a warmer sound-world

Any sense of malaise, austerity or winter gloom in London was dispelled for two hours (for those fortunate to be in attendance) by the Sinfonia of London’s 2nd December performance of Walton, Ravel, Dutilleux and Gershwin at the Barbican.

Much praised by the critics and always receiving great waves and whoops of adulation even before they have played a note, the Sinfonia’s concerts are an occasion: this mainly young orchestra, handpicked by their enterprising and unpredictable-in-repertoire conductor, John Wilson, playing with much physical joie de vivre and idiomatic interpretation. Confirmation of the latter came in the form of the jazzy trumpet playing – straight from the environs of Tin Pan Alley – in Gershwin’s intoxicating An American in Paris; a score we all know, or thought we knew… True to form, John Wilson, a great fan of the golden age of Hollywood and a musician dedicated to rediscovering lost scores, managed to track down 86 bars of unheard original Gershwin music, reconstituting the piece – turning it from that brilliant, boulevard ballet for Gene Kelly into a symphonic poem of The Great Gatsby era. The cliche, ‘it brought the house down’ certainly applied to this performance, as nuanced as it was bold, as cinematic as a work could ever be.

Yet the Gershwin was not the only work in John Wilson’s line-up that matched the mood of the composer. In Walton’s Scapino overture, the Sinfonia found all the wafting Mediterranean warmth and dry wit for which the English composer (who took himself off, post-war, to the Bay of Naples) is renowned. Similarly in Ravel’s 1903 song-cycle, Sheherazade, whichsets the mysterious oriental poetry of Wagner-attracted ‘Tristan Klingsor’ (otherwise known as Leon Leclere), a heady sense of the exotic and of unattainable sensuous revelation oozed from the Sinfonia strings; complemented by soloist Alice Coote’s equally beguiling articulation and vocal reveries.

Henri Dutilleux, a well-respected French composer who died some ten years ago, was represented by a 1950s’ ballet score, Le Loup, whichsoundedverymuch like a cabaret piece by Milhaud or Satie, turned into a symphonic poem. How authentic the work is as an example of the true musical character of Dutilleux is a matter of debate, but Le Loup – the wolf – had plenty of well-crafted passages for the Sinfonia to enjoy – although the piece, for what it was, did seem rather overblown in length. 

Ravel’s Bolero could be considered as another of those works which, despite being very well known, does not entirely represent the best efforts of its creator. Yet in the hands of John Wilson, the audience had a chance to rediscover and re-hear the piece, entirely. From the first side-drum taps, to the strange, slow, disjointed thrums of the harp, Bolero has a curious mystery to it; an odd sense that you can’t break away or get out of a dream – which, before you know it – has sucked in every instrument of the orchestra and is fast propelling you to the edge of a precipice. John Wilson’s arrival at that moment jolted the Barbican audience into a tidal wave of applause. 

And there was one additional, non-musical touch to the evening: the concert took place in the presence of Hollywood royalty. Enjoying the Gershwin in particular (no doubt), was none other than Gene Kelly’s widow, a lady of immense grace and style – a living reminder of golden ages which now seem out of reach, but which in fact are still just within our grasp.