Newsletter, January 2010
Editor: Ron Nourse
By Christopher Sturdy:
The closing days of 2009 saw the Orchestra pass several milestones. Our Christmas concert in the Pump Room on Sunday December 20th was the last concert with CSO for Peter Tomlinson, who has retired from the Orchestra having played First Flute since the Orchestra’s founding, with a short break some 35 years ago. Peter has a large collection of recordings of our concerts going back many years, as for a long time he used to make recordings of them for us; he will have a lot of fine flute-playing to listen to. I sometimes think it will be interesting to play the better ones and say to the grandchildren “that was me playing that, you know”. Well now that I have two I’ll have to pick the right week between them being too young to understand and too cool to be interested in what grandpa did or didn’t once do.
We all wish Peter well in his retirement from CSO and look back on many happy years. Catherine Billington now takes over as Principal Flute with the full support of conductor, leader and the wind section principals.
The Christmas concert was the first in which we used the new music stand concert folders which have been very kindly donated by Anne Smith in memory of Douglas, the founder of CSO. The folders are suitably inscribed and we are grateful to Andrew Chapman for all his work negotiating with the printers to achieve the right end result.
The concert was also the occasion of the tenth anniversary of David Curtis’s first concert as our conductor; in those ten years he has conducted 70 concerts with us. So during the break in the rehearsal we opened a bottle of Champagne and celebrated with David, the string section leaders, and Peter T.
We are quite often told that CSO gets better and better, and as I approach my 50th year performing (there’s a blue plaque in Reading Shire Hall commemorating St Cecilia’s day 1961, and one of the pieces was the 5/4 movement of Tchaikovsky’s 6th), I become increasingly sure that orchestras don’t get better with a mere stick-waver in front of them; we owe a great deal to David. He and I have agreed that it would be good to try and raise our game another small notch in 2010 (well, I mean the Orchestra not just us two). I think one helpful step would be if we could all come to rehearsals better prepared – meaning in practice, in lip, warmed up, and having looked at the part beforehand if possible. We all know how much better we do if we have been playing in the pit all week or done two concerts and an opera, and we also all know how many calls there are on our time, as we spend the busy week doing other things for a living, chasing around after the offspring, or even being retired. This calls for a bit more time commitment and a bit more effort, but I think it would be rewarding. Now I’ll go and practise – the neighbours will be so surprised they’ll think there’s an air raid on.
David Curtis’ review of the 2009 season
2009 was another terrific season for the Cheltenham Symphony with some remarkable concerts given by the orchestra and some outstanding performances from guest soloists and conductors.
The season opened with an extremely accomplished performance of the Shostakovich piano concerto no2 from another superb Gloucestershire Young Musician of the Year (2008) Alasdair Macaskill. It’s fitting that we end our season in similar vein with a performance of Grieg’s piano concerto with Jonathan McNaught, GYM 2009.
It’s always refreshing for any orchestra to work with other conductors and Ken Woods joined us to conduct our March concert which included one of his favourite works, Schumann symphony no2, the first time the CSO has tackled any Schumann for some while and it was a terrific opportunity for the players to work with a conductor who has a real passion for his symphonies.
Perhaps two of the finest performances given during the season were the June and October concerts which included the epic Berlioz Symphony Fantastique. The CSO really rose to the considerable challenges posed by this revolutionary symphony and gave a performance that fully matched Berlioz’ astonishing and visionary score… it would be tempting to include the work in our 2010 tour to France…
The very high standard of playing of members of the orchestra was illustrated again in an excellent account given by Peter Kerr, principal bassoon with the orchestra, of Mozart’s technically demanding concerto for bassoon. Congratulations again to Peter and to all the wind section for some exquisite playing, a particular highlight for me was the beautiful opening of the Brahms violin concerto, Brahms wind playing at its very best.
So, to 2010. I’m very much looking forward to working with Philip Dukes and the Walton viola concerto, he is one of the UK’s finest viola players and we are very fortunate that he is able to join us for this concert, and our collaboration with Pate’s School will I hope be the first of many. In the summer we have our return visit to Annecy which will be as successful and enjoyable as 2008 and many thanks to Christopher and all those involved for making these tours work and, as always, thanks to all the committee members and volunteers who work tirelessly to ensure that all our concerts run as smoothly as possible.
Thank you all for such a wonderful season and looking forward to 2010…
By Caroline Broekman:
Today (December 7th) I went to Leckhampton School to give a short presentation about Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”. I had just under half an hour – and the piece of music lasts for 27 minutes! I spoke a little about the history of the piece and about each “picture” as the music played - the character of each movement, the varying beats in the bar, the different instruments playing the themes and the recurrence of the Promenade theme.
The children listened very attentively. I think the presentation was well received and I’m sure it will have helped the members of the choir to understand the music better when they listened to the live performance in the Pump Room concert.
Reviews of recent concerts
Pershore Abbey, October 17th 2009
The Orchestra’s sparkling account of Rossini’s overture to The Thieving Magpie hinted at the brilliance to come; energetic brass driving the orchestra on to one of Rossini’s grand climaxes.
David Curtis’ restrained and considered approach to the performance of Brahms creates music that expresses sensitivity and lightness that is nearer to chamber music than Sturm und Drang. Here it was the perfect substrate for the soloist of the evening, Volodja Balzalorsky, who joined the orchestra in the beautiful Brahms Violin concerto. The soloist played with verve and feeling; the gypsy-Hungarian roots of the music were most apparent. The long oboe solo in the slow movement was executed with a restrained beauty that brought tears to the eyes. Both soloist and orchestra deserved the standing ovation that the normally restrained audience awarded them at the end.
So to the final work of the evening, the Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz. This is wild, crazy but often beautiful music and the CSO attacked it with a uniformity of playing that signifies a symphony orchestra at the top of its game. Berlioz calls for some generous scoring in this work, four bassoons, two harps, two timpanists and an array of percussion players. These latter provided accuracy and excitement in the high spots of the piece but there was still the lyricism of the pastoral second movement and the quasi-Viennese splendour of Le Bal. But the apogee of the piece lies in the last two movements, the road to the scaffold and a particularly gruesome execution followed by a witches’ Sabbath that sounded such wild fun that it almost persuaded one to espouse the dark arts. The fugal section in the last half of the fifth movement had the orchestra playing with attack and cohesion, driving on to a final culmination that all but dislodged the roof of this ancient Abbey and which had the audience on its feet in one final accolade.
Pittville Pump Room, December 20th 2009
(By Anne Dunn, Gloucestershire Echo)
This delightful concert began with Grieg’s Piano Concerto which requires
passion, subtlety and control, all of which were found in the playing of
Jonathan NcNaught. His robust style suited the exuberant percussive first
and last movements and he brought out the depth of feeling in the lyrical
Adagio. His command of the instrument was well shown in the demanding first
movement cadenza in which he confidently dealt with the progress from pp
to fff, one of the highlights of a worthwhile performance. David Curtis
conducted the orchestra with his usual clear direction.
The orchestra played their socks off in Paul Patterson’s score accompanying
Little Red Riding Hood. Narrator Alastair Chapman set scenes with a commanding
voice, taking us into his confidence as the scheming wolf. Some of Kate
Bennett’s LRRH action was lost performed on the flat, and both of
them were at times inaudible due to the strength of the orchestra. The score,
with many musical references, took us on the journey through the forest
to the denouement.
Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition found
the orchestra in full power, giving vivid musical portrayals of the varied
scenes, all elements of their large forces used to satisfying advantage.
Concerts in 2010
Please see www.cheltenhamsymphonyorchestra.info/concerts.htm for any changes/amendments.
Organisation
Rosie Zienko has been co-opted onto the Committee as Publicity Officer and Michael StJohn has taken over from Ron Nourse responsibility for the production of concert programmes and for the Orchestra’s Archives.
The Annual General Meetings of the Orchestra and of the Friends will take
place at Prestbury St Mary’s Junior School after the rehearsal on
March 25th, beginning at 9pm.