Arcadia Music inspired by nature

13 - 26 August 2017 North York Moors Chamber Music

Festival www.northyorkmoorsfestival.com North York Moors Chamber Music Festival Shortlisted for a White Rose Award 2017

Contents Programme 2 North York Moors 4 Visitor Information 5 Pickering 6 Helmsley 10 Lastingham 14 Guisborough 20 Egton Bridge 24 Danby 30 Fylingdales 34 Sneaton Castle, Whitby 38 Lythe 42 Westcliff, Whitby 46 Biographies 50 Art on the Moors 60 Acknowledgements 61 The further we delved the more In Greek antiquity the concept of Introduction we discovered: the mystery of the night Arcadia developed into a poetic byword skies, storms and their aftermath, the for an “idyllic vision of unspoiled wild coast, contrasts of natural lights, wilderness”. bucolic scenery and so on; whilst How ftting for the magnifcent We welcome you to our ninth also including our perspective within landscape around us. . . . North York Moors Chamber Music it, as expressed through the eyes Festival, inspired by the nature around of the Wayfarer or in Schoenberg’s Jamie Walton us and how the forces of it have 'Transfgured Night'. Artistic Director infuenced composers over the years. Rather than focus on a specifc period or fgure in music, we felt it was time to explore one of the most inspiring and infuential forces of all - nature. It is all around us, particularly present here on the North York Moors where its domineering presence is majestic and vivid. I frequently drive through our National Park with the radio on and this experience somehow manifests a symbiotic experience: the music creates a soundtrack for all we see around us and that in turn gives the music new meaning. It is time to explore that in a theme. Particularly during the 19th century (the Romantic period: Sturm und Drang; ‘Storm and Stress’), elemental forces became the catalyst for artistic expression. Although as we’ll discover on the 19th August, Baroque composers too were passionately expressing the ungovernable world around us, most famously perhaps through Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Equally astonishing in its originality, Rebel composed his Les Élémens which must have shocked audiences with its opening bars of dissonance to convey the chaos of the universe.

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 1 Programme Week one

Sunday 13th August St Peter & St Paul Sturm und Drang 2pm Pickering SCHUMANN Fantasiestücke in A minor Op.88 FRANCK Piano quintet in F minor* TANEYEV Piano quintet in G minor Op.30 Monday 14th August All Saints’ The Rite of Spring 7pm Helmsley BAX Piano quartet STRAVINSKY The Rite of Spring (four hands)* TAILLEFERRE Piano trio RAVEL Piano trio in A minor Wednesday 16th August St Mary’s The Wayfarer 2pm Lastingham MAHLER Lieder eines fahrenden gesellen LISZT Tristia (de La Vallée d’Obermann) WAGNER Wesendonck Lieder Wednesday 16th August St Mary’s Prisms of light 7pm Lastingham BONAVENTURE Celestial Objects (organ & tape) MAXWELL DAVIES The Door of the Sun BARTÓK Contrasts* MESSIAEN Desseins éternels (organ) MESSIAEN Quartet for the End of Time Friday 18th August St Nicholas Lull after storm 7pm Guisborough BEETHOVEN String quintet in C (‘Storm’) Op.29 BRITTEN Lachrymae Op.48a* BRAHMS String Quintet Op.111 VAUGHAN-WILLIAMS The Lark Ascending Saturday 19th August St Hedda’s The Elements 7pm Egton Bridge VIVALDI Flute concerto No.1 ‘La tempesta di mare’ REBEL Les Élémens* GLUCK Dance of the Furies VIVALDI The Four Seasons *denotes interval follows

2 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 Programme Week two

Sunday 20th August St Hilda’s The Miller’s Tale 2pm Danby ROSSETER Prelude DOWLAND Selection JOHNSON Pavan / Almain KAPSBERGER Selection GOSS The Miller’s Tale PICCININI Selection Monday 21st August St Stephen’s Cosmos 7pm Fylingdales MESSIAEN Appel Interstellaire (Robin Hood’s Bay) BEETHOVEN String quartet No. 15 in A minor Op.132* MAXWELL DAVIES Sea Eagle SCHOENBERG Verklärte Nacht Op.4 Wednesday 23rd August St Hilda’s Priory Nostalgia 2pm Sneaton Castle, Whitby FAURÉ Fantasie Op.79 FAURÉ Piano quartet No.2 in G minor Op.45* MESSIAEN Le Merle Noir ELGAR Piano quintet in A minor Op.84 Friday 25th August St Oswald’s Skywards 7pm Lythe HAYDN String quartet Op.76 No.4 in B fat major (‘Sunrise’) WILSON String Quartet No. 1 (‘Winter’s Edge’) * HAYDN String quartet Op.64 No.5 in D major K458 (‘The Lark’) RESPIGHI Il Tramonto (‘Sunset’) Saturday 26th August St Hilda’s Arcadia 5pm Westcliff, Whitby ELGAR Organ sonata in G (1) MENDELSSOHN Hebrides Overture BERG Violin concerto (‘To the Memory of an Angel’)* SMETANA Die Moldau DEBUSSY Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune WEBER Der Freischütz (Overture)

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 3 North York Moors

The North York Moors is a The designated area of the The National Park encompasses National Park covers an area of 1,436 two main types of landscape: green national park in North Yorkshire. square km (554 square miles) and areas of pasture land and the purple The moors are one of the largest has a population of about 25,000. The and brown heather moorland. These North York Moors became a National two kinds of scenery are the result of expanses of heather moorland in the Park in 1952, through the National differences in the underlying geology United Kingdom. Parks and Access to the Countryside and each supports different wildlife Act 1949. communities. There are records of

4 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 Visitor Information

12,000 archaeological sites and features Many visitors to the moors engage in the North York Moors National Park, in outdoor pursuits, particularly Sat Nav settings of which 700 are scheduled ancient walking; the parks have a network of monuments. Radio carbon dating of rights-of-way almost 2,300 km (1,400 pollen grains preserved in the moorland miles) in length, and most of the areas DANBY YO21 2NH peat provides a record of the actual of open moorland are now open access N54:26:51, W0:55:41 species of plants that existed at various under the Countryside and Rights of periods the past. About 10,000 years Way Act 2000. EGTON BRIDGE YO21 1UX ago the cold climate of the Ice Age N54:26:13, W0:45:42 ameliorated and temperatures rose above a growing point of 5.5˚C. Plant Car Parking FYLINGDALES YO22 4RN life was gradually reestablished and The churches in Danby, Lythe N54:26:03, W0:32:21 animals and humans also returned. and St Hilda’s Priory have large car parking facilities. Those in Lastingham, GUISBOROUGH TS14 6BX Fylingdales, Guisborough and Egton N54:32:12, W1:02:56 Bridge have local village parking. In Helmsley, Pickering and Whitby West HELMSLEY YO62 5YZ Cliff there are local car parks and N54:14:47,W1:03:44 on-street parking. LASTINGHAM YO62 6TL Toilets N54:18:16, W0:52:58 Fylingdales, Pickering and St Hilda’s LYTHE YO21 3RW Priory have their own facilities. Egton N54:30:25, W0:41:18 Bridge, Guisborough, Helmsley & Lastingham have village facilities. The PICKERING YO18 7HL churches at Danby, Lythe and Whitby N54:14:44, WO:46:32 West Cliff have portable toilets. WHITBY SNEATON CASTLE YO21 3QN Refreshments N54:28:60, W0:38:31 Refreshments are available for a suggested donation of £1 for soft drinks WHITBY WEST CLIFF YO21 3EG Photo: Frank Harrison and £2 for a glass of red or white wine. N54:29:20, W0:37:14

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 5 St Peter & St Paul, Pickering - Sturm und Drang 13th August

was heavily restored in 1876-9 and while this degraded some architectural features it led to the permanent uncovering of its most notable feature: the medieval frescoes. Dating from c.1450 these are “one of the most complete series of wall paintings in English churches” (Pevsner). The function of paintings, to inspire faith and inform an illiterate congregation, is largely understood. Here in Pickering we have major Christian fgures and events but we also have notably English twists on the theme – St George, St Edmund King & Martyr and Thomas a Becket. Although the artistic quality is merely vernacular they represent a vivid glimpse of a pre-Reformation English parish church interior. During the 16th century such paintings came to be viewed as icons of superstition; the Reformation abjured the role of saints and their intercessionary powers. The result was that images were often whitewashed then overwritten with Biblical texts so that church interiors instead resembled “a giant scrapbook of the Bible” (Diarmaid MacCulloch). The whitewashing of the Pickering images The 14th century spire of St notable examples to be found here of ultimately saved them. There was no Peter and St Paul discreetly asserts all the major orders of ecclesiastical systematic iconoclasm here: a fate the location of the church from all Gothic architecture. The 14th Century which often occurred in tumultuous directions. A substantial cruciform triple sedilia with its crocketed gables periods of protestant zeal such as building, the church is lofty and springing from sculptured heads the 1530s or 1640s. The result is this expansive; it demonstrates what (including monsters, bishops and a building has much to offer in explaining Pevsner calls “complex” development priest) is a particularly fne example of key features in the history of the from its Norman origins. There are Decorated craftsmanship. The church English Church.

6 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 Line 1 of poeety in this position and this is the second line of poety.

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 7 are, like it or not. It might seem hard whose storm fades to leave a quiet SCHUMANN to be a noble savage while clutching pastoral dance, just before a fast envoi. Phantasiestücke in A minor Op.88 (1850) an iPhone or a coffee in a warm car. The work’s depths seem revealed only But the reality of the curlew’s call, toward the end, like a surprise view - Romanze (Nicht schnell, mit innigen the crazy hues of the heather or the the temptation is to listen all over again. Ausdruck) shock of an abrupt hailstorm need no No composer was more conscious Humoreske (Lebhaft) mediation, if we care to notice them. of our dualities or so consumed by Duett (Langsam und mit Ausdruck) For Wordsworth and other poets, them. The more miraculous then that Finale (Im Marsch-Tempo) the experience had a moral force, Schumann’s music still sounds as fresh provoking “natural piety.” In this year’s as the wind. Festival, we’ll hear performed across César Franck’s work can breathe FRANCK our moorland venues many of the a more shuttered, indoor air than Piano quintet in F minor (1879) varied sound-structures constructed Schumann’s, but his Piano Quintet from by cultured artists out of their varied 1879 opens with a very un-chamber- Molto moderato quasi lento - Allegro response to what’s essentially untamed music-like declaration of emotional Lento, con molto sentimento and stormy - both out there, and intensity and despair, and it never lets Allegro non troppo ma con fuoco inside of us. In John Ruskin’s view up for forty minutes. Like most of his many of these artists were simply male circle, notably Saint-Saëns (the confusing their own feelings with “the pianist in the premiere of the Quintet) TANEYEV truth of the Earth.” Ruskin’s criticism Franck lusted for the young composer Piano quintet in G minor Op.30 (1911) feels unreasonable in the face of true Augusta Holmès, who was also his complex human nature, when in artistic pupil. Like nature, the music of Franck’s Introduzione: Adagio mesto - Allegro terms the quest for truth, even if Quintet helps externalise all those patetico Romantically deluded, can sometimes storms within. Scherzo: Presto - Moderato teneramente become the road to madness. Unlike Debussy’s Faune, the - Tempo 1 - Prestissimo Robert Schumann’s own nature protagonist of the Franck Quintet makes Largo feels emblematic in this context. His no accommodation with his constant Finale: Allegro vivace - Moderato late Fantasiestücke from 1850, four short erotic distractions. In 2017, this may seem maestoso pieces for piano trio, offer a typically an absurd emotional storm of the teacup quirky response to conventional kind, but to experience the work live is In this corner of North Yorkshire, form, as well as to the contradictions to understand intoxication and obsession direct experience of the vastness and of his ‘out there’ existence. A brief very directly. The huge Allegro piles beauty of nature is rarely more than barcarolle-like Romanze gives way to a intensity on intensity, while the uneasy ten minutes away, if we want it - just as brighter but stormy Humoreske, working Lento gives way to a fnal Allegro even accessible as a pub or a newsagent to from some of the same thematic more remarkable for its barely-mediated a city dweller. We may take on the role material, the fgurations reaching no thunderstorm-in-the-Alps wildness. of the wayfarer, when and if we please. rest or accommodation with each Franck owed much to Liszt, emotionally Immersion in this ancient-and-modern other. Then, an intense Duett between and formally (the big themes tend to Arcadia throws us back into ourselves violin and cello precedes a typical come back transformed at the end), but - the moors tell you who you really minor key fnale Im Marsch-Tempo his Piano Quintet is sui generis.

8 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 Sergei Taneyev’s own balancing act (“the Russian Brahms”). side (piano or strings) prepared to contribution to the genre is, though, In fact, Taneyev’s voice is uniquely compromise. Stormy weather again on a similar scale, and was written in powerful, his chamber and vocal for the fourth movement Allegro, 1911, the year Mahler died. Taneyev works worth your exploration. Here, before the work’s most remarkable offers a great turbulent display of a distinctively luminous take on the section, a four-minute Moderato the range of human feeling and nationalistic Scherzo follows an ending that serves up the surprise of relationship. Passion is mediated epic and melodically strong opening extended transcendent ecstasy (cf by a sensibility and conservative Allegro patetico. The following Largo Messiaen in 'Prisms of Light') from harmonic approach that tends to be juxtaposes the ploddingly stern and what seemed a Romantic recipe for characterised as a Classic/Romantic the yearningly sensitive, with neither endless confict.

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 9 All Saints’ Helmsley - The Rite of Spring 14th August

from an 1860s restoration undertaken by the London frm of Barry & Banks with the overall effect being “big and self-confdent” (Pevsner). Whereas the Victorian fascination for medieval forms of art and architecture is well known, All Saints’ offers a good example of another obsession: that of continuity and lineage. The north aisle wall is covered with a large colourful mural to demonstrate the roots and development of Christianity in the local area. The story of St Columba and St Aidan in the South Transept is even more audacious. Here we see St Aidan attempting to convert the inhabitants of Helmsley to Christianity: a scene high in drama but without any actual documented justifcation. Much of this interior detailing was the result of Helmsley’s most famous incumbent, Charles Norris Gray. He was a classic activist clergyman whose zeal and vision was employed in every aspect of his role. He oversaw the development of several churches in far-off hamlets while giving moral leadership to issues such as education, sanitation and the dangers of women wearing tight lace. He died from Restore, rebuild or start completely decoration and scalloped capitals while overwork in 1913 having signifcantly afresh? This was the dilemma for the chancel arch is a supreme example advanced the social infrastructure of church architects and patrons in the of playful detailing. Close examination Helmsley. The massive marble altar and mid 19th Century. At All Saints’ the shows four orders with the outer reredos in the side chapel was installed wise decision was to restore and ring being a series of hoodmasks: by Gray as a memorial to his father integrate a sizeable portion of the 28 vernacular faces tending towards who was Bishop of Cape Town. The fne original medieval fabric. The south the jocular or even grotesque. The woodwork in the chancel is by Robert door contains delightful Norman zigzag remainder of the church largely dates ‘Mouseman’ Thompson of Kilburn.

10 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 11 movement and dates from 1922, by ways. Debussy frst played through BAX when he’d already left his family for some of this arrangement of the Rite Piano quartet (1922) the charms of Harriet Cohen. The with the composer, well before the Quartet opens with a transformed stage premiere, and some of his own memory of Stravinsky’s portrayal of later work refects the encounter. STRAVINSKY the spring breaking through winter, Stravinsky’s opera ‘The Nightingale’ had The Rite of Spring for four hands (1913) and ends with a rather truculent and opened with a virtual copy of Debussy’s compressed coda, leaving the rest of Nuages, and the mutual respect was the story untold. In between (Bax called huge. Whatever the arrangement, TAILLEFERRE his orchestration of this Quartet 'Saga the Rite always ends with the natural Piano trio (1916/17 revised 1978) Fragment') comes a quieter, Sibelian starkness of violent death. It remains narrative, fltered through Baxian one of the most remarkable half-hours Allegro animato harmony. Like so many works in this in all music, infuencing and indeed Allegro vivace year’s Festival, Bax’s brief Quartet mesmerising nearly every composer Moderato shows the chamber repertoire to have who has tried to write since 1913 - Très animé an arguably wider emotional range than art endlessly imitating an art which many grander orchestral works, notably had successfully (once and for all) when nature holds the key. channelled raw nature into that most RAVEL For Stravinsky’s 'Rite', a huge outré of human cultural constructs, the Piano trio in A minor (1914) orchestra seems as important a player Ballets Russes. as the spring or the Russian heritage. Germaine Tailleferre’s Piano Trio Modéré Essential, surely, for that famed feral shows Stravinskian infuence, but Pantoum (Assez vif) impact? The composer’s frst published intermittently - the frst and third Passacaille (Très large) version, though, came in 1913, the year movements date from 1916/17, the Final (Animé) of the riotous Paris premiere, and was second and fourth from 1978 when for piano-four-hands. Stravinsky had this highly prolifc composer was in Any wayfarer’s journey through written much of the piece while shut her eighties. Whether in the spring nature starts with the hope of spring away in what was effectively a cupboard or winter of her life, Tailleferre wrote and renewal, then moves on through in Switzerland, getting away from nature music of equally high quality, a bit closer the seasons. In a chamber context so as to express it all the more forcibly. in idiom to her fellow garrulous ‘Les we can’t present Arnold Bax’s Spring The composer liked to say the piece Six’ members Poulenc and Milhaud, Fire, or Garden of Fand, or November had passed through him, that it came than to the style of her close friend Woods, though no twentieth-century from elsewhere (or nowhere), that the Ravel, solidly French in expression. Here composer’s imagination was more inspiration had been a single vision. In the third movement Moderato is the penetrated by natural cycle and fact his masterpiece came together most melodically distinctive, while the process. Bax’s own youthful version over a number of years. To hear the fnal Très animé does feels nearer to of Arcadia was in North London (his piano duet version is to encounter Ravel (his String Quartet especially), then Hampstead home) rather than the Rite’s Debussyan heritage and and to Stravinsky. No movement plays in the Celtic landscape of his dreams. pianistic poetry right from the opening a moment too long, and the piano lifts His Piano Quartet is in one short phrases. That infuence would cut both the fnale to a bracing conclusion.

12 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 Ravel’s own Piano Trio of 1914 formed part of Tailleferre’s inspiration, but expressively it expanded the genre’s range, and altered the perception of what a piano trio could be. Ravel’s technique here can be as obsessive and meticulous as Alban Berg’s, especially in the Pantoum scherzo second movement, based closely on a complex verse form, where multiple formal exigencies are superimposed to create what can still sound like a straightforward dance. The opening Modéré derives in part from a Basque-inspired piano and orchestra work which Ravel never completed, but the background pales in light of the extreme yet fragile beauty of the piano’s beginning statements, and the passion behind Ravel’s sonata structure. The slow Passacaglia and fnal Animé achieve sustained climaxes, the extraordinary insistent ending seeming a superhuman effort by three players to drown out all the noise of recently declared war in Europe. A rite of passage, as much as a 'Rite of Spring'.

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 13 St Mary’s Lastingham - The Wayfarer (2 pm) & Prisms of light (7 pm) 16th August

seems relevant here. Now that a recent survey carried out by archaeologists from the University of Leeds has found Roman material in the crypt, it begins to look as if the shell of an Anglo-Saxon religious building was neatly dropped into the middle of an abandoned Temple. The wider signifcance of Cedd’s church and of its successor, the Benedictine monastery refounded in 1078 by Stephen of Whitby, is being explored in a series of annual lectures sponsored by the Friends of Lastingham Church. The most signifcant feature is the unusual apsidal crypt consisting of a series of compartments created by short, thick vaults with detailed capitals. The single light from the apsidal end draws the eye which otherwise would be enclosed by subterranean oppression. This effect created a virtual cell reminiscent of a Roman catacomb. Today the interior of the church is as J. L. Pearson reconstructed it in 1879, when he was inspired to put groin vaulting over the nave and the chancel. It is this that produces the exceptional quality of sound. The rest is plain, and this is what gives the main church The church is undergoing a major and wild beasts”. Now that is giving such a sense of peace, refection and reconstruction, not of its fabric but way to the realisation that where it simplicity. It is devoid of oppressive its history. There was a long accepted stands, on the edge of the fertile area of features or clutter and the apsidal belief that the site of St Mary’s chosen Ryedale, it was only three miles from an theme continues with a simply framed by Cedd between 653 and 655 to build important Roman road and near to the chancel end. Simon Jenkins gives it four a monastery was, as described by Bede’s great villa at Hovingham. Bede’s further stars in his Thousand Best Churches; Ecclesiastical History “among steep reference to Cedd having to purify Sir John Betjeman gave it one word - and remote hills ft only for robbers the site before he could begin building “unforgettable”.

14 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 15 qualifed, and gaining experience. He’d Edward Lassen’s arrangement for piano MAHLER known frustration in love, via Johanna trio of Liszt’s own epic piano solo, Lieder eines fahrenden gesellen (1884/85) Richter, a soprano at Kassel where Vallée d’Obermann. In the most modern Mahler conducted. Nothing happened manner, Liszt’s output was and is a Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht with Johanna, though the composer work in progress, with the inspirations Ging heut Morgen übers Feld desperately wished that it would. He and intentions (and versions) refecting Ich hab’ ein glühend Messer wrote six poems for her and set four and refracting almost infnitely. Tristia Die zwei blauen Augen von meinem as songs for voice and piano. has roots in Liszt’s relationship to Schatz Mahler must have recognised their Marie d’Agoult, their wandering in high quality, orchestrating them a few Europe in the 1830s - it also refects LISZT years later and using them to help woo Liszt’s wanderings through the whole Tristia ‘de La Vallée d’Obermann’ arr. piano Alma Schindler. Indeed Mahler wrote of literature, specifcally Byron’s ‘Childe trio S 723 from S 160/6 (1848-1854) nothing fner, putting two of the songs Harold’ from 1812 and de Sénancour’s (wordless) into his First Symphony 1804 novel Obermann. and making the rest of his output a As with several other composers WAGNER hymn to nature and life, the personal in our Festival, Liszt’s direct reactions Wesendonck Lieder (1857/58) and the Arcadian and the doom-laden, to nature mingle with his responses to inextricable, just as they are in this other artistic responses to the natural Der Engel short song-cycle. So close to the start world, and his own meditations on Stehe Still of his career (and with all respect to existence - always a philosophical Im Treibhaus Hugo Wolf) Mahler was clearly the composer, always travelling. In the Schmerzen best songwriter since Schubert. Tristia arrangement, the opening Träume Later and famously it took Freud sentiment is made clear by the to (kind-of) sort out Mahler’s relation cello’s frst melodic line, Liszt as de For our third concert, the wayfarer to the women in his life. Here, Mahler Sénancour’s 'unhappy protagonist' in Arcadia confronts his or her own takes us from self-pity (‘When My wondering what life is all about, while image. In art, the wayfarer is often Beloved Is Married’) to a slightly more fearing mortality’s question - is there walking after being dumped by the cheery stroll in nature, though still any time to wonder what life is all beloved, and is sometimes doomed, pessimistic (‘I Went This Morning’), about? The central section is led by right from the start. In a few cases, the through a sugar-dip of crazed misery the violin’s ascending, aspiring lines, beauty of nature breaks through the (‘I Have a Shining Knife’) to some kind fnally achieving (in one but not all self-absorption. For the young Gustav of transcendence in nature (‘The Two versions) a glimpse of transcendent Mahler, this tradition had very personal Blue Eyes’) though it sounds like a magnifcence. and complicated resonance. funeral in the musical setting. Richard Wagner would at last The four Lieder eines fahrenden So will the wayfarer keep on settle down with Liszt and Marie’s Gesellen were composed during 1880s, wandering, despite disappointment? A daughter Cosima, but in the 1850s when Mahler was in his twenties. The hearing of Liszt’s Tristia would suggest his own embittered wanderings German title describes a journeyman the jury’s out. This brooding ffteen (with wife Minna) after the 1849 more than a wayfarer. Mahler himself minute work is Liszt’s highly effective Dresden revolution led him to snipe was now a journeyman conductor, revision of the Danish composer at Mendelssohn and Jewish people

16 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 in general through his strange and appalling essay ‘Judaism in Music’. His ‘chancer’ approach to life led him to various women, including Mathilde Wesendonck, wife of his benefactor Otto, who had provided the struggling Wagners with a free cottage. The 'Ring' cycle was soon set aside and Tr i s t a n u n d I s o l d e begun there, on and off the page. The Wagners’ marriage never recovered. Inspired, very unusually for him, to work on a short, concentrated scale, Wagner set fve poems by Mathilde for voice and piano, two of them listed as studies for the new opera, though the poet’s identity was not revealed publicly for several decades. The words again speak of longing, nature and death. The music belies the composer’s public nature: solemn, beautiful and restrained - this more intimate Wagner feels like the real man. In ‘The Angel’, death is welcomed as relief; in ‘Be Quiet!’ all the talk of restless frustration suggests, in its passionate detail, that fulfllment has indeed occurred; the fnest and most Mahlerish of the songs, ‘In the Hothouse’ compares the lover’s fate to that of an exotic plant; ‘Anguish’, the most rhetorical of the fve, refuses to despair at the setting of the sun; ‘Dreams’ intermingles love and death, just as Tristan does. For Richard Wagner, there were to be a few more years of desperate wayfaring ahead, before the intervention of King Ludwig and his affuent fantasy.

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 17 and refracted through experience. related reasons. In 1935 (the same year BONAVENTURE The entrance portal is provided by as Berg wrote his Violin Concerto) he Celestial Objects - for organ & tape (2016) Scottish-born organist and composer had composed La Nativité du Seigneur, Michael Bonaventure, whose brief an extended cycle for organ whose ‘Celestial Objects’ mixes natural and quietly voiced third movement, 'Eternal MAXWELL DAVIES electronic sound, to evoke bright light Designs', evokes an unchanging light and The Door of the Sun (1975) and colour. A solo viola then catches presence in the universe. Yet by 1940, the fickering light, projecting a short Messiaen was in a Nazi prisoner-of- 1975 work by our late Festival patron, war camp, with nothing certain at all. BARTÓK Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. ‘The Door of Messiaen’s musical vision would seem Contrasts Sz. 111 (1938) the Sun’ is inspired by one of George to have intensifed as a result, and his Mackay Brown’s Orcadian poems, and thoughts turned (understandably?) to Verbunkos there are fve tiny, intense movements the gigantic Angel of the Apocalypse, Pihen before the light fades to nothing. In who would call an end to the passage Sebes ‘Contrasts’, a late work (1938/40) from of time. Bartok’s time of American exile, an The possibility emerged, thanks atmospheric light shines and fickers in to a sympathetic guard, of musical MESSIAEN the static central Relaxation, a Lento performance in the Görlitz camp La Nativité du Seigneur: Desseins éternels that was a late addition to the other near the Polish border - at the very (organ) (1935) two movements, already premiered. centre of darkening Europe. Messiaen Contrasts was a commission from had space and time to compose, and Quartet for the End of Time (1941) Benny Goodman at Jószef Szigeti’s he adapted sections of two earlier prompting, and the unusual combination works as duos for violin and cello, with Liturgie de cristal of clarinet, violin and piano drew from piano. These slow, suspended melodies Vocalise, pour l’Ange qui annonce la fn Bartók a composition of extreme verve became the emotional core of an du Temps and brilliance. The opening ‘Recruiting eight-section piece Messiaen called Abîme des oiseaux Dance’ firts with the blues; the fnal ‘Quartet for the End of Time’. The Intermède ‘Fast Dance’ surrounds a haunting duos were added to a solo clarinet Louange à l’Éternité de Jésus interlude in Bulgarian rhythm with piece sketched earlier, and a section Danse de la fureur, pour les sept exuberant panels of fashing virtuosity, for clarinet, violin and cello written trompettes featuring superb clarinet writing and a in the camp. Four new sections were Fouillis d’arcs-en-ciel, pour l’Ange qui good deal of hair-down good-humour scored for clarinet, violin, cello and annonce la fn du Temps before the wild ending. Bartók was piano - for the four instrumentalists Louange à l’immortalité de Jésus living in precarious circumstance in the available, including the composer. The USA, this unique and positive work work was premiered, with reasonably The natural world is itself mediated offers more evidence of the strength of good instruments, on 15th January by light or by its absence - our his spirit. 1941 in the camp, to an audience of Arcadian wayfarer reaches a fourth Olivier Messiaen would fnd his around three hundred, including the concert to fnd light broken into its own spirit and Catholic belief in the inmates and the camp guards. The constituent colours, re-assembled light tested at about the same time, for idiom of Messiaen’s work is not at all

18 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 easy, and it is diffcult now to imagine musical merits, his great moment of with birdsong, for quartet); 'Vocalise' (a the frst impact in Görlitz, though we creative retort to incarceration will vision of the great Angel who will end might try, at tonight’s performance. inspire until, well, the end of time. time, for quartet); 'Abyss' of the birds In extraordinary times, the following Where is Arcadia in this murky (a meditation on time, for clarinet); August saw the Leningrad premiere of last-century landscape? It is in 'Interlude' (a lighter dance for clarinet, the Shostakovich Symphony no. 7 in C, Messiaen’s devotion to colour and violin and cello); 'Praise' to the eternity the city under siege from the German light; his synesthetic sense of music’s of Jesus (an ecstatic and very slow duo army. These symbolic, mythic musical relation to colour and in his devotion for cello and piano); 'Dance of fury' events survive in the mind - and of to birdsong. Messiaen spent a great (rhythmic evocation of the trumpets course a great many composers and deal of his life out there in the forest, of the Apocalypse, for quartet); 'Tangle musicians did not survive the German listening and looking, amid what he of rainbows' (the Angel returns, for camps at all, or perished in the confict. believed was God’s own Arcadia, the quartet); 'Praise to the immortality Messiaen was released later in 1941, unconquerable world of nature. The of Jesus' (evocation of timeless love and while his Quartet has entered the eight movements of his great Quartet in a long, ecstatic duet for violin and repertoire very successfully on its own are 'Crystal liturgy' (early morning bell-like piano).

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 19 St Nicholas Guisborough - Lull after storm 18th August

church would have been completely serviced by clergy from the priory, so after dissolution separate provision had to be made. The church building is largely Perpendicular in style, with the chancel and tower dating from circa 1500. The west window and doorway are contained within the tower but given focus by an elegant two-centred arch. Upon entering the church there is a great sense of space which is enabled by the lithe and delicate arcade of six bays which ensures that the low roofine does not impinge. This overall effect was also aided by a very skilful restoration of the church in 1903–08 by the eminent church architect Temple Moore, whose work displays a sensitivity often lacking in his peers. There are several fne monuments within the church, of which the most distinguished is the Brus Cenotaph. This tomb-chest was originally housed within the Priory and was executed circa 1520 as a commemoration to the founder of the Priory, Robert de Brus. After dissolution it was moved to the church. The decoration is The church of St Nicholas stands on closer examination this is not at all sophisticated for its time and consists adjacent to the ruins of the once peculiar – separate churches to cater of knights, saints and possibly the physically imposing 12th century for the laity were often established Prior, all praying for the repose of Augustinian priory. When one close to abbey churches (e.g. St the souls of the family. In the right imagines the size and scale of the Margaret’s and Westminster Abbey) spandrel is seated the Virgin Mary. The priory church, it naturally raises to ensure different pastoral, spiritual window adjacent to the Cenotaph the question why a separate church and liturgical emphases could be contains fragments of medieval glass should be built in such proximity. Yet harmoniously undertaken. Even so, the from the original east window.

20 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 21 two symphonies and it was Beethoven’s by memory and critics. This wayfarer BEETHOVEN sole original work for a two-viola wakes from a discomforting dream to String quintet in C major ‘Storm’ Op.29 quintet. The lull comes at the very fnd himself dead in the present, alive (1801) opening of the frst Allegro, with a calm only in the past. ‘walking theme’ that anticipates the Britten was a severe critic of Allegro moderato start of the Archduke Trio, and offers Brahms, a man with a notoriously Adagio molto espressivo infnite capacity for development. The self-defeating emotional life. His String Scherzo. Allegro resulting sonata movement was the Quintet in G No. 2 Op. 111 begins like Presto most expansive the composer had Beethoven’s, in confdence, launched by yet constructed. The rich, Mozartean the cellist with a Homeric tone. Brahms Adagio is also conceived on a new wrote this extended work in the BRITTEN and large scale, while the Scherzo is late1880s and in his own mid ffties. For Lachrymae Op.48a (1950, 1976) an outgoing country dance with hints a short time he wished to consider it as of both the poor weather to come in his farewell to composition, a ftting end the Presto, and of the future ‘Pastoral to his career. BRAHMS Symphony.’ The Allegro proceeds with String Quintet No.2 Op.111 (1890) Britten’s storm depictions were symphonic grandeur, but emotional more metaphors for inward feeling, complexity affects the remaining Allegro non troppo, ma con brio whether in 'Peter Grimes' or in the movements. The Adagio develops as Adagio centre of ‘Lachrymae’, written for a funeral cortège in D minor, a scene Un poco Allegretto viola and piano in 1950, just before the both observed calmly, and provoking Vivace, ma non troppo presto composition of another anguished- considerable emotion in the climax for storm-at-sea opera, ‘Billy Budd’. Britten the fve players. The G minor Allegretto arranged ‘Lachrymae’ for viola and feels nostalgic for the personal and VAUGHAN-WILLIAMS strings in 1976, one of his last projects, musical past, also invoking the mood The Lark Ascending (1914) arr. Adam Johnson but its textures and interplay perhaps of the C minor Poco allegretto from feel clearest in our version for a small his own Third Symphony. The Vivace Stand on the moors with the wet chamber group (also recorded on our begins in B minor, key of the Schubert sheep after a downpour, and you’ll own Ayriel CD AC02). Unfnished Symphony which Brahms understand why Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral Britten’s very serious-minded and had edited, but it develops into a tour Symphony’ contains, after his most spectral variations lead up to the theme de force of involved string writing and literal Arcadian storm depiction, a from which they derive, Dowland’s 'If emotional fortitude. After this supposed shepherd’s hymn of thanksgiving to My Complaints' which itself becomes ‘ending’ came the whole of late Brahms, end the piece. His String Quintet in C the lull at the end, or the death. ‘Flow the composer’s imagination, notably in Op. 29, written seven years earlier in My Tears’ is referenced on the way, the piano pieces, once more in full fight. 1801 saves its own storm for the fnal through eleven movements and the For the fne poet and now-neglected Presto, where Haydnesque wit and virtuosic journey of the viola (Britten’s novelist George Meredith, the fight of verve scotch any gloom at the weather. own string instrument) becomes ‘The Lark Ascending’ in his 1881 poem, This marvellous, uplifting and neglected a Dantean dream of descent on produced "Serenity in ravishment" in work was composed between the frst shadowed, narrow rocky ledges, nagged those of us left on the ground. While

22 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 some of his poetic work is quite surely also defnes one role of music of infnity speaking all around you, a little penetrating, psychologically ('Modern at its best. Here are pointers toward uneasy. Love') a large proportion of Meredith’s an explanation for the enormous The music of that sense haunted work in verse celebrates Arcadia. The popularity of the meditative violin Vaughan Williams: the violin/lark also 'Woods of Westermain' were for him a romance, which the Meredith poem ascends in the contemporaneous ft university of the mind and spirit, in a helped draw from Vaughan Williams. 'Pastoral Symphony', in Elihu’s complex development of Wordsworth’s RVW began this work just before the 'Dance from Job', in the Cavatina notion of nature-as-teacher. Meredith Great War and revised it in time for a of the Eighth Symphony. Perhaps died in 1909 and was buried in Dorking, 1920 premiere (violin and piano) and the roots lie in his own hearing of where Ralph Vaughan Williams lived for then for his own 1921 orchestration. the Beethoven Missa Solemnis, the many years. Meredith’s poem extols: If you stand on the moor and listen violin that soars in the Sanctus/ “The song seraphically free/Of taint to a lark, it sounds nothing like the Benedictus. Like Beethoven, but with of personality/So pure that it salutes Vaughan Williams violin line. Meredith’s more modest forces, and via more the suns/The voice of one for millions/ own short lines and rhymes get a bit restrained, tentative motifs, Vaughan In whom the millions rejoice/For giving closer to that slightly cross twittering. Williams stills our inward storms their one spirit voice.” But if you are there on the moor, and reminds us for fifteen minutes of This feels more pantheistic listening, then you are looking up at an what really matters - that’s why we Buddhism than Christianity, but it invisible bird, seeing the sky, conscious keep listening.

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 23 St Hedda’s RC Egton Bridge - The Elements 19th August

whom the local inn is an eponymous reminder. He discreetly ministered across Yorkshire for ffty years until he fell victim to the hysteria of the Popish Plot of 1678 and was hanged, drawn and quartered in York the following year. English Roman Catholicism was at its lowest ebb in the eighteenth century yet the frst church was built in 1798; this is now the school next door. Within the next ffty years both legal emancipation and the infux of labourers from Ireland created a rising demand. In 1859 the priest in charge – Fr. Callebert – set about trying to raise funds for a much larger church building. Unlike many large Catholic churches of the period (one immediately thinks of Pugin’s neo-gothic apotheosis at Cheadle) this project did not rely upon a wealthy patron; instead, all the costs were defrayed by small donations. Volunteer aid was enlisted in every task including quarrying the stone. The building itself was designed by Hadfeld & Son of Sheffeld in a simple French style with lancet windows and an apsidal chancel. However at 114ft by 47ft with a height of 43ft it was Many features of the story of and 17th centuries. This was aided by a triumph of volume over expense. Roman Catholicism within England gentry families, such as the Smiths of The present church opened in 1867 since the Reformation can be found in Bridgehome in the village, who were while furnishings such as the altar from the history of St Hedda’s Church. The able to provide a safe haven for priests Messrs Mayer & Co. of Munich and village and the surrounding population to live and for Mass to be said. Probably the Lady Chapel were added over the have long maintained a Roman Catholic the most notable priest – and later subsequent ten years. The Lady Chapel tradition even when under extreme martyr – was Nicholas Postgate who now contains the Postgate Relics and offcial disapprobation in the 16th was also born in the village and of several of these are on display.

24 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 25 Concerto in G minor Op. 8 No. 2 RV The frst Allegro invokes the storm VIVALDI 315 (Summer) via fast sequential writing, as in 'The Concerto in F major for Flute and Strings Op. Allegro non molto Four Seasons', while the Presto displays 10 No. 1 RV 433 ‘La tempesta di mare’ Adagio e piano - Presto e forte sudden dynamics, scales and crescendi, (1728) Presto the weather worsening, but the music’s key, sunny. Allegro Concerto in F major Op. 8 No. 3 RV 293 By comparison, Chaos from Rebel’s Largo (Autumn) Les Elémens written in the 1730s opens Presto Allegro with a startling gesture that could come Adagio molto from Bernard Herrmann’s 1960 score Allegro for 'Psycho'. Rebel presents “all the REBEL notes in an octave played as a single Les Élémens (1737) Concerto in F minor Op. 8 No. 4 RV sound” and he does so very consciously, 297 (Winter) so as to connect “the confusion of Le cahos Allegro non molto the Elements with the confusion of Loure I: La terre et l’eau Largo Harmony.” The words are Rebel’s Chaconne: Le feu Allegro own, and the expressive extreme was Ramage: L’air not unusual for the times - Biber’s Rossignois A wayfarer who walks in the Battalia came earlier, and parts of that Rondeau: Air pour l’amour country to escape inner storms will work could be by Charles Ives, while Loure II soon meet with the real, corresponding Rebel’s friend Marais composed a stark Sicilienne elements of nature - or a humanly depiction of a bladder stone operation. Caprice constructed version of it. Visit nearby After 'Chaos' the strong 'elemental' Tambourins I - II Fountains Abbey to experience an character pieces (Air, Chaconne, Ramage, eighteenth century manufactured Rossignols) are matched by some vivid Arcadia, at Studley Royal. The ‘novelty’ dances including a Loure, a Sicilienne, GLUCK value of musical equivalents (nature as two Tambourins and a Caprice. Rebel Orpheus & Eurydice: Dance of the Furies a caged or mechanical bird) is offset composed this, his best-known (1774) by the differing personal responses of work, as an old man, brought out of the composers (nature as a source of retirement for the purpose. Its success expressive energy and affective power, is a reminder of the early eighteenth VIVALDI or sheer enjoyment). Vivaldi opened century’s vast range and conscious The Four Seasons (1725) his set of Six Concertos Op. 10 with expressive capacity - Bach in Leipzig a brief and vivid work for fute and was writing the early movements of the Concerto in E major Op. 8 No. 1 RV strings in F major, that he named La Mass in B minor, at around the same 269 (Spring) tempesta di mare - The storm at sea. time. Allegro Several versions exist, composed in the Sharply-drawn concert hall Largo e pianissimo sempre 1710s as one of the very earliest fute dramas about nature such as Rebel’s Allegro pastorale concertos. Two fast stormy movements point to the opera house, and by the are separated by the briefest Largo. mid-eighteenth century Gluck had

26 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 gained much celebrity for bringing of his most lasting work, Orfeo ed accompanying anonymous sonnets naturalism back to the singing stage. The Euridice make each movement’s programmatic link was the ballet. Gluck’s 'Don Juan' of Vivaldi’s own enormous output content very clear, but the music is 1761 has plot similarities with Mozart’s is gaining wider exposure in the equally enjoyable with no explanation, Don Giovanni, though Gluck was twenty frst century, but 'The Four the tune and textures unforgettably attempting to re-impose the signifcance Seasons' are unstoppable: nearly a evocative. The 'Four Seasons' retain of the narrative, and even of the music thousand recordings, thousands more the love of audiences everywhere, and itself, over the customary stylised dance performances, many arrangements, Antonio Vivaldi was a true Arcadian entertainment. In Gluck’s 'Dance of the commercials, call-waiting muzak. as well as a violin virtuoso whose Furies,' the stormy sequential writing Historically informed performance technical demands retain the interest of of a Vivaldi is amplifed and accelerated, (HIP) practice has tended to favour modern fddlers. His twelve movements then topped by sustained brass calls extreme dramatic emphasis in these are, briefy: 'Spring' (i. birds and thunder, which would reappear almost verbatim four concerti for violin and strings, ii. shepherd and dog, iii bagpipe dance); in Berlioz and Weber. The exciting string published in 1725 as part of Vivaldi’s 'Summer' (i. gathering storm in the fguration was refracted through an notional 'Opus 8' with eight other woods, ii. fies buzz the fearful shepherd, early manifestation of the Mannheim concerti under the title 'The Battle iii. the big storm hits); 'Autumn' (i. School’s 'rocket' crescendi, and through Between Harmony and Invention' drunken dance and sleep, ii. deeper compelling development, all appropriate (cf Rebel’s 'Chaos'). Heard live and sleep, iii. the big hunt); 'Winter' (i. for such a truly international composer. together the twelve movements, some shivering in the snow, ii. toasting in front Gluck re-used the 'Dance' with some drawn from earlier sources, offer an of the fre while the rain falls outside, iii. modifcations in the 1774 Paris revival amazing range of poetic variety. The slippery ice and windy weather).

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 27 28 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 29 St Hilda’s Danby - The Miller’s Tale 20th August

Danby village. Arriving at a time when the Methodists had the ascendancy over the Anglican church in the area, he believed the solution lay in returning among the people. In 1863 he caused an iron church to be built in Castleton (the Tin Tabernacle); this was later replaced by a stone built church built in 1924. Yet under Atkinson’s regime St Hilda’s was no longer neglected; the year after he arrived a new chancel was designed by the architect, William Butterfeld. This was only the latest among many alterations since the church was founded. There are possible traces of Danish occupation in the burial ground, and Saxon remains in the church. The tower is 15th century and two of the bells are marked 1698. There was a major restoration in memory of Atkinson in 1903 in the Early English style by Temple Moore. It might have been a muddle, yet the impression nowadays is of a most harmonious building, glowing under 21st century lighting, a sanctuary brought back to life, standing on the promontory below what Pevsner called "the noble line of the moor". The installation of a Nestled in the heart of Danby book ‘Forty Years in a Moorland Parish’ lavatory and the recent arrangement Dale, St Hilda’s can easily be seen from by Canon John Atkinson, in which he of the west end to create an adaptable the high moors which surround it famously described how his frst sight meeting space shows how tradition can on three sides despite its diminutive of the interior in 1845 was of shocking be blended with modern expectations. tower. The remote location of the neglect, dirt and an almost total absence We are delighted that members of church refects the history of dispersed of worshippers. He believed this was the church will offer concert goers hamlets that make up this parish. This due to its remote position in the middle afternoon tea and cakes in the glorious is the church that inspired the cult of the dale, one and a half miles from setting of the churchyard.

30 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 31 A programme fuelled by the vitality Estampie (John), New works for theorbo are Chanson (Alisoun), extremely rare. Stephen Goss, whose of English music, with its close Toccata (Nicholas), varied work includes a vivid 'Guitar relationship to nature, folk art and Serenade (Absolon), Concerto' for John Williams, has taken poetry, whilst also encompassing Epilogue. inspiration from Geoffrey Chaucer, a fourteenth century poet for whom a new piece for solo theorbo by Alessandro Piccinini Arcadia was a tangible reality. The composer Stephen Goss. (from Intavolatura di Liuto e Chitarone, natural world is right there in his Libro Primo, Bologne 1623), language, with no distancing, just as his Toccata verse accommodates the full scope of ROSSETER, DOWLAND, Toccata VI human foible and failing, with no shame. JONSON, KAPSBERGER, GOSS Chiacona in Partita Variate Chaucer’s bawdy 'Miller’s Tale' is of & PICCININI a hapless carpenter, John, who has a For our seventh concert, we beautiful eighteen-year-old wife, Alisoun. Works for lute and theorbo. welcome a lone traveller to our most The young lodger Nicholas begins a isolated and rural venue - St. Hilda’s clandestine affair with Alisoun, who has Philip Rosseter Church, Danby. Lutenist Matthew a second young local suitor, the parish Prelude Wadsworth brings us music from his clerk, Absolon. Nicholas arranges a new CD 'Late Night Lute' which was preposterous subterfuge in order to John Dowland recorded during overnight sessions at spend a whole night with Alisoun, while Fortune my foe one of our other Festival venues - the John lies suspended from the ceiling in Pavan, a dream Chapel of St. Hilda’s Priory, Sneaton a tub, fearing an imminent reprise of Mr Dowland’s midnight Castle. At the heart of the recital is a Noah’s Flood. Absolon arrives to beg very new work, written for a very old a kiss at the window. When Alisoun John Dowland instrument, the theorbo. Developed proffers her naked bottom instead of Lachrimae pavan in the sixteenth century and used her lips, he rushes to fetch a hot iron Anon: Galliarda rather more to underpin the work from the blacksmith, to punish Alison’s of ensembles or consorts than for behind. This time, however, Nicholas Robert Johnson solos, this 'extended lute' features offers his bottom at the window and Pavan in C minor an unmistakable and very long neck, breaks wind mightily in Absolon’s face. Almain which carries extra bass strings. The Nicholas suffers a burnt backside but two upper 'normal' strings are tuned wins the lady. Absolon wins nothing. Giovanni Kapsberger lower than the third. The resulting John, the cuckold, is branded a madman Toccata arpeggiata instrument has most commonly by the community. Kapsberger (by Kapsberger) fourteen strings or courses in all, and Music also flls Chaucer’s tale, as well the extended bass range, the with both young suitors priding Stephen Goss theorbo offers unique opportunities themselves on their performing The Miller’s Tale (written for Matthew for arpeggiation and high fguration - a prowess, and on their general level Wadsworth) small orchestra of possibilities, for of culture and decorum - as so often, Prologue, one player. Chaucer allows irony to blossom

32 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 into burlesque. Stephen Goss’s 'The compassion rather than ridicule. as well as some original pieces for Miller’s Tale' offers a cultured, intimate Having brought the theorbo into the theorbo. These are surrounded by a response to Chaucer’s story, in six short present, via the Middle Ages, Matthew beautiful 'Prelude' by Philip Rosseter, movements. A slow 'Prologue' and faster, takes us back to the lute’s golden age and by several works from the great bass-tune-led 'Epilogue' frame four for the rest of his recital. The Tale is Dowland, whose unique mix of character studies. 'John' is an Estampie, framed by sequences of short solo emotional directness and cultured a wistful tune cast in a dance form that pieces, composed in Shakespeare’s day sophistication allows him to speak to Chaucer would have know; 'Alisoun' is and, in the case of Robert Johnson, by us as a contemporary. Music and words a complex Chanson, implying the deeper one of the playwright’s own musical are not artistically divided, in the early personal concerns, beneath the bawdy; collaborators - the sounds of Johnson’s seventeenth century: the expression 'Nicholas' is a Toccata, more John Adams Pavan and Almaynes are those heard is all one. These are songs without than John Dowland; 'Absolon’ is a at the plays’ premieres. Piccinini and words, songs of love, life and death and Serenade - tender and hesitant, evoking Kapsberger offer a continental slant, perhaps above all, songs of nature.

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 33 St Stephen’s Fylingdales (Robin Hood’s Bay) - Cosmos 21st August

revolutionised English Christianity in the mid 19th Century. The new St Stephen’s church – where the concert is to be held – is a bold statement of design as infuenced by a generation of architects raised on the tenets of the Oxford Movement; Pevsner calls it "big, earnest and rather stern". This time the emphasis is sacramental with special detailing such as the large four-light west window and the rib vaulting in the apsidal chancel, leaving the worshipper in no doubt as to the focal point for their devotions, namely the altar. The building was designed by George Edmund Street, whose most notable building is the Royal Courts of Justice in The Strand, London. Street was much in demand as an ecclesiastical architect. He was Diocesan Architect to the cathedrals of Oxford, York, Winchester and Ripon and also undertook considerable commissions abroad. Use of such an eminent ecclesiastical architect with high ideals inevitably increased the cost of the building to a sizeable sum of £6,000. The work was fnanced by the long-standing incumbent, Robert Confusingly there are two churches simple if somewhat crowded interior Jermyn Cooper, and local landowner dedicated to St Stephen within the dedicated to the spoken word. Further Robert Barry. Their munifcence civil parish of Fylingdales. The old down the hill is the new church of ensured a high standard of design and church of 1822 is situated on a hillside 1868 - 1870. Barely ffty years separate execution; in particular the stained overlooking Robin Hood’s Bay, itself the two churches, yet the contrast glass designed by Henry Holiday built on the site of a much older in architecture and interior design is is especially meritorious, ranking chapel. It conformed to the style of immense: a beautiful illustration of alongside the best examples of late worship common at that time – a the powerful forces unleashed that Victorian stained glass in the county.

34 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 35 the Stars', 1972-74). There, a French any art in the modern era, all done in a MESSIAEN mystic evokes his own abiding love of couple of years in the 1820s by a deaf Des canyons aux étoile: Appel Interstellaire nature via an encounter with the wild and sick man in his mid-ffties. Tonight (1971) American landscape. The seven-minute we hear Quartet in A minor Op. 132, a Appel calls on a solo horn player to work dominated by an immense slow speak of and to the entire universe. movement, called a song of thanksgiving BEETHOVEN It’s a display piece, and compositionally by Beethoven who had just got over an String quartet No. 15 in A minor Op.132 draws in a couple of birdsongs, as illness he thought might kill him. Unique (1825) usual with Messiaen, together with in its slow sustained lines and emotional more fowing melodic lines and power (if prefguring the Messiaen Assai sostenuto - Allegro some colourful effects of timbre and Louanges from our fourth concert), the Allegro ma non tanto technique, often quiet. The player Dankgesang orbits like Jupiter in space, Heilige Dankgesang eines Genesenden stands exposed, technically and as a quite overwhelming everything else an die Gottheit, in der lydischen Tonart sole representative of life on the planet in sight. It is preceded by a yearning - Molto Adagio - Neue Kraft fühlend - (no pressure there). Hence the effect Allegro with a very quirky take on Andante is dramatic, the player alone and fading sonata form, itself introduced by the Alla marcia, assai vivace - Più allegro away, but part of the larger continuum. Grosse Fugue theme which permeates Allegro appassionato - Presto Beethoven’s late quartets also the late quartets; and by a second form a cosmic continuity. Each opus Allegro in the form of a hesitant minuet is defned, but themes and fgurations and trio. After the huge Molto Adagio MAXWELL DAVIES recur, standard formal moulds are Beethoven inserts a short, Haydnesque Sea Eagle Op. 103 (1982) broken, transformed or ignored. march and a recitative passage, leading Movements and sentiments are (almost) straight into an Allegro appassionato interchangeable from one work to the rondo structure, to conclude the work. SCHOENBERG next. Alternatively, the works orbit like Mostly in a heartfelt A minor and led by Verklärte Nacht Op.4 (1899) particles, defning each other and their one of Beethoven’s strongest themes, total meaning, endlessly fascinating but the last movement somehow fnds A For our eighth Festival concert the impossible to pin down at one time. major right at the end to conclude, or Arcadian wayfarer begins alone, with Extremely tough to play well, unheard rather to pause before the next quartet just the stars, planets and moon for by their own composer and analysed begins, on another cosmic trip. company. Messiaen’s Appel Interstellaire to death, the late quartets are not Sir Peter Maxwell Davies took this - Interstellar Call - seems to anticipate really diffcult for even the frst-time open-form concept from Beethoven his pupil Stockhausen’s use of celestial listener. In fact their palpable humanistic and made it part of a life-long creative brass writing to surround the action connectedness and imaginative approach. His own symphonies and of the space-y opera Donnerstag liberation makes them among the most quartets (and the smaller works) may aus Licht. The Appel was composed congenial and engaging works in musical be heard as one big piece, with endings independently in 1971. It was added to history. Put it another way - this is that are simply pauses in expression, and then, against the composer’s wish, the best music written in the western beginnings that are continuations, later extracted from a huge work for Enlightenment tradition, the major musical fgures that recur down the large ensemble ('From the Canyons to achievement by any one individual in years, like old friends bumped into

36 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 under different circumstance. It’s rarely who was involved in a kind-of love of chamber music, transcending easy music, though deeply personal. triangle with Ida Auerbach and Dehmel. Wagner, Brahms and other infuences, The meaning nearly always relates to Auerbach (née Koblenz) was carrying marking Schoenberg right from the poignancy of existence, the brevity a child from her husband (an unhappy his frst major piece as one of the and complexity of it all. Poetry, nature marriage) when she met Dehmel, who greatest composers, ever. The music and melody wind through all that she would later marry. This reality itself follows the poem fairly closely, structural apparatus and in 'Sea Eagle' became the poem 'Transfgured Night', the speech of the woman and the from 1982, our solo horn player returns in which a lover tells his distraught man (from doubt and self-loathing to impersonate a great bird, extinct in lady that he will accept the child she to maganimity, minor to major), the UK since 1916 but re-introduced carries as his own. In the poem, the and it does echo the broad form of in the 1980s and now breeding unexpected warmth between the many Liszt works that grow toward successfully in Scotland. There are three couple transfgures the bare forest transcendence, including Tristia (heard short movements, the frst portraying at night (very much a third equal in our third concert). But really this wide fight over the sea and then a character) into a bright and hopeful is like nothing else in the chamber much closer encounter, the second a scene. Schoenberg in this period was repertoire. Like Stravinsky’s 'Rite' (in brooding seascape, the third a faster developing feelings for Alexander our second concert) it has had no virtuosic, swooping display by the player Zemlinsky’s sister Mathilde, and comparable successor. What happened and the bird, together but alone. holidayed with them both at Payerbach, to all of these young Romantic Richard Dehmel placed a quiet Austria in September 1899. wayfarers through life and into the couple alone with their feelings and During those days and nights in twentieth century? Mathilde would the night in his poem Verklärte Nacht the country, he conceived a 'setting' of indeed marry Arnold while pregnant - Transfgured Night. It’s a poem that Dehmel’s poem more on the lines of by him in 1901, and would leave him sounds very beautiful in German and is a Liszt Symphonic Poem (no words) temporarily for a mutual artist friend tough to translate with any sense of the - he’d already made a few false starts a few years later, with catastrophic verbal music kept intact. Dehmel was at writing such a programmatic piece consequences (the artist’s suicide, the son of a forester, grew up breathing for chamber ensemble, notably for general trauma). She died in 1923. that air, and came to believe in string sextet. This time he succeeded Richard Dehmel stayed with Ida but liberation for women, workers, human and completed most of the work on died in 1920, the consequence of a feeling of all kinds. That included sex, the new extended piece during the wartime injury. Stefan George spurned and hence made his work unpopular three week holiday. The unusual work the blandishments of Josef Goebbels with the authorities in late nineteenth struggled a bit in early performances and died in Swiss exile in 1933. century Germany, but very much in but became easily the composer’s Schoenberg escaped the Nazis, chose demand from composers. The poems most popular piece, especially in the exile in the USA like Bartók, and died have clear structures, but strong, often arrangements for string orchestra, in LA in 1951. Ida Koblenz/Auerbach/ nocturnal atmospheres and intense whose weight, along with the lush Dehmel, the original 'woman' in emotional and erotic content. Arnold harmony, can still overwhelm an 'Transfgured Night', faced illness and, Schoenberg while in his early twenties audience. The original is better, as a Jew, persecution in her homeland during the 1890s set several Dehmel though (also available on our own - she chose death by overdose in 1942, poems for voice and piano. He would Ayriel CD AC01). It is a string sextet as the trains rolled in to remove the also set many poems by Stefan George, that transfgures the whole genre Jewish population of Hamburg.

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 37 St Hilda’s Priory, Sneaton Castle Whitby - Nostalgia 23rd August

home built in 1799 by James Wilson. Over time purpose-built facilities for the sisters could be afforded and the central element of this was the neo-Romanesque chapel designed by C.D. Taylor and built between 1955 and 1957. Central to the life of the Order, which follows St Benedict, are the Divine Offce and the Eucharist. In 1992 the distinguished ecclesiastical architect, Ronald Sims, who died in 2007 aged 80, advised on the reordering of the chapel "to improve its ambience, dignity, accessibility and liturgical use". Later on he was responsible for the cross and candlesticks made of black wrought metal (as also for the crypt window in St Mary, Lastingham.) By the time the school closed in 1997 the nuns had greatly diversifed their work into preaching, spiritual guidance, retreats, hospital chaplaincy and missions. They have other houses in and around Whitby as well as in Rievaulx, York and Hull. Their long-standing commitment to Africa has recently been extended by two new convents: in Ashanti, Ghana and Johannesburg. There is also a home for girls in Swaziland. The sisters St Hilda’s Priory is the mother had been in abeyance for the Great have offered immense support to the house for The Order of The Holy War was refounded under the banner Festival from its beginnings in 2009. We Paraclete (OHP) which is a female of the OHP. Sneaton Castle was the remain grateful to them allowing us to Anglican religious community. The location for both educational and share their buildings for rehearsals and community was founded in 1915 by religious devotion which meant much recordings. The impressive acoustic Margaret Cope in order to blend adaptation was required in the frst of the chapel has been captured on religious vocation with provision of half the 20th century. The castle itself several recent CD recordings by education for girls. A school which was an attractively situated family Festival artists.

38 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 39 the 'Requiem'. From the impassioned more lively, as the composer plays FAURÉ opening Allegro it’s clear that Fauré is with elaborate serial methods, but still Fantasie Op.79 (1898) working on the same huge emotional conveys, with some wit, the sense of canvas as Franck, just a few years earlier an agitated bird. Piano quartet No.2 in G minor Op.45 in his Quintet (heard in our opening The ability to evoke a sense of (1885/86) concert). This may be nostalgia for nostalgia, even from one movement to something lost, or frustrated passion the next of the same work, was often a Allegro molto moderato (nostalgia for an imagined future), major expressive end for Edward Elgar, Allegro molto but the variety, beauty and strength but that sense does not fully explain Adagio non troppo make Fauré’s piece feel a greater, less the power of his Piano Quintet in A Allegro molto obsessive achievement than Franck’s, minor, composed in 1918. The Quintet and a more recognisably human is hardly unknown and was recently document. The C minor Scherzo proves orchestrated (without piano) by Donald MESSIAEN very forceful, featuring tritones. The Fraser; more evidence of today’s Le Merle Noir (1952) Adagio opens in a fully nostalgic vein, nostalgic urge to expand the number of beginning with a rocking piano fgure Elgar 'symphonies' beyond the two he derived from a childhood memory, completed. Yet the piece itself remains ELGAR the church bells of Cadirac - there’s a the most neglected of Elgar’s major Piano quintet in A minor Op.84 (1918) wondering stillness, like a quiet corridor works, and the most personal, along with into the past. Fauré’s fnal Allegro the two string concertos. Elgar wrote Moderato - Allegro is heroic, especially in the lambent it in Sussex, in a rented cottage, where Adagio piano writing, and the discourse the change of air, and recuperation from Andante - Allegro becomes more passionate still. As the ill-health had prompted a temporary but instruments come together, the feeling very considerable creative resurgence Yearning for what used to be - the is of a ship, forging on through a rolling - three major chamber pieces and the countryside, a lover, a piece of music, sea, but without any expressive cliché. Cello Concerto were written in a short childhood, a mood. The sound of The coda heads for major-key triumph, time, the very last major works he the fute captures that feeling, heard but the textures evoke a great swirl would complete. So the Quintet is 'late' at the slow start of Gabriel Fauré’s that no other composer could have Elgar, the composer matching himself short Fantasie from 1898, written devised. with the greats in the same genre: as a Conservatoire test piece when Messiaen’s music is equally Schumann, Brahms, Dvorák, Franck, the composer was in his ffties. The unmistakable, and Le Merle noir - The Fauré. Elgar avoids heroic comparisons refective mood is soon shaken off, for Blackbird - is, like Fauré’s Fantasie, via imaginative use of chamber texture a vigorous stroll in the open, perhaps a brief test-piece for Conservatoire and atmosphere, the sense of a narrative. another memory. During the previous students of the fute. Messiaen He opens the work stealthily with what decade, recently married and raising composed it in 1952 as his frst fully sounds like a quiet tapping on the door a family (though philandering), Fauré 'bird-piece'. The opening conveys the in the night. The Moderato introduction had composed his large-scale second sounds of the blackbird in its natural features a yearning cello phrase that Piano Quartet in G minor, written not habitat, moving on to a steadier generates much of the emotional long before his most popular piece, melody. The fnal minutes become capital for the remaining movements.

40 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 The ensuing Allegro almost plays at and away into silence, as though this to let go. The quiet Moderato returns being conventionally Brahmsian and movement had only been dreaming to lead a fnal Allegro which sounds like energetic, but very soon the spooky about nineteenth century piano quintets, the old, confdent Elgar of the 'Enigma', Elgarian nostalgia returns, the string and was busy being its mysterious other heading for triumph. There is a short, melodies grow more mellifuous, the self. The Adagio is more straightforward, giddy dash for the line at the end, but central drama developing through the and is one of Elgar’s most engaging not before a long diversion into that drastic contrast between the musics. slow movements, sometimes cello-led, entirely different world of quieter, This fades into a longer and still more reaching a piano-led climax but again ghostly lyricism that helps make the immobile version of the Moderato winding down at great length, unwilling work a true enigma, ever fascinating.

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 41 St Oswald’s Lythe - Skywards 25th August

(who began his ecclesiastical career as assistant curate here), 37 fragments of carved stone were found built into the walls of the Norman church. These are Anglo-Danish gravestones from, most likely, a Christian burying ground established following the Viking invasion of the neighbourhood in 867. Many more fragments have been stored within the tower and several are mounted in an attractive display which illuminates the transitions of settlers towards early Christianity. Of special note are the hogback tombstones which were fashionable from around 900 AD which were a particular feature of Viking heritage within northern Britain. The 1910 restoration was overseen by Sir Walter Tapper, a distinguished member of the Arts and Crafts movement, renowned for his attention to detail. The pews, pulpits, rood screens and organ lofts in the many churches he restored were always of the best quality, and the acoustics were, almost without exception, fne. This is true of St Oswald’s at Lythe, where Tapper created an elegant, calm and airy space in great The church of St Oswald dominates are drawn to the east, to the sea and contrast to the fury of the sea and the headland above the village of south, down the steep bank and along winds outside. The architectural critic Sandsend. Its solid Early English tower the beach to Whitby Abbey, founded in H.S.Goodhart-Rendel called Tapper’s with small spirelet stands stark against 657. The earliest written record of St work at Lythe "his best church." There the North Sea beyond. Inland, to the Oswald’s occurs in 1100; but in 1910, at are several splendid memorials relating north, west and south lie the vast open a major restoration carried out under to the Normanby marquisate whose spaces of the North York Moors but the auspices of the Vicar, the Reverend main residence is at Mulgrave Castle at the church the eye and the mind the third Marquess of Normanby within the parish.

42 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 43 discourse is just 'there' and of itself. 'Rite of Spring' heard in our second HAYDN Hans Keller (who did eventually Festival concert. For the composer, String quartet Op.76 No.4 in B fat major write a microscopically erudite book the starting point was St Paul’s own ‘Sunrise’ (1796/97) about them) wrote 'analyses' of these consideration of mortality and the works which are constructed entirely afterlife. There’s a very short, luminous Allegro con spirito from musical notes - short musical fnal section which does seem to take Adagio compositions to help explain longer us skywards. Menuet. Allegro - Trio - Menuet da Capo ones, especially emphasising Haydn’s use That sky though does not contain Finale. Allegro ma non troppo - Più of common thematic motifs, developed a lark from Haydn. His String Quartet allegro - Più presto through all the movements of a given Op. 64 No. 5 'The Lark' from 1790 is quartet. This was Haydn’s genre, he in four movements: Allegro, Adagio, effectively invented it, then wrote Minuet and Trio, Vivace. The work is so WILSON around ffty fully-developed quartet immediately enjoyable, so unassuming, String Quartet No. 1 ‘Winter’s Edge’ (1992) masterpieces. They just are what they that its depths can be taken for granted. are - like, say, individual Hitchcock The last movement plays for less than movies. Each has its specifc private three minutes but merges fugue and HAYDN conventions and expressive manners, dance as no other movement before it String quartet Op.64 No.5 in D major K458 the things that belong, the things that had ever done, while the Minuet offers ‘The Lark’ (1790) don’t; wit and seriousness working self-conscious restraint and thematic together in complex, cultured essays unity. The opening two movements Allegro moderato that can also be enjoyed straight off. feature the frst violin, prominently, and Adagio cantabile The Quartet in B fat Op. 76 No.4 the opening of the frst movement’s Menuetto: Allegretto 'Sunrise' comes from Haydn’s last exposition involves strong irony. A Finale: Vivace published set of six quartets and has mundane, even banal staccato fgure four movements: Allegro, Adagio, is set against a forid high fddle tune Minuet and Trio, Allegro. TheTrio gets (like a repetitive aria for a slightly RESPIGHI stuck in a manner that might go on showy soprano). The mundane fgure Il Tramonto ‘Sunset’ (1918) forever. The fnal Allegro theme has a proves to have its own varied life, slightly over-exaggerated swing, things and leads to unison intensity, even to The very opening of Haydn’s great are rather theatrical, masks and role a second recapitulation as the fddle 'Sunrise' quartet from the late 1790s play, the jolly surface is and is not quite refuses to admit the movement is over. sounds nothing like the sun rising looks as it seems or sounds, which takes us The structure is unique and quietly or feels, and very soon after the cello back to that opening. extraordinary, the discourse more like is actually taking 'the sun' back down Ian Wilson’s brief, one-movement Prokofev or Shostakovich. Magnifcent again, into a minor key. That opening String Quartet No. 1 'Winter’s Edge' compositional skill and imagination, is such a unique musical image that from 1992 is more about texture, the art that conceals art, is used to some kind of outside reference seems rhythm and colour than Haydnesque life-enhancing effect by Haydn here, as in order. But the Haydn Quartets are interplay. A longish section after the so often. But no larks. almost impossible to write about with start may remind listeners very strongly There is, though, certainly a sunset any useful meaning - their intelligent of the Danse Sacrale from Stravinsky’s behind Respighi’s Il Tramonto of 1914.

44 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 Shelley held some fascination for the sees the sun again. The woman then the quieter sections of Schoenberg’s Italian symbolists, and his 1816 poem grows old during the second half of Verklärte Nacht or Wagner’s Siegfried- 'The Sunset' shares some expressive the poem, fnding no peace in life, Idyll. The mezzo’s vocal line feels ground with Dehmel’s Verklärte Nacht wishing for peace in death - her own quite close to Debussy’s Pelléas, lying (see our Cosmos concert, and also sunset, to match that of her long-dead between recitative and arioso, more the fourth of Wagner’s Wesendonck lover. Her living present has become, openly melodic in the early sections, Lieder in The Wayfarer). In the Shelley as Shelley rather cruelly indicates, as the lovers walk together. Near poem, a couple are alone just after “The tomb of thy dead self.” Respighi the close she calls out for peace sunset, the moon rises, they spend a in his mid-thirties, by then a young (“Pace!”), something apparently night together in an outdoor, Arcadian Professor of Composition in Rome, unachievable, but very much present setting. Yet the setting of the sun also set the entire Shelley poem as a in Respighi’s evocation of landscape seems to have taken away the life of restrained scena for mezzo and throughout, and in the hushed ending the young man, who himself never strings, with writing that does recall for strings alone.

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 45 St Hilda’s West Clif Whitby - Arcadia 26th August

by birth, Austen arrived in Whitby and stayed 45 years, during which his forceful personality made him famous throughout Yorkshire. "Whitby was his kingdom" it was said, and what more ftting that the fve Anglican churches over which he presided should be formed into the heart of a new diocese? He conceived of St Hilda’s as a cathedral; the result is certainly “big and bold” (Pevsner). Designed by the Newcastle architect, R.J. Johnson, St Hilda’s was built in 1884-86 on a scale, and with features, suitable to the cathedral. To that end the new St Hilda’s soon acquired a bishop’s throne and the stained glass is by the eminent Victorian designer C.E. Kempe. Austen himself planned and oversaw every detail of the new church, including the view across the harbour to the Abbey, though this was not achieved without a prolonged struggle with the landowner of the site. Whitby did not become an archdeaconry with a suffragan Bishop until 1923. By that time Austen had left to become a Residentiary Canon at York Minster. He died aged 95 in 1934. The tower was The whole of Whitby West Cliff, time it was fnished so was Hudson, fnally completed by G.E.Charlewood including St Hilda’s, is a story of lofty disgraced and bankrupt. Without any in 1938. The three-manual organ is by ambition. Undeveloped until the subsequent traffc boom Westcliff only Harrison & Harrison and was installed seaside railway boom of the 1840s the continued to develop piecemeal. A in 1926, funded by W. A.Headlam, a resort attracted the attention of the tin church was provided in 1875 but local shipping merchant and a staunch ‘railway king’ George Hudson who the arrival of Canon George Austen member of the congregation. It was purchased West Cliff Fields and began as Rector of Whitby in the same year given in memory of his son who had construction of East Terrace. By the was to prove crucial. A southerner been killed in the Great War.

46 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 47 Elgar’s Organ Sonata in G, written in ('From the Cradle to the Grave'; 'Death' ELGAR the composer’s late thirties and frst and 'Transfguration'). The Concerto Organ sonata in G minor Op. 28 (1895) heard (with no time for real rehearsal) has maintained a direct connection with in Worcester Cathedral in 1895. Take audiences since the 1936 premiere, Allegro maestoso a few steps down from that Cathedral thanks to its stark emotional truth, to the trees on the banks of the Severn uniquely conveyed. A frst movement and the city’s own Arcadia is right there. moves from birth through life; a second MENDELSSOHN The Malverns and Black Mountains shows anguish at death, then achieves are in the not-so-far-distance, with transcendence. The soloist’s enormous Hebrides Overture Op. 26 (1830-1832) the Cathedral itself rising over you in challenge (emotional, dramatic and grandeur - like Elgar’s Sonata. technical) is to ‘be’ now the soul of the BERG Mendelssohn's 'Hebrides Overture' departed (the stated programme of Violin concerto ‘To the Memory of an Angel’ of 1832, inspired by a visit to Fingal’s the Concerto), now the composer and (arr. Faradsch Karaew - UK premiere) Cave, is arguably the fnest, most his memories (a hidden programme eloquent and most durable short relating to Berg’s own lovers and his i Andante orchestral piece of the early Romantic illegitimate daughter), and ultimately to Allegretto period. The work lives in the Arcadia be the representative of us all, at the ii Allegro of the mind, and the ten-minute end of our days (cf yet again Messiaen). Adagio journey is more emotional voyage A tall order! The use of an Austrian folk than pleasure trip. The fowing second song 'A Bird on the Plum Tree' evokes subject is surely love, or an imagining Carinthia, a private Arcadia, where SMETANA of its possibility: the storms of life Berg’s brief teenage affair resulted in Die Moldau Má vlast: Vltava (1874) intervene, the fowing string theme is pregnancy for the maid. The use of a reduced to to just one and then two chorale harmonised by Bach (Es Ist very tentative, Schubertian clarinets Genug) allows still more connection DEBUSSY (Schubertian again) and it all ends very to Berg’s love-life via elaborate Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (1892) quietly, with pizzicati. Always popular, numerology, but more so, it helps bring this music served as a powerful emblem the Concerto’s expressive range at the of German culture at a moment of end, via a memory of Bach, into the WEBER European tragedy, when the work of centrality of western cultural concern. Der Freischütz Overture J.277 (1820) this Jewish genius was temporarily Tragically, Berg himself would die at ffty. unwelcome, in Germany itself. He’d already written arguably the most For the Festival’s fnale, our Early sketches of Berg’s Violin involving operas since Mozart’s, and determined wayfarer at last reaches Concerto of 1935 are structured given another twenty years ...... a real Arcadia. Four of the best short around the initials of the motto (FFFF) Smetana’s tragedy was sudden and orchestral works of the nineteenth of a German nationalist movement. total deafness through illness in 1874, century form a protective bower The emotional spark for the piece, the same year he composed Die Moldau around one of the greatest violin the death of the eighteen year old girl (Vltava). It traces in E minor a mighty concertos, the Berg. We enter through Manon Gropius, links the Concerto to river’s growth and length all the way the Allegro frst movement of Edward Liszt’s and Strauss’s symphonic poems from source through the capital city and

48 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 on to its confuence with the Elbe, via taking its fnal shape in Paris. The most Max, in Weber’s revolutionary and a big tune that never pales. Moldau was overtly Arcadian ten minutes of sound in wildly successful opera Der Freischütz, part two of what would become both a this whole Festival of music was born as frst heard in 1821, prizes Agathe’s cycle of six symphonic poems (Má vlast) a response to literature, not frst-hand beauty above all else. He seeks and an enduring national monument. reaction to what Debussy called supernatural help in the form of magic Less than ten years after writing this “universal Nature”.Yet the composition bullets, to win her. Bad idea, though music, Smetana died in a home for the in 1892 of a Prélude to Mallarmé’s Max escapes everlasting doom, and insane, his busy life having declined to extended reverie in verse enabled just has to wait an extra year for his a condition of permanent breakdown. Debussy to express in just a few minutes bride. The detail of Weber’s own short Near the end of Die Moldau, the great an impression of the true, enveloping life and awful death remains almost 'castle' motif dominates, a fst raised to power of the natural world. Debussy too sad and tragic to contemplate. fate, though not yet perhaps in despair. chose to make a beautiful, indisputable But his music breathes nature. The While Smetana was composing Má object rather than a gigantic opera or Overture to Freischütz transports us to vlast and planning to leave Prague to live blustering symphony - a quiet revolution. the German forest, mysterious horns and work in the countryside, Stéphane Debussy’s Prélude, like Keats’ 'Grecian in the Arcadian wald. Weber ends our Mallarmé’s masterpiece of erotic poetic Urn', joins us to universal nature, and Festival with a joyous sound, the heart symbolism L’après-midi d’un faune was hence to our human nature, via beauty. of Arcadia.

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 49 Biographies

Jill Allan Katya Apekisheva

Over the past ten years or so a number of Clarinet Piano musicians who feature in the Festival have also Jill Allan studied the clarinet at the Royal Katya Apekisheva is one of Europe’s appeared in the various concert seasons we’ve Northern College of Music in Manchester foremost pianists, in demand internation- where she is currently a Professor of ally as a soloist and chamber musician and promoted in and around the North York Moors Clarinet at Manchester University. She went described by Gramophone Magazine as "a National Park. Every one of these musicians on to complete a postgraduate diploma in profoundly gifted artist who has already were struck by the experience as a whole – the performance at Rotterdam Conservatoire in achieved artistic greatness". Studying at audiences, the sacred buildings, the landscape the Netherlands. During this period, Jill began the Royal College of Music under Irina and general feeling of escape, freedom and to establish herself as one of the foremost Zaritskaya, she went on to become a fnalist clarinetists in the UK and has since gone on and a prize-winner at the Leeds Piano inspiration. They unanimously agreed: how to perform as a guest player with many of Competition and Scottish Piano Competition rewarding to be playing music for all the right the country’s fnest ensembles including the as well as being awarded the London reasons. In stressful high profle careers it is easy BBC Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras, Philharmonic Soloist of the Year. She has to forget how uplifting a relaxed and intimate Hallé, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the subsequently appeared as soloist with the performance can feel and if anything, this City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra London Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Hallé, and the highly acclaimed John Wilson Moscow Philharmonic, Jerusalem Symphony, elevates the performance to an even higher level Orchestra. Jill is regularly Guest Principal with English Chamber Orchestra and the Royal because of its spirit and intention. This is the the Symphony Orchestra of India, based in Philharmonic orchestra with conductors such magic of chamber music in locations such as Mumbai and has also appeared throughout as Sir Simon Rattle, Alexander Lazarev and ours and the touching success of the past eight Japan, China, South Korea and Europe. Aside Jan-Latham Koenig. Her recording debut of Festivals has set high expectations not just for from orchestral playing, Jill enjoys the variety Grieg solo piano works (Quartz) received and interactive challenges of chamber music, overwhelming critical response, as did her audiences but also the performers who savour helping to found the Minerva Wind Quintet follow recording on Onyx of works by giving their best for this unique experience. We and working alongside the Birmingham Mussorgsky and Shostakovich. She has also all share this love of collaborating to bring Contemporary Music Group and Ensemble released numerous CDs with violinist Jack you world-class music within an inspired 10/10. This is Jill’s ffth visit to the North Liebeck and her duo partner pianist Charles environment created by all these factors. It is a York Moors Chamber Music Festival, looking Owen. This season highlights includes a recital forward to being part of great chamber at Kings Place, Wigmore Hall and a debut Festival of friendship and one that is based on music with long established colleagues within in Tokyo. Katya is also Professor of Piano generosity whilst sharing and celebrating the art one of the most inspiring settings in the at London’s Guildhall School of Music and of communication and collaboration. country. Drama. Jamie Walton

Artistic Director www.katyaapekisheva.com 50 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 Simon Blendis Simon Browne Thomas Carroll Violin Violin/Viola Cello Simon Blendis enjoys an international career Simon Browne teaches and performs at the As a concerto soloist Thomas has appeared as a chamber musician, soloist and orchestra University of Trinidad & Tobago Academy with the London Symphony Orchestra, leader. He has been a member of the for the Performing Arts and is well known Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Scottish Schubert Ensemble for the last twenty-two at the Festival, being part of it right from the National Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra years, with whom he has performed in over start in 2009. As a principal violinist with the of Wales, London Mozart Players, the thirty different countries, recorded over Northern Sinfonia, under the direction of Vienna Chamber Orchestra, RPO, English twenty CDs of music ranging from Brahms Thomas Zehetmair, he gained a reputation Chamber Orchestra, Prague Philharmonic to Judith Weir, made frequent broadcasts as a fne interpreter of baroque and classical and Bayerischer Rundfunk Orchestra. Much for BBC Radio 3 and appeared regularly at concerti and for his versatility in repertoire in demand as a chamber musician, Thomas Europe’s major venues. from Bach to Shostakovich. Amongst has worked with many of the world’s In 2014 Simon was appointed leader of other orchestras he has co-led the BBC greatest musicians and appeared at numerous the London Mozart Players, and since 1999 Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, festivals including Edinburgh, Dubrovnik has been one of the leaders of Orchestra and City of Birmingham Symphony and Cheltenham. His recordings include Ensemble Kanazawa in Japan, with whom he orchestras and has worked with the Berlin Michael Berkeley’s String Quintet with the has recorded Vivaldi’s 'Four Seasons' for the Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra Chilingirian Quartet for Chandos and sonatas Warner label. He is also in constant demand and the Hallé Orchestra. Simon Browne is by Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms with as a guest-leader and guest-director and has much in demand as a chamber musician on pianist Llyr Williams on the Orchid Label. appeared in this role with most of the UK’s the violin & viola, and has been invited to Thomas has performed at Wigmore Hall, major chamber and symphony orchestras. numerous festivals in Europe, Canada and the Louvre in Paris, Konzerthaus in Vienna, Within the last year he has also appeared as Japan as well as the International Musicians the, Bath MozartFest and The International a soloist with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Seminars in Prussia Cove. He was a multiple Chamber Music Festival in Utrecht with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, prize-winner on Royal Northern College Janine Jansen and Julian Rachlin. He has also the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the of Music and Manchester University’s joint given concerts in Tokyo, been resident at the CBSO. course, studying violin with Richard Deakin Delft Festival in Holland and appeared as Simon is a keen exponent of new music. He and baroque violin with Andrew Manze. soloist with the BBC Concert Orchestra at has given over 50 frst performances and has Simon went on to study with renowned the Queen Elizabeth Hall (broadcast by BBC had new works written for him by, amongst Hungarian pedagogue, Lorand Fenyves, with Radio 3). In 2007 he made his debut with the others, John Woolrich, Tansy Davies and Jazz the aid of awards from the Countess of Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in a series legend Dave Brubeck. Munster Trust, and won the chamber music of performances of Shostakovich’s Concerto prize at the Royal Conservatory of Music in No.2. Thomas is currently a Professor at the To r o n t o. Royal College of Music in London and the Yehudi Menuhin School. www.simonblendis.com www.thomascarroll.com North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 51 Meghan Cassidy Cremona Quartet Ruth Gibson Viola / Violin Viola Meghan studied the Viola with Garfeld Renowned for their "extremely mature The Irish born violist Ruth Gibson is Jackson at the Royal Academy of Music, and lyrical sound" (Strad) the Quartetto an internationally recognised chamber where she graduated in 2010 winning the di Cremona, as they’re known on the musician and soloist, regularly appearing Sydney Griller Award and Sir John Barbirolli international stage, perform regularly at many at the world’s leading concert halls such memorial prize. In 2007 Meghan joined prestigious venues such as Wigmore Hall as Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Centre, Het the Solstice Quartet who were awarded (London), Konzerthaus (Berlin), the New Concertgebouw, Queen Elizabeth Hall the Tillett Trust and Park Lane Group in York Metropolitan Museum and Accademia and Berlin Konzerthaus. As soloist she has 2008 before winning the Royal Overseas di St Cecilia in Rome. The Quartet formed performed under Sir John Elliot Gardiner League in 2009. They went on to perform in 2000 at the Stauffer Academy in Cremona with the Bournemouth Symphony and at London’s Wigmore hall and QEH as well and in 2005 received a Borletti-Buitoni Trust broadcast for BBC4; other recent solo as live on BBC Radio 3 during which time Fellowship, leading to appearances at many appearances have taken her to festivals in Meghan continued her studies with Tatjana of the world’s great festivals such as the Nurnberg and Belfast. Her love of chamber Masurenko (Leipzig), Nabuko Imai (Hamburg) Perth International Arts Festival in Australia music is fulflled through her work as a and Hartmut Rohde at IMS Prussia Cove. and the BeethovenFest in Bonn. They were member of Ensemble 360, the critically A much sought after chamber musician, recently nominated as ‘Artist in Residence’ at acclaimed 11 piece ensemble who perform Meghan has appeared at many international the Societa’ del Quartetto of Milan who are throughout the UK and broadcast regularly festivals throughout Britain and Europe celebrating their 150th year for which the on BBC Radio 3. Laureate of numerous Meghan and has recently been collaborating Cremona Quartet will perform the complete prizes which she won as member of the with the London Conchord Ensemble, cycle of Beethoven quartets. Recent and Finzi Quartet, Ruth also performs with the Ensemble Midvest, Monte Piano Trio and forthcoming tours include engagements in Nash Ensemble, Scottish Ensemble and Fidelio Piano Trio. Alongside a chamber music the USA, Japan, Mexico and China as well Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields. She career Meghan appears as Guest Principal as in the UK, Italy, Scandinavia, Germany has toured China, South America, Russia, Viola with Orchestras such as BBC National and Austria. The Cremona Quartet’s debut Finland and Mexico as Principal Viola with Orchestra of Wales, the Royal Liverpool recording for Decca (2011) championed Camerata Ireland, and regularly guests as Philharmonic Orchestra, Opera North the complete string quartets by Fabio Vacchi Principal Viola with Manchester Camerata, and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. and they have just recorded the complete Aurora Orchestra and City of London Highlights this year include performances of Beethoven String Quartets for the German Sinfonia. Ruth is a tutor in Viola at the Royal Mozart Concertante with Orion Symphony label Audite who also issued ‘Italian Journey’, Northern College of Music in Manchester Orchestra in London and Aberwystwyth. a CD dedicated to Italian composers. Since and was the founder and artistic director Meghan is founder and Artistic Director of Autumn 2011, the Quartet has taught at the of the String Quartet Collective at the the Marylebone Music Festival which made its Walter Stauffer Academy in Cremona. Royal College of Music in London from debut in June 2016. 2012-2016.

www.orionorchestra.org.uk/marylebone www.quartettodicremona.com 52 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 Rebecca Gilliver Helena Herford Anna Huntley Cello Violin Soprano Rebecca is Principal cellist of the London Helena Herford is a London-based violinist Lauded by The Guardian as a "fast-rising Symphony Orchestra. Early success in active in both orchestral and chamber music British talent" award-winning mezzo-soprano national and international competitions making. She began her career as a member Anna Huntley sings on concert, opera and led to critically acclaimed debut recitals at of the award-winning Solstice string quartet, recital stages in the UK and internationally. Wigmore Hall in London and Carnegie Hall, making numerous appearances at the Currently a recipient of a Wigmore Hall/ New York. These led to appearances at many Wigmore Hall and prestigious venues across Independent Opera Vocal Fellowship given major music festivals such as Bath, Bergen, the U.K. and Europe. The quartet also enabled at the 2011 Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation and the Manchester International Cello her to study with some of the greatest International Song Competition, she is a Festival. A keen chamber musician, she has musical personalities of this century, such as laureate of the Das Lied Competition, Berlin collaborated with numerous international András Schiff, Thomas Adès and members and the London Handel Singing Competition. artists including Nikolai Znaider, Sarah of the Endellion and Hagen Quartets. She She was selected by YCAT in 2012, Kirckman Chang and Roger Vignoles with whom she especially relished performing Beethoven’s Concert Society in 2013 and is currently recorded for BBC Radio 3. Rebecca is also late quartets, Schumann's Op.41 set and mentored by Angelika Kirschlager as part regular participant at IMS Prussia Cove and Bartok's 3rd. Helena also guested with the of the Royal Philharmonic Society/Sir Philip a frequent guest with the acclaimed Nash Badke and Callino quartets, touring schools Langridge Mentoring Scheme. An outstanding Ensemble. As well as chamber music, her in England and Cork to enthuse the next recitalist, Anna has worked with a number passions extend to teaching, giving frequent generation of chamber musicians. of leading accompanists including Graham masterclasses at the Guildhall School of As an orchestral musician, Helena has Johnson , Iain Burnside, James Baillieu, Julius Music and Drama, the Royal Academy of travelled worldwide with the English Drake and Simon Lepper whilst other Music in London and coaching at Aldeburgh Chamber Orchestra and has performed concert engagements have ranged from Strings as part of the Britten-Pears Young extensively with the London Philharmonic Bach’s B Minor Mass with Trevor Pinnock and Artist Programme. Originally joining the Orchestra, including fve seasons at the Haydn’s Harmoniemesse with Andras Schiff LSO as Co-principal in 2001, Rebecca was Glyndebourne Festival, with highlights to Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the promoted to Principal in 2009 and has also including 'Rosenkavalier' and a double City of London Sinfonia (Michael Collins) appeared as Guest Principal with other bill by Ravel under the baton of Robin and Berio’s 'Folksongs' with the Hebrides international orchestras around the world Ticciati. Alongside her work with the LPO, Ensemble. Highlights of recent opera seasons including the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Helena is fortunate to be a member of the have been a variety of roles for English New Sinfonietta Amsterdam and the World Glyndebourne Touring Orchestra, with whom National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Orchestra for Peace. This is Rebecca’s third she regularly plays as a co-Principal. English Touring Opera and the Cambridge visit to the North York Moors Chamber Helena is delighted to introduce her Handel Opera Group. Anna Huntley is Music Festival. Rebecca has been teaching at fve-month-old daughter to the beautiful generously supported by the Richard Carne Guildhall School of Music and Drama since surroundings of the North York Moors Trust. last September. Festival. www.ycat.co.uk/artist/anna-huntley North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 53 Adam Johnson Cerys Jones Rachel Kolly d’Alba Piano/conductor Violin Violin One of the most versatile and exciting young A graduate from the Royal College of The Swiss violinist Rachel Kolly d’Alba musicians on the circuit, the pianist and Music and the Juilliard School, Cerys Jones is considered one of the most talented conductor Adam Johnson founded his own enjoys a distinguished performing career musicians of her generation. Known for her orchestra - The Northern Lights Symphony as a chamber musician alongside her role fre, temperament and fne musicianship Orchestra - of which he is both Artistic as guest leader and Section Principal of she has performed concertos with many Director and Principal Conductor. Winner various UK orchestras. She also teaches at great orchestras including the Rotterdam of the Ricordi Operatic Conducting Prize the Guildhall School of Music and Drama Philharmonic, Bournemouth Symphony whilst studying under Sir Mark Elder, Adam and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Orchestra, WDR Rundfunkorchester Köln, was invited to conduct at the Manchester Drama. Alongside appearances with the Symphonic radio Orchestra Frankfurt, International Festival as well as associate Nash Ensemble and CHROMA, Cerys was a BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Lausanne conductorship of the London premiere of member of the Heath Quartet for 7 years, Chamber Orchestra and the NHK Symphony Jonathan Dove’s opera 'Flight' with British performing at many prestigious concert Orchestra in Tokyo. Rachel made her US Youth Opera under Nicholas Cleobury. His halls and festivals worldwide, broadcasting debut in Chicago at the International subsequent operatic successes have included live on British, French and German radio. Beethoven Festival during September 2012 direction of Karol Szymanowski’s 'King Roger' She has recorded for the Wigmore Live bringing international praise for her visionary and Benjamin Britten’s 'The Rape of Lucretia' and Harmonia Mundi labels for whom she spirit. As a recitalist she performs regularly for Elemental Opera. A former scholar at the recently released the complete Shostakovich with her longstanding duo partner Christian RNCM with the Sema Group Contemporary chamber music with the DSCH Ensemble Chamorel, appearing at many prestigious Performance Prize to his credit, Adam in Portugal. Cerys appeared as soloist with festivals such as the Menuhin Festival in continued his piano studies with the late Katherine Broderick and James Baillieu Gstaad and the Schleswig Holstein Festival. Peter Feuchtwanger who has described him on Chanson Perpétuelle for the Champs Her frst concerto recording with Warner as "in possession of an excellent technique Hill label and has won numerous national Classics was voted Best Recording of the Year and full of fantasy". A supreme chamber and international awards for her solo and in 2012 by ICMA and Rachel has gone to musician and frequent artist at this Festival, chamber music performances; these include record many albums most recently chamber both as conductor and pianist, the eminent the 2016 Gramophone Award, the 2013 music works by Chausson and Franck. Three composer Oliver Knussen hailed his RPS Young Artists award and Borletti-Buitoni years ago Rachel became an Ambassador performances as containing "extraordinary award with the Heath Quartet. Cerys plays for Handicap International and her frst detail". In 2011 he was elected as a Freeman on a copy of the Il Cannone ex-Paganini work for the charity was in Cambodia in of the Worshipful Company of Musicians Guarneri del Gesù violin made by Melvin February 2013 and has regularly organised and is a member of the Royal Society of Goldsmith and lives in Cardiff with her many concerts for them. She is a devoted Musicians. Adam lives in Norfolk. husband Thomas Blunt and her two children mother to her daughter and she also writes Harry and Scarlett. short stories and novels. Rachel plays on a magnifcent Stradivarius violin made in1732. www.nlso.org www.racheldalba.com 54 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 Roman Mints Emily Nebel Brian O’Kane Violin Violin Cello Roman Mints was born in Moscow and Emily Nebel studied at the Cleveland Institute Irish cellist Brian O’Kane enjoys a busy began playing the violin at the age of fve. In of Music, Conservatoire National Supérieur career as both soloist and chamber musician. 1994 he won a Foundation Scholarship to de Danse et de Musique de Paris and, most Since winning frst prize at the Windsor the Royal College of Music in London and recently, Rice University in Houston, Texas, International String Competition in 2008, he also studied at the Guildhall School of Music where she frequently returns to record and has made his debuts at with the RTE National and Drama. In 1998 Roman and the oboist perform with the Rogue Ensemble. Emily Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Dmitry Bulgakov founded the Homecoming has established herself as an innovative Orchestra under Ashkenazy and in recital at Chamber Music Festival in Moscow, which young artist with vast experience as a the Wigmore Hall. Brian is a former “Rising has gained widespread recognition and a concertmaster, recitalist, jazz improviser Star” of Ireland’s National Concert Hall and substantial following in Russia. Roman has also and chamber musician. She has appeared recently recorded his debut CD of French co-directed the Suppressed Music project as soloist with several orchestras, both in sonatas with Irish pianist Michael McHale for which staged concerts and conferences the United States and Europe where she the Champs Hill label. on composers whose music had been performs regularly with Frankfurt’s prestigious Brian enjoys playing chamber music with suppressed. He has recorded for ECM Radio and Opera orchestras. This year Emily various ensembles and as a member of the (nominated for a Grammy Award), Black is performing Britten’s Violin Concerto with Navarra Quartet. He has collaborated with Box, Quartz and other labels for albums the Landesjugendsinfonieorchester Hessen artists such as Michael Collins, Aleksandar which feature a number of world-premiere and over the years has been invited to many Madzar, Pekka Kuusisto, Antoine Tamestti and recordings and collaborated with a number chamber music seminars, orchestra festivals, Sir James Galway. Brian has also performed of celebrated conductors and musicians, and masterclasses most notably Prussia Cove at concert halls and festivals throughout performing as soloist with prominent International Musicians Seminar and Open the world such as Sydney Opera house, orchestras around the world. Outside the Chamber Music. She has also featured in Seoul Arts Centre, Suntory Hall Tokyo classical feld, Roman has worked with various the Kronberg Academy Violin Masterclasses, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, West Cork, alternative artists including free-improvising Toronto Summer Music Festival, Spoleto Radio France-Montpellier, BBC Proms, saxophonist Paul Dunmall, several theatre Festival USA and Schleswig-Holstein Musik Lockenhaus and the Weesp Chamber Music producers, choreographers Alla Sigalova and Festival. Emily moved to Germany in 2014 festival, Holland of which his quartet are the Oleg Glushkov, and flm director Alexander to continue her studies and quickly gained artistic directors. Zeldovich. recognition as member of the Nebel-Pudinov A graduate of both the RAM and GSMD Roman’s latest CD of solo works for violin by Duo, while also serving as guest in London, Brian’s personal infuences have Ysaye, Schnittke, Piazzolla and Silvestrov uses concertmaster of Staatstheater Darmstadt, come from Louise Hopkins and at Prussia innovative recording and editing techniques Neubrandenburger Philharmonie and the Cove, Aldeburgh & Chamber studio from The album also includes a world premiere Royal Scottish National Orchestra in Glasgow. studies with Stephen Isserlis, Ferenc Rados recording of 'Spinning a Yarn' by Dobrinka She is currently guest concertmaster of and Eberhard Feltz. Brian currently plays on a Tabakova. Norrköping Symphony Orchestra in Sweden. Rugieri cello made in Cremona c. 1690. www.romanmints.com North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 55 David Pipe Victoria Sayles Charlotte Scott Organ Violin Violin David read Music as Organ Scholar of Victoria Sayles was a Scholar at Bryanston Charlotte enjoys a hugely varied career as a Downing College Cambridge, later studying School, a Foundation Scholar at the Royal chamber musician, soloist and concertmaster. organ at the Royal Academy of Music in College of Music (where she graduated She studied at Wells Cathedral School London. While a Master’s student there, with First Class Honours) and a Scholar before graduating to the Royal Academy of he was Organ Scholar and Director of the at Kingston University studying Masters in Music and the New England Conservatory Merbecke Choir at Southwark Cathedral. Publishing. As an orchestral player, Victoria in Boston. She was the 1st violinist of the David has given recitals throughout the was Associate Leader of the Royal Liverpool prize-winning and RPS award nominated British Isles and as part of tours to the Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Piatti Quartet before leading the Badke USA throughout Vermont and Colorado; Mozart Players and a full-time member of Quartet with whom she performed all over festival performances have included the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. She has also the world in venues such Wigmore hall, Cambridge Summer Music Festival, St been Concertmaster of Bergen and Royal Concertgebouw, Vienna Konzerthaus and Albans International Organ Festival and Philharmonic Orchestras, Santiago Opera The Esterhazy Palace. She has recorded for our North York Moors Chamber Music House, BBC Scottish, City of Birmingham, LINN Records, Classical Label and Champs Festival. David has also appeared as organist Swedish Radio and Trondheim Symphony Hill Records. Charlotte is also a guest leader and conductor on national television and Orchestras plus guest co-leader of the for the European Chamber Players and has radio; his recordings include a disc of Philharmonia Orchestra. Victoria has also been a guest at various international summer original works and transcriptions by Liszt led orchestra live on television in China. music festivals. As a soloist she has performed and Brahms which was released in 2012 In chamber music Victoria has regularly with some of the leading UK orchestras and and voted ‘Recording of the Month’ on performed with Southern Cross Soloists with her duo partner James Baillieu, she has MusicWeb International. David took up the (Sydney Opera House), Chamber Music also appeared at London’s Purcell Room, post of Director of the Organists’ Training New Zealand, Oxford May Music Festival, the Fairfeld Hall and in various festivals Programme and Cathedral Organist in the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, throughout the UK. Charlotte is a regular Diocese of Leeds in May 2016, having been Gstaad Festival Switzerland, Grindelwald guest Concertmaster for various orchestras Assistant Director of Music at York Minster. Chamber Series, throughout Japan and many including the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, He has been Principal Conductor of York others including, of course, our very own Royal National Scottish Orchestra, European Musical Society since 2012, achieving critical festival here where she is very much part of Chamber Players, BBC Philharmonic and acclaim in works including Bach’s 'St Matthew the festival’s DNA. Enjoying a diverse career Oxford Philharmonic where she has taken Passion', Brahms’s 'Ein Deutsches Requiem' within the arts Victoria was also Artist part in numerous live broadcasts and and Verdi’s 'Requiem'. David is delighted Manager at Harrison Parrott, London and is concerts at the BBC Proms. Charlotte to return for his sixth North York Moors newly appointed Artistic Director of Music plays on a violin by Antonio Stradivarius Chamber Music Festival! at Hazelgrove School, Somerset. Victoria 1685 'Gagliano' and is leader of the much plays a 2013 Joachim Schade Violin, Leipzig. acclaimed Oculi Ensemble.

www.david-pipe.co.uk www.oculiensemble.co.uk 56 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 Virginia Slater Philip Smith Simon Tandree Viola Baritone Viola With siblings as violinists, Virginia began One-time zoologist and National Otter As an internationally recognised soloist playing the viola at the age of six attending Surveyor of England, Philip Smith hung and chamber musician Simon Tandree has The Purcell School of Music then continuing up his waders to study singing, frst at the performed in the world’s leading concert halls her studies at London’s Guildhall School of Birmingham Conservatoire and then with including the Wigmore Hall, Concertgebouw, Music. She went on to hold a postgraduate Barbara Robotham at the Royal Northern Berlin Konzerthaus, Vienna Konzerthaus fellowship there with the help of numerous College of Music. He is a Britten-Pears Young and Library of Congress in Washington. awards and scholarships. As recitalist and Artist Programme alumnus, Samling Artist Simon also plays regularly in festivals around chamber musician, Virginia’s UK concerts and Crear Scholar. Recent highlights include the globe including Maputo, Sydney, New include performances on London’s Endymion/Charon Orpheus for the Royal York and Bratislava. As a member of the Southbank at the Purcell Room and Opera House at The Globe, Sid Albert world-renowned Doric String Quartet Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Wigmore Hall, St. Herring for Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Simon won numerous prizes including 1st Martin-in-the Fields and the Royal Albert Witness 6 Icarus at the Montepulciano prize Osaka International Chamber Music Hall as part of the 2007 Prom Series. She Festival, Papageno in Die Zauberföte at the competition, 2nd prize Borciani Competition has performed at many Festivals including Teatro Petruzzelli di Bari and Gratiano in The in Italy as well as having two Gramophone Edinburgh and the City of London, playing Merchant of Venice (André Tchaikowsky) for nominations for CDs recorded with Chandos. concertos in Paris, Vienna, Budapest, Helsinki, the Polish National Opera. In concert Philip Simon has collaborated with some of the Tallinn and Japan. As a member of the has performed with orchestras including world’s leading artists including Alexander Covent Garden Consort, Virginia has made the Hallé, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic’s Melnikov, Mark Padmore, Chen Halevi, several recordings and been a featured artist Ensemble 10/10, Manchester Camerata and Anthony Marwood and Laurence Power. on Classic FM and BBC Radio 3 as well as the Northern Sinfonia with conductors As well as being in demand as Principal appearing in television broadcasts in Ireland, including Sir Mark Elder, Clark Rundell, David Viola, appearing regularly with orchestras France and Italy. She enjoys a varied freelance Hill and Nicholas Kraemer. In the 2016/17 such as Britten Sinfonia, Aurora orchestra, career and has appeared as Guest Principal season he performed Der Sprecher Die ENO, Manchester Camerata and Porto with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Zauberföte for Opera di Firenze, 'Verdi Sinfonica, Simon is passionate about teaching Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Concert Requiem' at Sage Gateshead, Handel and has given master-classes in institutions Orchestra, Scottish Ballet, Opera North, 'Messiah' with Leeds Philharmonic Society, and courses in Spain, India, Indonesia and Orchestra of the Swan and City of London Vaughan Williams 'A Sea Symphony' with Mozambique where he is part of the Xiquitsi Sinfonia. Virginia recently gave the World Ripon Choral Society and a recital for project helping to bring classical music to Premiere of Julian Philips' Concertante for Leeds Lieder. He also covered Gratiano in young children. Simon studied at the Guildhall Viola (and Double Bass) at the Stratford The Merchant of Venice for Welsh National in London, in Detmold, Germany and in Artshouse and is delighted to be returning Opera. Next season he will cover the title Basel, Switzerland. Simon is also a qualifed to the North York Chamber Music Festival. role in Don Giovanni for Opera North. Cranio-Sacral Therapist.

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 57 David Tollington Matthew Wadsworth Jamie Walton Horn Theorbo & Lute Cello David left the Royal Northern College Lutenist and theorbo player Matthew Founder and curator of this festival, Jamie has of Music in 2000 collecting the Alfred de Wadsworth is in great demand as a soloist, performed all over the world in concertos, Reyghere Memorial Prize. As a successful continuo player and chamber musician, recitals, broadcasts and as a chamber musician freelance musician he has worked with many appearing at many major festivals in the which remains his main passion. Jamie also of the country’s fnest orchestras including UK, Europe and North America He can set up his own record label to celebrate the the BBC Philharmonic, the Hallé, the Royal frequently be heard on radio and has festival and the importance of collaborative Philharmonic Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia, recorded for Avie, Deux-Elles, Linn, EMI, music making: Ayriel Classical was launched the BBC National Orchestras of both Channel Classics and Wigmore Live. His 6 last year with two releases, including a world Scotland and Wales, the City of Birmingham CDs to date have all received international premiere by the late Sir Peter Maxwell Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool critical acclaim and he has just recorded Davies. On his 1712 Guarneri, Jamie has Philharmonic. He also regularly works with a forthcoming release at St Hilda’s Priory, recorded most of the sonata repertoire Opera North and the English National Ballet Sneaton Castle. Matthew studied lute at for Signum Classics, ten concertos with the as well as appearing as guest Principal Horn London’s Royal Academy of Music, winning Philharmonia (including the Dvořák and with The Symphony Orchestra of India with the London Student of the Year award in Schumann with Vladimir Ashkenazy), three whom he recently performed in Moscow. His 1997 for his work on the development concertos with the RPO and the complete work has taken him all over the world with of Braille lute tablature. He then spent a works for cello by Benjamin Britten including tours of Japan, China, India, much of Europe year at the Royal Conservatory of Music a flm about the solo suites, which was and, as a baroque hornist, he appeared as in The Hague before going to perform at premiered on SkyArts. Jamie was awarded principal with Les Arts Florissant in Paris, many prestigious halls including Wigmore a Foundation Fellowship by Wells Cathedral Switzerland and the Edinburgh Festival. His Hall, Purcell Room and the Metropolitan School for his outstanding contribution to recording work has been incredibly varied Museum of Art (New York). In 2013 Matthew music and is Patron for Cedars Hall, a new with a wealth of classical CDs and also a co-founded the company Good Food Talks concert hall which Jamie and colleagues recent collaboration with Sting in Durham (www.goodfoodtalks.com) for the visually opened in October last year with a gala Cathedral of his ‘Winter Songbook’. David impaired, enabling them to read menus in concert. As a member of the Worshipful has also, occasionally, ventured into the restaurants from a phone or tablet. He was Company of Musicians, Jamie was elected to realm of flm and TV with perhaps his most also part of a three part documentary called the Freedom of the City of London (although notable appearance being in the recent ‘Renaissance Man’ which follows his training he now lives permanently on the North York Keira Knightley flm ‘The Duchess’. This is his to attempt a 200ft motorcycle jump in the Moors - but can legitimately take his sheep ffth appearance at the North York Moors Mojave desert. across London Bridge). Chamber Music Festival.

www.matthewwadsworth.com www.jamiewalton.com 58 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 Dan Watts Karolina Weltrowska Anthony Williams Flute Violin Double-bass Dan Watts attended Wells Cathedral School Karolina Weltrowska was born in Poland and Anthony Williams studied music and maths and the Aspen Music School before studying began playing the violin at the age of seven. at Royal Holloway, University of London, at the Royal Northern College of Music. After She studied with Mirosłav Ławrynowicz and then double bass performance at the graduating Dan was appointed Professor at the Frédéric Chopin Music Academy in Royal College of Music. He enjoyed a busy of Flute at the National Conservatory Warsaw and then furthering her studies in and varied freelance career performing of Music in Ramallah, Palestine. He has the soloist class with Priya Mitchell at the with the Philharmonia, Orchestra of Opera performed concertos at Royal Festival Hall, Academy of Music and Performing Arts North, BBC Philharmonic, BBC National St John’s Smith Square and appeared with in Frankfurt/Main. With her string quartet Orchestra of Wales and the BBC Concert the Manchester Camerata, Faros Soloists she was also a student a the European Orchestra, and playing principal with London (Cyprus) and Orquesta di Algarve. Dan Chamber Music Academy (ECMA) where her Mozart Players, Brandenburg Sinfonia and has also played with the Royal Shakespeare teacher was, among others, Hatto Beyerle. the Northern Lights Symphony Orchestra Company and in numerous West End Karolina is a prize winner of major national (founded and run by Adam Johnson). In July productions including ‘Phantom of the Opera’, violin competitions and this led to many 2013 Anthony was appointed to the Royal ‘Mary Poppins’ and ‘Wicked’. Dan is Principal appearances as soloist with various orchestras Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra with Flute of the Northern Lights Symphony in her native country. As a member of her which he undertakes regular performances, Orchestra and is one of the founding string quartet she won frst prizes in various broadcasts, recordings and tours: recent members of the Metropolitan Ensemble, international chamber music competitions in travels have taken him as far afeld as Japan, a fute and string ensemble, with which he Heerlen (Netherlands), Sondershausen and China and Bucharest. Anthony also continues has performed live on national television. Weimar (Germany). Developing a real affnity to freelance with many of the UK’s top A trademark purity of sound is a distinctive for collaborative music making, Karolina has orchestras including the BBC Symphony quality in his playing and Dan is a committed gone on to perform at various chamber and RPO, and has recorded soundtracks for chamber musician both in modern and music festivals including those at Kuhmo several flms and television shows including period performances. His versatility as an (Finland), Gidon Kremer’s Lockenhaus Festival, 'The Man from U.N.C.L.E' and 'Downton artist manifests also in solo work, guesting Priya Mitchell’s Oxford Chamber Music Abbey'. As a soloist he gave the world as soloist with the Aubry String Trio and Festival, Osnabrück and Schleswig-Holstein premiere of William Attwood’s Double Bass earlier this year he gave the world premiere (Germany), Warsaw, Sapporo and New York. Concerto in 2009 and enjoyed a visit to of Edward Gregson’s fute concerto at St Since 2010 she is a member of Ensemble Whitby to play Vanhal’s Concerto with the Martin-in-the-Fields with the Northern Lights MidtVest in Denmark and is delighted to be St Hilda’s Festival Orchestra last Summer. Symphony Orchestra. returning to North Yorkshire since her debut Anthony lives on the Wirral with his wife appearance in March 2016. Rosie (event manager and bassoonist) and cats Jeoffry and Suzie. He regularly visits Yorkshire for real ale, chamber music and walks!

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 59 Art on the Moors - The Tractor Shed - Resident Photographer: Paul Ingram Frost Pocket Tractor Shed, Commondale, Whitby, North Yorks. YO21 2HJ. Carol Tyler has produced the paintings that have been Tel: 01287 660456. on the covers of all our programmes to date. As we make a departure into landscape photograpy for our covers this year we have a new picture from Carol that was also inspired by Prints and cards of many images seen in this programme, Nature. and much more besides, may be seen and purchased at the Tractor Shed Gallery in Commondale, on the North Her narrative follows: York Moors. This space is also the working studio of long- established moorland artist Caroline Riley, whose fne Frost Pocket is about .... work in all media has been exhibited across the country. The structure of hills and walls Tractor Shed is located at the top end of the village, the The atmosphere of mist and frost last sandstone buildings in Commondale on the right, if The colours of a winter morning heading west toward Kildale. The Gallery is open to the And the manipulation of materials to this end public throughout August, Thurday to Sunday 10am to 3pm (refreshments available) and at any other time by appointment (a quick call or email). For enquiries regarding prints and cards of any of our images, or for any other queries, please email [email protected]

60 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival 2017 Acknowledgements

Our sincere thanks go to the Sisters at Johannes and Josephine Secker, Tony and friendly atmosphere of which we are St Hilda’s Priory, Sneaton Castle who Sue Mason. so proud. Thank you Carol Tyler for allow us to persistently serenade them. Chris Mason who, with the help of your beautiful painting ‘Frost Pocket’ We are without Arts Council funding David Haddon-Reece, transforms our this year. All volunteers are appreciated this year, so any support we receive is concerts with his atmospheric lighting and a special thanks goes to Hannah deeply treasured - we would like to has also helped put the programme Ahrens who has taken a fortnight off thank the Normanby Charitable Trust, together for us this year. A sincere to come and help us throughout the Derek Knaggs, John Haines, Rollits thank you for helping to create the festival. Support like this makes such a Solicitors, Yvette Turnbull and all those visual magic and to Mike Samuels for difference. who have continued to support the translating this so effectively through We also thank ‘Welcome to Yorkshire’ festival but wish to remain anonymous. our new websites. in championing us by shortlisting our This collective input is so vital to us Paul Ingram has also been Festival for this year’s ‘White Rose as an organisation whose philosophy extraordinary in providing us with Awards’. of affordability and inclusivity is stunning photographs to depict the Finally, thank you all for being here unwavering. Thanks to our committed musical themes for each concert - as part of a community which goes team who tirelessly help put this festival thank you for expressing the music beyond the music, expressing the together - namely Joel Brookfeld, through the lens and for writing our enthusiasm and loyalty which drives us John and Katrina Lane, Adam Johnson programme notes this year. Also thanks to deliver and develop further as we and Rosie Burton. Thank you also to to Frank Harrison who continues to head towards our tenth Festival next the friends and Trustees who offer capture the churches, the concerts year! us refreshments, accommodation, and the people who are very much hospitality and catering throughout part of our festival both on and off the Jamie Walton the festival - Jane and Peter Dingle, stage - it portrays the very human and Artistic Director

The North York Moors Chamber All landscape photography: www.northyorkmoorsfestival.com Music Festival Trust is a charitable company limited by guarantee Paul Ingram www.ingrampix.com registered in England and Wales. Church interiors and people montage; Company registration number Frank Harrison www.ayrielclassical.com 6878005; registered charity no 1129262. Registered offce: The Historical material: www.caroltylerpaintings.com Granary, Appleton-le-Moors, York, Anne Taylor and Joel Brookfeld North Yorkshire YO62 6TF 61 We welcome support for this event, which is why we’ve set up The North York Moors Chamber Music Festival Trust, a charitable organisation. If you wish to make a donation please download a Gift Aid form (if you are a UK taxpayer) to ensure your donation goes further. Cheques payable to the North York Moors Chamber Music Festival Trust would be most gratefully received: Please send to the NYM Chamber Music Festival, The Granary, Appleton-le-Moors, York YO62 6TF. The accounts will be made readily available as part of our annual returns to the Charity Commission. Photo: Paul Ingram