Tag: Southwell Festival Voices

Friday 23 August 2024

Martin Bussey & Anthony Pinching on ‘A Brother Abroad’

Martin Bussey (composer) and Anthony Pinching (librettist)
3.00 pm The Marquee, Palace Gardens

Prof Anthony Pinching is the Director of Pinner Music Festival and a former clinical immunologist and academic. He wrote the libretto for A Brother Abroad for the composer and conductor Martin Bussey. The piece was commissioned for the 700th anniversary of the consecration of Pinner Parish Church in Middlesex. It was premiered at Pinner Music Festival in 2021 and performed at Ludlow English Song Weekend in 2022.

In a very interesting discussion, Pinching introduced Bussey as a son of Pinner. He said he commissioned him to write a piece about Peter of Bologna, Bishop of Corbavia (Krbava) in Croatia, a 14th century Franciscan Bishop whose colourful life led him across Europe. He settled in England as a Suffragan Bishop for five dioceses from 1318 to his death in 1332, and consecrated Pinner Parish Church in 1321, near the Archbishop of Canterbury’s hunting grounds.

Pinching’s libretto recounts Peter’s journey from his ‘simple room’ at Greyfriars to Pinner (then known as Pynnore), where he was greeted by bells and cheering crowds. As he travels, Peter recalls his journey to the ‘far North’ where he was part of a failed papal mission to broker peace between King Edward I and Robert the Bruce, and being attacked by a band of ‘shavaldours’ (brigands) on the way. Despite the violence he suffered, and his nostalgia for his home in ‘La Rossa’ (Bologna), he settled in England. He describes his deep devotion for ‘Brother Francis’, and the rites and rituals that inspire him, contrasting with the distracted figure of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was more interested in royal politics than ‘the way of Christ.’

Bussey explained that A Brother Abroad is part of a triptych of recent music theatre pieces, along with Mary’s Hand (2018) and Timeless Figure (2020), each written for a different combination of solo voice and three instrumentalists – in this case baritone, flute/piccolo, French horn and percussion. He was given free rein by Pincher to do what he wanted with the text, but the two worked closely together and he described Pincher as, ‘a sensitive librettist.’ Bussey felt that the spiritual aspect of the libretto was crucial, but he decided not to write the solo baritone part in plainsong, an interesting contrast with two recent works by the composer Tim Benjamin The Seafarer and The Wanderer, settings of early English poems. He admitted that it was ‘an enormous task’ for the soloist to sing such a long libretto, but fortunately the Festival’s Director and main baritone soloist Marcus Farnsworth, a ‘musical dynamo’, was up to the task. He fondly recalled first meeting Marcus, when the latter was 16, while he was teaching at Chetham’s School in Manchester. Bussey concluded by explaining that (like any sensible composer) he had recycled some of his material for use in works we were about to hear, using some of the themes from A Brother Abroad. La Rossa for solo flute evokes Peter’s memories of his native Bologna, and The Rites Observed for solo horn describes ‘the noble side of Peter.’

Medieval Masters

Emma Halnan (flute), George Strivens (French horn), Stephen Burke (percussion), Marcus Farnsworth (baritone), Martin Bussey (conductor), Festival Voices
4.00 pm The Crossing, Southwell Minster

Marcus Farnsworth, Festival Director and baritone soloist, introduced this concert as being, ‘from very early music to very new music’ – from 14th century French composer Guillaume de Machaut, and 12th century German composer Hildegard von Bingen to new music by Martin Bussey.

The concert began with the secular polyphony of Machaut’s Dame, de qui toute ma joie vient (Lady, source of all my joy) a chanson for four voices. A small group from the Festival Voices, singing without a conductor, gave a performance that was a little tentative but lively and spirited. Bussey’s two solo instrumental pieces then formed a triptych with Hildegard von Bingen’s O Ignis Spiritus (O Fire of the Spirit) for female voices. The Rites Observed for solo horn was superbly played by George Strivens as his mellow tone resonated around the Minster. A declamatory theme, taken from opening of A Brother Abroad, representing the start of Peter’s journey, was followed by faster, more discursive returns to the same theme. The musical language was austere and modernist, but also timeless. Somehow the act of removing and replacing the French horn’s mute became part of the ritual that the music describes. There was a coup de théâtre when, without a break, an offstage female choir sang the Hildegard piece. The evocate single vocal line, sung with excellent ensemble, was joined by the sound of wind from outside the Minster, and trees swaying through the stained glass window; the centuries rolled back, creating a spiritual experience for some audience members who sat with eyes closed. The Hildegard piece dovetailed beautifully into Bussey’s La Rossa for solo flute, written sometimes with a questing feel, sometimes florid, sometimes flowing and almost Debussy-esque. Emma Halnan shaped the melodic lines beautifully. There was another, serendipitous, moment of theatre when the sun shone through the Minster windows, apt as the piece describes Peter’s memories of sunnier climes in Bologna.

The main piece, A Brother Abroad featured Farnsworth as baritone soloist with the three other musicians. There was no libretto in the Festival programme book, but Farnsworth’s diction was so clear that it was easy to follow the story, particularly after the illuminating pre-concert talk. As Bussey said, this is essentially a piece of music theatre – although without the melodrama of pieces like Peter Maxwell Davies’ wonderfully dramatic Eight Songs for a Mad King. Farnsworth was suitably theatrical in his delivery, drawing on his operatic experience, a majestic and compelling presence as Bishop Peter whose arrival in 14th century ‘Pynnore’ was an important public event. The piece began with an offstage horn, declaiming the start of Peter’s journey. As Peter described the ‘tasks to be done’ heavy drums, dramatic horn lines and intricate flute parts evoked the enormity of his task. The ‘rites to be observed’ were reflected by tubular bells, played by Stephen Burke. Farnworth inhabited his role with dignity and a sense of devotion in the climactic passage describing his religious work, and was suitably animated in his disgust at the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Machiavellian machinations. The excitement of Peter’s entry into Pynnore was onomatopoeically illustrated by ornate piccolo lines representing the crowd, intense runs from the horn representing the post horn announcing his arrival, and tubular bells representing the church bells ringing. But there was simpler music at the end, as Peter described a ‘procession around the church’, the blessing and the final the prayer for peace, a contemplative conclusion to a highly effective work.

Strings in the Nave

7.00 pm The Nave, Southwell Minster
Mark Padmore (tenor), Festival Sinfonia Strings, Jamie Campbell (director), Marcus Farnsworth (conductor)

Festival Director Marcus Farnsworth began this concert amusingly by showing the audience, airline style, where the emergency exits were, before introducing the Festival’s Artist in Residence, tenor Mark Padmore and the Festival Sinfonia Strings, several of whom had just taken part in the Aurora Orchestra’s Prom in which they played Beethoven’s ninth symphony from memory. The Sinfonia Strings demonstrated their virtuosity, playing without a conductor for most of the concert, instead being directed from the violin by Jamie Campbell, who also led the Festival Chamber Soloists in more Beethoven on Saturday evening.

The evening began with Farnsworth conducting Dies Natalis by British composer Gerald Finzi, with words by the 17th century English poet, cleric and theologian Thomas Traherne. The opening instrumental movement was a superb illustration of the joys to come. The upper strings were sweet toned with a beautifully mellow sound, with rich lower strings that were powerfully resonant in the generous acoustic of the Minster Nave. Tenor Mark Padmore joined in the second movement, acting out the words in a gorgeously plangent tone. There was a moment of sublime beauty in the passage beginning, ‘The corn was orient…’; a thrilling climax at ‘…almost mad with ecstasy’; and a moving sotto voce passage at the end when, ‘Everything was at rest.’ In the third movement, ‘The Rapture’, Padmore was immersed in the music, bringing out joy and passion, while the strings were beautifully controlled, dancing and elegant. Padmore’s voice was delightfully burnished in the fourth movement ‘Wonder’, with gently contemplative singing on the line, ‘O how divine, how soft, how sweet, how fair!’ His final contribution to the concert was in the fourth movement, ‘The Salutation’, engaging the audience with the angular beauty of the vocal line.

A series of companion pieces followed, firstly Two Canons by the 17th century English composer Matthew Locke, originally written for viol consort. Reduced forces played the first canon with little vibrato, bringing out the clarity of the lines. In the second canon, they drew austere beauty from the music with mournful clarity, with a spellbinding mini-fugue, and an enchanting moment of near-silence. This was followed by Hymn (after Byrd), by the contemporary British composer Edmund Finnis, an arrangement for string ensemble of the fourth movement of his First String Quartet, which was inspired by William Byrd’s setting of the 5th century hymn Christe, qui lux es et dies (Christ, who art light and day). Finnis describes the hymn as an, ‘ancient melody…a prayer for Light within the darkness of the night.’ His piece began with hymn-like chords, like Byrd’s 16th century piece but with subtle dissonances, as if the music were seen, ‘through a glass darkly.’ There were moments of delicate wonder and beauty, played with lovely ensemble. In one moving passage, the music came out of silence, and at the end the piece was reduced to a single note. A stunning performance.

The final work was Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, written by Benjamin Britten when he was still in his early twenties, and directed here by Jamie Campbell. In his programme note, Campbell described the work as,

‘….an epic, virtuoso work…I find [it] both thrilling and profound.. [it] demonstrates the dazzling compositional skill the young Britten already had.

Campbell and his players -some not much older than Britten when he wrote the work – embraced the works’ virtuosity, with precision of ensemble throughout in an invigorating, gripping performance, bringing out the diverse nature of each of the variations. There was growling darkness in the ‘Adagio’, jolly, shimmering strings in the ‘March’, and soaring strings in ‘Romance’. The ‘Aria’ brought out the exaggerated melodrama and operatic feel of the piece, raising laughter in the audience. The ‘Bourrée classique’ brought out the four-square dance rhythms, with a virtuosic solo from Campbell, and there was a fiercely intense ‘Weiner Waltzer’, revealing the sarcastic humour of the variation. A dizzyingly exciting ‘Moto Perpetuo’ led to the ‘Funeral March’, and between the movements the Minster bell rang, propitiously in the right key. The ‘Funeral March’ was intensely moving, and there was a moment of profound stasis in ‘Chant’. The concert ended superbly with the joyful intensity of the final fugue, with a subdued, magical ending followed by a final swell of strings.

Cathedrals of Sound

Festival Voices, Marcus Farnsworth (conductor)
9.15 pm The Nave, Southwell Minster

Conductor and Festival Director Marcus Farnsworth introduced this late-night concert by saying, ‘what a great privilege it is to stand before singers of this calibre.’ He was right. Throughout this excellent concert, the young singers of the Festival Voices excelled, with beautifully balanced dynamics, a warm sound with rich vibrato, and visceral power when necessary, with great control under Farnsworth’s precise conducting.

One of the joys of the Festival programming was the pairing of old and new music, as in Medieval Masters (see above), and the Tenth Anniversary concert (day three) when a new work by Cheryl Frances-Hoad was paired with Mozart’s Requiem. Cathedrals of Sound celebrated the Austrian composer Anton Bruckner, who was born 200 years ago. The concert’s title was taken from a description of Bruckner’s symphonies as ‘cathedrals of sound’, but the concert was based around five of his motets. Farnsworth explained that the motets showed Bruckner looking backwards and forwards at the same time in his musical style, and the programme reflected this, casting his works in a new light, looking back to the style of Bach and Byrd, and forward to the work of contemporary composers.

The concert began with a sequence of five different reflections on the Ave Maria theme, written in praise of the Virgin Mary. Bruckner’s Ave Maria, with its complex block harmonies, contrasted with the contrapuntal glories of Byrd’s polyphony in Alleluia, Ave Maria, both works juxtaposed with the surprising simplicity of Stravinsky’s Ave Maria. There was a gorgeous flowering of words ‘Virga Jesse’ in the Bruckner motet of the same name. Finally, there was another Ave Maria, by the composer Sarah Cattley, a commentary on Bruckner’s style with dense harmonies that sometimes sounded like Bruckner but with added harmonic clashes, and at other times more modern, with clouds of sound surrounding the words ‘Nunc et in Ora.’

The second sequence sandwiched Bruckner’s Christus Factus Est between two remarkable pieces by composer Gemma Bass, who is also a violinist with several performing groups in Manchester, and who performed in Surround Sounds No.3 (day four). Farnsworth confessed this was the first time the Choir had tackled improvised music, and it worked extremely well here. Bass has written a suite of five compositions, including Missing Pieces – Two, Three which leaves gaps for improvisation. The Choir inserted parts of Christus Factus Est into the gaps, based on instructions Bass provided. Pairs of singers decided their own timing from pre-determined notes while the rest of the choir contributed harmonies from Bruckner, a ‘sonic exploration’, effectively a joint creation between Bass and the Choir. More and more pairs of voices joined in at different speeds, an invigorating babel of sounds, reminiscent of the free-form ‘pleni sunt caeli’ section in the ‘Sanctus’ from Britten’s War Requiem. There were some terrifying dissonances as a cry of anguish led to the complex harmonies of the Bruckner motet, which describes Christ’s death on the cross. Gemma Bass’ piece returned with another heart-rending wail of anguish that illuminated the pain of the Bruckner piece. A stunning sequence of music.

After the relative simplicity of Bruckner’s miniature choral gem, Locus Iste, there was yet more inspired intervention from a contemporary composer, Roderick Williams’ take on Byrd’s Ave Verum Corpus. After the original, we heard Williams’ Ave Verum Corpus Re-imagined, with great slabs of music frozen in time, as if the Byrd piece had been beamed to other galaxies and back again in fragments and clusters. There were snatches of Bruckner-style chords and a plangent tenor solo. There were hints of Messiaen’s early choral piece O sacrum convivium! and Williams’ highly imaginative work ended with a lovely, dissonant ‘Amen’. But the last word was left to the mighty Bruckner – as Farnsworth said, he had ‘left the best to last’ with Os Justi. Farnsworth said he intended to give us, ‘something to think about’, and in this compelling programme he certainly did so.