2010
_____________
Click photos to enlarge them, back button to
return, F11 full screen, again to return (Internet Explorer only)
A large audience on 5th June
The 2010 Tilford Bach Festival was in the best tradition of this annual event,
and the weather was cooperative on this occasion. Sadly, this was Laurence
Cummings’ last festival as a director, but he promised guest visits in
future years.
_________
The 58th Tilford Bach Festival opened in the Great
Hall of Farnham Castle with a revolutionary start, in fact the Revolutionary
Drawing Room String Quartet. Audiences have heard them before on at least four
occasions and are always delighted to have them because they are led by the TBS
Director of Music, Adrian Butterfield with Kathryn Parry, Rachel Stott and Ruth
Alford.
The Revolutionary Drawing Room
is that rare group, a string quartet that performs late 18th and early
19th-century repertoire with a sound derived by the use of period instruments
which offer a tone that comes from the beauty and flexibility of gut strings.
The name 'Revolutionary Drawing
Room' refers to the revolutionary years in
It could not have been more
appropriate on this occasion as the audience gathered around the fireplace of
the Great Hall as though in the Bishop’s drawing room. They performed
quartets by composers from the early, middle and late 18th century –
Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Surely, whatever your idea of heaven, there would
have to be a string quartet playing Beethoven and during the last movement of
the Quartet in F Major some members of the audience saw flights of angels!
Pete
Wisbey
_________
For regulars at the Tilford Bach Festival, the
appearance of the London Handel Players is like the annual visit of a group of
old friends. Where else could you go to a music festival and be on first name
terms with the band!
The programme gave four of the
members chance to shine. The viola player is often like an alto singer with
just a harmony line, but Bach’s E flat Major Viola Concerto, originally
written for oboe, allowed Peter Collyer to demonstrate not only his skill as a
player but the wonderfully rich tone of his instrument.
CPE Bach was part of King Frederick’s music
court for thirty odd years. The king himself played the flute but apparently
found some of CPE’s music difficult to play. Not so Rachel Brown who
showed the king exactly how it should be done. The programme note for the
Concerto in D minor H425 said it comprises two dramatic fast movements with an
exquisite and unusually melodious slow movement. Exquisite and melodious are
certainly two words one would use about this performance.
When Adrian Butterfield takes
the stand to play the violin you know you will get a virtuoso performance and
it was the music of Leclair that benefitted from his enormous skill with the
bow in the Opus 7 Concerto in D minor.
This year Laurence Cummings
retires as Co-Director of Music for the Tilford Bach Society so it was no
coincidence that the final item was the
Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 with the roller coaster of a ride in the
cadenza at the end of the first movement. Someone said afterwards “I just
held my breath through the cadenza!”. Everyone did.
Pete
Wisbey
_________
Adrian Butterfield takes
applause at the end of Come Ye Sons of
Art
One entertaining aspect of a Tilford Bach Festival final concert is seeing how
the musicians will manage to fit into the limited space available at the front
of this village church. With an orchestra of more than twenty, five soloists
and a choir of about two dozen, conducted by a director placed behind a concert
organ positioned at the front, things are a bit tight.
But what stunning sounds are
produced from this concentrated assembly of musical talent! This grand final
concert was breathtaking. William Boyce’s 5th Symphony in D Major opened
on a joyful note and set a wonderful atmosphere for the evening.
Come Ye Sons of Art by Purcell
is even more joyful and gave the audience its first choral experience of the
evening with the Pegasus chamber choir and the soloists. Pegasus is an
excellent choir who have now performed many times for TBS, and this was the
second time this year.
After the interval, Pegasus
performed the Bach motet Komm, Jesu, Komm BWV229. This was followed by the main
work of the evening, Bach’s Magnificat in D, BWV 243. This work is one of
the TBS’s most frequently performed pieces over the decades of the
society’s existence and this performance must rank ahead of or alongside
any of its predecessors.
There is a climax in this work
in the chorus Fecit potentiam (“He hath shown strength…”)
with a wonderful point of dissonance on the word superbos which, on this
occasion and in this setting, was utterly stunning.
Laurence Cummings was at his
absolute best in conducting and accompanying this piece. The audience was later
pleased to hear, when he was presented with a special gift, that he has
promised to accept future offers to return as a visiting performer and
conductor.
Performances by all the soloists
in this concert were excellent and memorable – Ruby Hughes, Susanna
Hurrell (sopranos), Christopher Ainslie and Philip Jones (counter-tenors),
Kevin Kyle (tenor) and George Humphreys (baritone). The London Handel Orchestra
performed quite exquisitely, but this is quite normal and surprised no one.
Ian
Sargeant
Bach’s Magnificat – Laurence
Cummings’ last conducting role as a TBS Musical Director in a festival
concert
_________
More pictures from the Festival
_________