Presteigne Premieres
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PRESTEIGNE PREMIERES Amy Dickson saxophone Rebecca Afonwy-Jones mezzo-soprano Katherine Baker flute Suzy Willison-Kawalec harp Presteigne Festival Orchestra George Vass conductor Presteigne Premieres Variaons on ‘Lovely Joan’ Hugh Wood (b.1932) New Music from the Presteigne Festival Thomas Hyde (b.1978) Beginnings: Three Early Songs, for 1. Prelude – Tema – Tema elaborata [2:26] mezzo-soprano and string orchestra, Op. 54 David Mahews (b.1943) 12. Tom O’Bedlam’s Song [3:33] 2. Variaon I: Molto vivace [1:57] 13. Why East Wind chills [5:38] Amy Dickson saxophone 14. O Unicorn among the Cedars [5:35] Rebecca Afonwy-Jones mezzo-soprano Adrian Williams (b.1956) Katherine Baker flute 3. Variaon II: Adagio molto [2:59] Joe Duddell (b.1972) Suzy Willison-Kawalec harp 15. Mnemonic, for flute, harp and [12:25] Michael Berkeley (b.1948) string orchestra 4. Variaon III: A Frolic for Lovely Joan [3:47] Presteigne Fesval Orchestra Hugh Wood George Vass conductor Christopher Gunning (b.1944) Divermento, Op. 51 5. Variaon IV: Andante [4:27] 16. Maestoso – Andante, calmo ma con moto [3:45] Huw Watkins (b.1976) 17. Adagieo [3:11] 6. Variaon V: Allegreo [1:15] 18. Allegro molto, feroce [2:47] Sally Beamish (b.1956) 7. Variaon VI: Adagio; very sll [2:23] Total playing me [80:37] Mahew Taylor (b.1964) 8. Variaon VII: Finale: Presssimo [3:56] Marn Butler (b.1960) About George Vass: All world premiere recordings Concerto for Soprano Saxophone and Strings ‘The saviour of contemporary classical music’ 9. Lively, but heavy and grounded – [7:12] BBC Radio 3 Amy Dickson records by kind 10. Canlena – [8:07] permission of Sony Music 11. Presto [5:04] ‘George Vass conducts with commied precision. Playing and recorded sound are both excellent. It’s a fascinang achievement, beaufully done’ Gramophone Introducon all live performances in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As an alternave, the Founded in 1982 in the former county town organisaon presented its first digital Fesval, of Radnorshire, the Presteigne Fesval has sustained with generous donaons from become a significant part of the Welsh Fesval supporters and re-purposed grant cultural calendar. Internaonally renowned funding from charitable benefactors. for its commissioning of new work, support of living composers and with a long tradion In addion to ‘Presteigne Digital’ this for the encouragement of young arsts, the recording was arranged, featuring premiere organisaon works closely with composers recordings of five of the most striking and performers to create and curate larger-scale commissions from the last inspiring events for an ever-widening seventeen years, performed by a collecon Fesval audience, bringing experience- of superb soloists and the excellent Fesval broadening opportunies to its host Orchestra. community. New Music for String Orchestra: Presteigne In its relavely short history, the Fesval Fesval Premieres has commissioned well over 200 new works and has hosted many eminent The string orchestra Variaons on ‘Lovely musicians as composer-in-residence, Joan’, commissioned as a sixeth birthday among them Sally Beamish, Cecilia McDowall, gi for Arsc Director George Vass and to Joseph Phibbs, Peter Sculthorpe, Pēteris mark the Fesval’s thirty-fih anniversary, Vasks, Huw Watkins and Dame Judith Weir. was first performed on 25 August 2017 by the Presteigne Fesval Orchestra. The In 1989, the Fesval founded its own resident English folk-tune Lovely Joan has long been chamber orchestra – a group of twenty or so a favourite with George Vass, so the idea young professionals who make Presteigne of commissioning a collecon of variaons their home at the end of August each year, from a group of Fesval stalwarts seemed performing under George Vass, the Fesval’s an extremely good one. Arsc Director since 1992. Thomas Hyde was instrumental in organising In common with many cultural organisaons, the project and it is quite brilliant that, the Presteigne Fesval was forced to cancel despite the variaons being from eight different composers, they form such a The music of Marn Butler is widely performed raw rendion of My Favourite Things and equally eloquent. He typically prefers chamber homogenous work. and broadcast both in the UK and abroad. thirdly, a ny, bagpipe-like soprano music genres, though large-scale works such Commissioners include the BBC, London saxophone phrase in his work Hootenanny as the Symphony and the two Violin Aer Hyde’s brief call to arms and statement Sinfoniea and the Brighton, Cheltenham, (1994), which he thought deserved a more Concertos are amongst his most striking. of the theme, seven variaons unfold; first, Canterbury and Presteigne fesvals. His prominent role elsewhere. and without a break, comes David Mahews’ chamber opera A Beer Place was In 2010, Hugh Wood responded to a compound-me vivace in which the theme premiered by English Naonal Opera in The result is a single-span concerto, which commission from the Presteigne Fesval appears in the cellos and basses. Adrian July 2001, and the choral work Two Rivers breaks down into three extended secons – with a beauful reworking and compleon Williams, founding arsc director of the was commissioned by the Oxford Bach Choir fast, slow, faster. The musical language of a sequence of Beginnings: Three Early Fesval, provides the mysteriously and Brien Sinfonia the same year. From throughout relates to a number of Butler’s Songs, Op. 54 for mezzo-soprano and string beauful second variaon, marked ‘adagio 2006 to 2008 Butler was ‘Composer in Focus’ other pieces – among them Hootenanny orchestra that had its origins in the late molto’, which employs rhapsodising from a with the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra, itself, Songs and Dances from a Haunted 1950s when Wood was at the beginning of his solo viola and solo cello before dying away this residency culminang in a major Place and American Rounds – all of which composional career. Wood himself states, to nothing. The third is an extended orchestral commission, From the Fairground try to find resonances between his own ‘these are realisaons of a youthful project tongue-in-cheek ‘Frolic for Lovely Joan’ from of Dreams. His chamber nonet, Rondes creave voice and the various forms, styles which has involved a thorough rewring of Michael Berkeley, who has served the d’Automne, was premiered at the and performing pracces of folk music; what already existed and a degree of Fesval as President for many years. Cheltenham Fesval in 2011. For many hence the somemes raucous, griy and compleon of the missing bits which varies Christopher Gunning, a recognised master years Professor of Music at Sussex ornamented solo part, and the prevalence from song to song; but which I hope has of film and television music as well as being University, Butler now spends more me of open strings and double-stopping in the resulted in beer composion of the whole’. a well-represented symphonist, provides the composing and as a pianist, also orchestral wring. He has also commented that the choice of beaufully-paced fourth variaon. Welsh co-direcng Club Inégales in London. texts, ‘seem to me – not enrely through composer Huw Watkins is next with a brief, Having had a musical upbringing, it was only hindsight – to have, if not a common theme, fragmented waltz which ends quietly with The Concerto for Soprano Saxophone and aer graduang in History from Oxford that then a similar atmosphere, to do with violas alone. Composer and viola player Strings was commissioned for the 2009 Hugh Wood decided to dedicate his energies mystery, magic, innocence, childhood’. Sally Beamish provides the sixth variaon, Presteigne Fesval with funding from to composion, moving to London in 1954 to marked ‘very sll’, in which the exquisite the Colwinston Charitable Trust and study with William Lloyd Webber, Anthony The first song, ‘Tom O’Bedlam’s Song’ is the wring for solo violins and viola is premiered that August by Amy Dickson Milner, Iain Hamilton and Mátyás Seiber. most substanally recomposed. Indeed, only parcularly tender. The presssimo finale, and the Presteigne Fesval Orchestra. the musical idea at the words, ‘I know more an orchestral tour de force, is provided by Somemes violently expressionisc, than Apollo’ remained unaltered from the Mahew Taylor. Aer a long and excing There were three things that fuelled somemes poignantly lyrical, his music is twenty-five-year-old composer. From its build-up to a huge climax, the piece ends Butler’s imaginaon from the outset: powerfully communicave and intensely felt, opening upward flourish on strings, the voice quietly with a solo five-note double bass Amy Dickson’s wonderfully stylish playing, though when creang lighter moods, such is projected against constantly shiing, figure on which the enre variaon is based. John Coltrane’s disconcerngly earthy and as in the jazzy Piano Concerto, his wring is but always precisely focused, textures. In contrast, the second song, ‘Why East Wind towards his tenth decade, the velcro might Commissioned jointly by the Presteigne Shellard. Inhabing an ambient sound world, chills’, needed the least revision with yield enough for a few more opus numbers. and Hampstead & Highgate fesvals, it is Dri Chamber creates a mix of classical and some original passages allowed to stand Hugh Wood is as much an Elgarian as dedicated to George Vass on the occasion electronic soundscapes. They released their and others cleaned up or purged of Schoenbergian, and so it seemed enrely of his fiieth birthday. debut album Pulse Nocturnes in February superfluies. This seng of Dylan Thomas natural when in 2007 he produced a work 2019. (‘I have never lost my enthusiasm for him – for string orchestra that adds to that great © 2021 Thomas Hyde or for this not terribly well-known poem in tradion of English string works that started Joe Duddell has kindly provided his own parcular’ says the composer) opens with with Elgar and Vaughan Williams and Joe Duddell is a Brish composer, arranger note for Mnemonic.