Friday 22 August 2025
Mahler and the Folksong – songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, and traditional folksongs arr. Gemma Bass
The Quire, Southwell Minster
This took place in the beautiful and intimate surroundings of the Quire in Southwell Minster. The audience sat in the choir stalls while the musicians performed on the steps to the Chancel. Marcus Farnsworth, Founder and Artistic Director of Southwell Music Festival, and baritone for this recital, introduced us to the eleventh festival, following last year’s triumphant tenth anniversary celebrations. He said he had enjoyed last year’s Bank Holiday Monday concert in the Minster’s Chapter House, with musicians including the mezzo-soprano Judy Louie Brown and the composer and violinist Gemma Bass, so they decided to do something similar this year.
Gustav Mahler returned to texts from Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic Horn), an early nineteenth-century collection of German folk poems and songs, on several occasions, including movements of his second, third and fourth symphonies, various song collections, and the song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer). In her programme note, Gemma Bass described Mahler’s songs as follows:
‘There’s a focus on humanness and nature, both in his subjects and his approach, but there’s also an incredible depth and something bigger being tapped into here – his own genius, perhaps, or his faith – and of course a remarkable command of musical language.’
Farnsworth sang the five Mahler songs in the concert with accompanist Libby Burgess. Both musicians skilfully drew out the subtleties of Mahler’s musical language. They began with Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen (Where the splendid trumpets sound). Farnsworth brought out the tenderness and poignancy of this early morning meeting between a soldier and his lover before he went to war. He was more robust in Revelge (Reveille), with a rich tone and boisterous demeanour, Burgess superbly illustrating the drums played by the jolly soldier as he sang ‘Tralalee, tralalay, tralala.’ But the song had an underlying poignancy, described in the chilling final verse, ‘There in the morning lie their bones/In rank and file like tombstones.’ The Schubert-like folk song Rheinlegendchen (Little Rhine Legend) about unrequited love had a lovely flowing piano part, and there was a glimpse of hope at the end. Farnsworth’s superb word-painting was again evident in Wer hat das Liedlein erdacht? (Who made up this little song?) as he brought out the song’s gentle humour. But the highlight of his contribution was Urlicht (Primordial Light), the fourth movement of Mahler’s Second Symphony. The poem describes returning to God with the hope of resurrection, and as Farnsworth sang it, I noticed a statue of a praying figure with his back to us as if turning to God, George Ridding, first Bishop of Southwell (1884 – 1904). Farnsworth sang from the depths of inward, contemplative stillness. Burgess’s touch on the piano was sublime. The song’s ending was ecstatic, as the protagonist passed into eternal life.
Gemma Bass said in her programme note that her English folk song arrangements were inspired by the contrast between Mahler’s ‘simplicity and complexity.’ She told the audience that she wanted to bring out Mahlerian contrasts between the personal and the universal, nature and humanity, love and war. Even the building where the concert took place was a mixture of the manmade and the nature carvings of the Minster (such as those celebrated in The Leaves of Southwell project). Bass took songs famously set by Benjamin Britten, Polly Oliver, O Waly Waly and Come you not from Newcastle? plus the traditional Northumbrian song, The Oak and the Ash, and radically transformed them. Mezzo-soprano Judy Louie Brown sang the songs with a warm, generous tone and a gentle, folky inflexion. The string players – Bass herself on violin, Lena Eckels on viola and Nathaniel Boyd on cello – often seemed to provide an ironic commentary on the jolly-sounding folk tunes, in the kind of contrast Mahler would have enjoyed. So Sweet Polly Oliver’s traditional tune was accompanied by violin and viola that sounded like bagpipes and a bell-like drone, perhaps to cast doubt on the female protagonist’s decision to please her lover better, having bravely followed him to war dressed in her dead brother’s clothes. In the bold arrangement of O Waly Waly, the strings darkly enhanced the narrative of unrequited love. Bass also wrote two Mahler-inspired instrumentals. Rosy Dawn, which took its title from the words ‘Die Morgenröt’ from Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen, featured a folky violin tune, soon joined by the viola, over a cello drone. There was a feeling of gently pensive stasis, which shifted like a flowing river, constantly changing but always the same. Three Geese took its title from the ‘drei Gäns’ of Wer hat das Liedlein erdacht? It began in the same contemplative mode as Rosy Dawn but gradually became more folky, jazzy and joyful. It ended with a humorous little squiggle, which made the audience smile. A lovely end to a delightful concert.
Performers
Judy Louie Brown mezzo-soprano
Marcus Farnsworth baritone
Libby Burgess piano
Gemma Bass violin
Lena Eckels viola
Nathaniel Boyd cello
Festival Cabaret
Southwell Library
Amongst the displays about the local history of Southwell, this was the first time a Festival main event took place in Southwell Library on the high street, just a short walk from the Minster. The Festival Voices performed a well-chosen mix of songs from musicals, 60s and 70s pop and rock, and music from Gershwin, Flanders and Swann, the Ink Spots, Hoagy Carmichael and Victoria Wood. All were guaranteed to raise smiles of recognition and tapping of toes in the capacity audience.
The concert began with a showcase for the superb a cappella close harmony singing of Festival Voices, including two lovely Beatles covers. Here, There and Everywhere followed the template of the original harmonies, but with added decorations in a Swingle Singers style. Blackbird was part of the concert’s avian theme, which somehow got lost along the way; no matter! The singers mimicked guitars and whistled stylishly. A false ending raised laughter from the audience, and the real ending raised more laughter. In between, there was a stunning rendition of The Ink Spots’ 1940 hit Java Jive. There were vocal sound effects, including drumming, an upright bass and hearty ‘Aahs’ to show how much the singers loved coffee and tea.
Individual singers from within the choir had a chance to shine, too. Chris Webb sang Hippopotamus by Flanders and Swann with operatic aplomb, and the audience gamely covered themselves in metaphorical mud in the choruses. Oliver Hunt sang Bernstein’s On the Town in a poignant rendition, and a passionate Lost in the Stars, acting out the words expressively. Alastair Brookshaw created a Bridge Over Troubled Water, echoing the delicacy of Art Garfunkel’s voice with a liquid legato in a rousing performance. He returned in a fantastic coup de théâtre, dressed as a priest and wishing the house peace as he flew onto the stage in ecclesiastical turmoil. He perfectly illustrated the painful dilemma of the protagonist in Bishop’s Song from Sondheim’s last musical, Here We Are. There was another ecclesiastical protagonist when Carrys Jones, minus the habit of the Mother Abbess, sang an operatic, heartfelt version of Climb Ev’ry Mountain.
There was a piano interlude when the two accompanists, Libby Burgess and Paul Provost, treated us to a selection of four-hand arrangements from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. They played a lilting version of Summertime, a rollicking, jazzy version of It Ain’t Necessarily So, and a short but very sweet I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin. The concert ended with more joyous close harmony frolics from Festival Voices. There was a witty version of Queen’s vaudeville pastiche, Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon, complete with kazoos, honouring the band’s famous ‘No Synthesisers!’ avowal. There was Tin Pan Alley close harmony in Hoagy Carmichael’s Skylark, with excellent solos from the choir. But perhaps the highlight of the whole concert was Victoria Wood’s wickedly naughty Ballad of Barry and Freda (Let’s Do It), which features the immortal line, ‘Beat me on the bottom with a Woman’s Weekly.’ We felt sorry for poor old Barry being harassed by his wife. The song went down a storm – a fantastic ending to a superb concert. A splendid time was guaranteed for all.
Performers
Libby Burgess piano
Paul Provost piano
Festival Voices – soloists Chris Webb, Oliver Hunt, Alastair Brookshaw, Carrys Jones
Duke Ellington’s ‘Sacred Concert’
The Nave, Southwell Minster
When conductor and Artistic Director Marcus Farnsworth was 12 and studying trumpet, he discovered Simon Rattle’s The Jazz Album, which he recorded in 1987 with London Sinfonietta and others. Farnsworth was fascinated by the final piece on the album, Leonard Bernstein’s Prelude, Fugue and Riffs and always wanted to conduct it. With trumpeter Graham South, he devised a concert which included the Bernstein piece, and his dream was realised – in what he described as ‘a new departure’ for the Festival – an orchestral jazz concert with choir and clarinet and soprano soloists.
South and Farnsworth chose music from Duke Ellington and his long-time collaborator, Billy Strayhorn, to pair with the Bernstein. In his invaluable programme notes, South quoted a comment Bernstein made to Ellington in a TV interview in 1966,
Well maybe that’s really the difference between us – you wrote symphonic jazz, and I wrote jazz symphonies
Leonard Bernstein talking to Duke Ellington on 2 July 1966
© WTMJ-TV, a Journal Broadcast Group Station
The musicians were the Manchester-based Cottontail Orchestra, comprised of freelance musicians from various ensembles, including Beats & Pieces Big Band and Manchester Jazz Collective. Appropriately, they began the concert with the Duke Ellington composition Cottontail. This was lively big band jazz, idiomatically played with superbly virtuosic soloists. At one point, a sax quintet stood up to play some gorgeous close harmony, similar to what we had heard in the Festival Cabaret earlier. Strayhorn’s Isfahan showcased the extraordinary talent of alto sax player Emily Burkhardt, whose beautiful tone featured sensuous slides and a melismatic flow, with quivering vibrato and bluesy note bends. A surprise but welcome addition to the programme was Ellington’s Happy-Go-Lucky Local, which has a slightly sleazy and sarcastic sound, describing a local train heaving its way along the track – some material from the much more famous Night Train could also be heard. For Prelude to a Kiss, the band were joined by soprano Clare Wheeler, whose voice was suitably mellow with a touch of the great Ella Fitzgerald. The final Ellington piece in the first half was Kinda Dukish/Rockin’ in Rhythm, with a lovely syncopated piano intro from Adam Fairhall, followed by joyfully intricate big band music. Farnsworth described Prelude, Fugue and Riffs as the ‘meeting point of classical and jazz’, with a prelude for brass and kit, an ‘actual fugue’ for saxophone, and Matt Glendening on solo clarinet in the riffs section. Touches of 20th-century classical music could be heard, such as Stravinsky’s Les noces, which features four pianos. There was an almost avant-garde section, but also some Rhapsody in Blue-style clarinet playing and plenty of stunning big band music. Farnsworth worked very hard, bringing out a superbly life-affirming performance from the players.
Part two was devoted to Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concert, which has a complicated performance history. The Concert of Sacred Music was premiered sixty years ago, in mid-September 1965, at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco. The Second Sacred Concert was premiered in 1968, and the Third in 1973. Ellington had reused some of his music from previous compositions, and when touring the Concert he was often joined by local choirs, and he adapted music from all three versions to suit their abilities. Farnsworth conducted a fourth version, which he described as ‘the best of all three Sacred Concerts’, produced in 1993 by John Høybye and Peder Pedersen for soprano solo, choir and big band. The version he chose was, in his words, ‘appropriate for the building.’ This was true in a religious sense, but also in an acoustic sense as the Minster’s superb acoustics are clear, warm and generous, ideal for big band jazz and chamber choir.
Farnsworth was right to choose a version of the Concert that emphasised the choir’s contribution. The Festival Voices were ecstatic in the opening Praise God, based on Psalm 150, and when they repeated the words, there was a bluesy big band beneath. In Heaven, they sang like the best of Hollywood choruses. There were moments of sublime beauty when they sang a cappella in Freedom, Come Sunday and Almighty God. There was also the chance for soprano Clare Wheeler to demonstrate her skills, including scatting in The Majesty of God, some avant-garde vocalising in T.G.T.T. (Too Good To Title) and a warm legato in David Danced Before the Lord. The Cottontail Orchestra matched the quality of the choir. Highlights included: Graham South’s trumpet solo in The Shepherd, using his mute to create an earthy, almost feral growling sound; Johnny Hunter’s drum solo at the start of David Danced…; and the tireless playing of bass player Joshua Cavanagh-Brierly throughout. The piece ended with an invitation to Praise God and Dance, an ecstatic hymn to God. Although there was no actual dancing in the audience, our spirits danced as the concert came to a rapturous end.
Performers
Clare Wheeler soprano
Matthew Glendening clarinet
Festival Voices
The Cottontail Orchestra
Marcus Farnsworth conductor
Repertoire
Duke Ellington Cottontail
Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington Isfahan
Duke Ellington Happy-Go-Lucky Local
Duke Ellington Prelude to a Kiss
Harry Carney, Irving Mills and Duke Ellington Kinda Dukish/Rockin’ in Rhythm
Leonard Bernstein Prelude, Fugue and Riffs
Duke Ellington, arr. John Høybye and Peder Pedersen Sacred Concert
For a review of Day Two of the Festival, click here
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