Events 2013
The January 2013 Edition of the BBC Music Magazine featured an excellent article in the Composer of the Month section by our Vice-President Terry Barfoot. Entitled Arthur Bliss – A Composer of Many Colours, it was a comprehensive account of Bliss’s life and works and a strong affirmation of his status among 20th century composers. Together with a time-line relating his life to historical events and columns focusing on his musical style was this colourful and dramatic caricature of Sir Arthur Bliss by Risko.
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The AGM Concert, held on Saturday 8 June at St. Andrew’s Church, Cheltenham, was preceded by a talk entitled British Viola Music in the 20th Century – a Golden Age given by ABS President Ian Venables. He told us how the viola took centre-stage during this time, with the remarkable violist Lionel Tertis leading the way by commissioning many works for the viola from the important composers of the day. In the Autumn Newsletter, Graham Lloyd gave an account of the event and extracts are freely quoted below.
“Duo Karadys (violist Carol Hubel-Allen and pianist Alan MacLean) presented a programme of three works by English composers”, beginning with the “beautiful and haunting” Soliloquy by Ian Venables, a “musically and technically demanding work” played with “exquisite taste and refinement”. Next was “the equally beautiful Romance by Vaughan Williams with its engagingly simple and tender outer sections” and the “dramatic” Viola Sonata by Arthur Bliss as the climax of the recital. “This three-movement musical leviathan was played with passionate intensity and immense technical security, allowing the performers to convey the work’s constantly changing moods.” We were then treated to a “beguiling arrangement” of Sospiri by Edward Elgar, played with “tenderness and enormous conviction”.
As always, we were delighted to meet again the many members who attended this event.
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English Music Festival expanded to include an ‘Autumn Cotswold Mini-Festival’ which included two Cheltenham concerts which were well-attended by members: on Friday 20 September a recital at Pittville Pump Room by Rupert Marshall-Luck (violin) and Matthew Rickard (piano) featuring the Bliss Violin Sonata, and on Saturday 21 September at the Holst Birthday Concert in All Saints’ Church (where Holst was once the organist), a performance of Checkmate – Ceremony of the Red Bishops by the Flowers Band. The Society had the pleasure of co-operating with our friends at the Holst Birthplace Museum and EMF in staging this Mini-Festival.
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