Southwell Music Festival 2024 Day Two: English Song Recital with Mark Padmore; Beethoven Live and Late

Saturday 24 August 2024

English Song Recital with Mark Padmore

Mark Padmore (tenor) and Libby Burgess (piano)
1.00 pm The Nave Southwell Minster

Festival Director Marcus Farnsworth announced this concert, saying it was a ‘great privilege’ to introduce Mark Padmore, the Festival’s Artist in Residence, and pianist Libby Burgess, in a recital of English Song. It was also a privilege for the audience to be present at such a wonderful concert, probably the highlight of a festival of many highlights. Padmore said that the poetry was ‘equal to the music’, and his word painting throughout was sublime. There was also equality between voice and piano. Burgess’ playing was beautifully shaped and controlled, characterful, sensitive and expressive. The gentle smile she gave Padmore at the end of a gorgeous rendition of Butterworth’s Loveliest of Trees said it all.

We began with Stanford’s La Belle Dame Sans Merci with words by Keats. Padmore acted out the words, not only through clear diction but with his whole body, expressing the varied emotions of the song from melancholy to happiness. Then came a series of eight songs, all from the 20th century except Hoopoe written in 2007 by Sally Beamish. Padmore advised us to search for an image of, ‘this wonderful bird’ if we weren’t familiar with it.

The song’s text is Jila Peacock’s translation of a Persian poem by the 14th Iranian poet Hafez about the Hoopoe, a magical bird in Middle Eastern mythology, the messenger between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Padmore sang the bird’s name in a light-voiced and humorous tone, like a bird call. But there was drama too, with an anguished vocal line and discordant piano, a stunning climax, the range of colours in the song matching the vivid plumage of the bird itself. Another highlight of many in this sequence was The Seal Man, set by Rebecca Clarke to words by John Masefield. The poem is about a selkie, a mythical creature that shifts between human and seal forms, which lures a woman into the sea where she drowns. Padmore was completely immersed in the tragic story. Burgess played gorgeously ambiguous chords under the unsettling lines, ‘she went out into the moonlight to him.’ Padmore whispered the final words. ‘She was drowned, drowned’ while the piano part sank down in sorrow.

Padmore introduced Britten’s Winter Words by referring back to the ‘extraordinary’ performance of Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge in the Strings in the Nave concert the previous evening. He also provided pointers to Britten’s setting of the words by Thomas Hardy, including onomatopoeic effects such as a train whistle and leaves on an autumn day. He asked Burgess to play the hymn tune Mount Ephraim, the Choirmaster’s favourite tune in The Choirmaster’s Burial, to show us how it is interweaved with Britten’s piano part. When he performed the complete piece, Padmore acted out the humour, to chuckles from the audience, playing the part of the lazy vicar who prefers to have a spoken funeral service for the choirmaster rather than having musicians playing the hymn tune. Another vivid characterisation was in the lovely vignette, At the Railway Station, Upway, in which Padmore played the part of a convict talking to a boy with a violin. There was a twinkle in his eye at the end of the song. Padmore brought all the poems to life, creating a gripping and emotionally draining experience. The encore, introduced by Burgess, was Down by the Salley Gardens, not in the version the audience might have expected but by Rebecca Clarke, whose music we had heard earlier. After the emotional depth of the earlier songs it was a joy to hear this simple folk song in a lilting version with a light-voiced Padmore and sparkling piano from Burgess.

Beethoven Live and Late

Festival Chamber Soloists
9.45 pm The Crossing, Southwell Minster

Some of the greatest masterpieces of western art music were never heard live by their composers. Bach never heard a complete performance of his B Minor Mass – it wasn’t premiered in full until after his death. Beethoven never heard his Late String Quartets (numbers 12 – 17) as he was profoundly deaf by the time he wrote them. So these profound works of art only existed in their composers’ imaginations.

It takes a special performance to realise these works. Ideally, they should speak directly to the audience, so the music appears to emanate from the imagination, exactly as the composers experienced them. The heart of Southwell Minster was an perfect place for Saturday night’s performance of Beethoven’s Quartet No. 15 in A minor (Opus 132). As Festival Director Marcus Farnworth explained, a religious setting was appropriate for a piece that includes a central movement titled Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit, a sacred song thanking God for Beethoven’s recovery from serious illness. But the setting was appropriate for other reasons too; the performers were powerfully illuminated while the audience on three sides were in almost complete darkness. Looking across to the audience on the other side, all that could be seen were pale, ghostly faces, as if this were a recreation of a concert from 1825 when the piece was written and the audience members had passed away long ago. The grave tolling of the Minster bell between the first and second movements of the Quartet was another reminder of the passing of time, and perhaps also that Beethoven was in fact near his death only two years later. The rapt concentration of the incredibly attentive audience in a packed house increased the effect of this being a cerebral rather than a corporeal performance.

All this would have been for nothing if the Festival Chamber Soloists hadn’t been up to the task of delivering a superb performance in a setting that was both intimate and austere. Fortunately, they were. Jamie Campbell (Associate Director of the Festival) was a sweet-toned First Violinist with immaculate tuning, equally matched by Alessandro Ruisi on Second Violin. The Viola of Lena Eckels was rich, warm-toned and precise. Nathaniel Boyd on Cello was subtle and agile, light-toned when required but passionate at times, attacking the strings with his bow. Together, they had a stunning level of ensemble, with breath-taking levels of concentration. The timeless nature of the performance – and the music – was accentuated by the pillars and arches that soared high above the audience from centuries before. As Libby Burgess said in her programme note,

“In many ways [Beethoven] was breaking with the norms and logic of the Viennese Classical tradition and reaching for something more poetic.”

And in the third movement in particular the music felt both modern and timeless, perhaps partly because, as Burgess says, Beethoven had by now, ‘retreated into an inner world.’ In this performance, it felt as if we had entered this private world, at least for a short time.