Musical Medley: Concerts and what's on in the Doncaster music scene this August

Minster Organ Recitals

The lunchtime organ recital at Doncaster Minster 9 June was given by Manchester organist Richard Brocklehurst whose programme generally comprised well known (or well known to me) organ pieces.

It was bookended by French organ pieces; Vierne’s striking Carillon de Longpont and the Alsatian born Leon Boellmann (1862-97) whose popular Suite Gothique ended the recital with its famous Toccata, although the catchy Minuet is just as well liked and the meltingly beautiful Priere a Notre Dame (Boellmann, despite his sadly short life composed a symphony, piano music, songs and a considerable corpus of chamber music).

It was good to hear Buxtehude’s Prelude, Fugue and Chaconne in C, BuxWV 137) one of the north German’s (or Danish strictly) best works and here appropriately paired with JS Bach’s highly attractive chorale prelude on Liebster Jesu.

The programme was filled out by the Adagio in E by Frank Bridge, best known for teaching Benjamin Britten but the former’s original music is good also and the catchy miniature, Piatro Yon’s Toccatina for the Flute (Yon was Italian born but emigrated to the U.S.).

Generally speaking this was a satisfying recital, confidently executed and very well received. We look forward to the recital series continuing, after the summer break, in September.

360’s Strings at CAST

Ensemble 360, or members thereof, are always welcome visitors to CAST. On 10 June the players were the violinists Benjamin Nabarro and Natalie Clauda, viola player Rachel Roberts and cellist Gemma Rosefield.

They offered a varied selection, starting with Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for String Quartet, just seven minutes long in all, dissonant and strongly rhythmic.

They were followed by Shostakovich’s 1948 Third Quartet, on a theme of war. Battle is found in the third movement after an uneasy two introductory movements. The battle is followed by a hymn to the fallen and, unusually, a fifth movement which returns to the mood, even the themes of the first, as much as to say ‘Has the battle achieved anything?’ the work is very much of its period and quite absorbing.

The second half, a shorter ‘half’, was devoted to the last of Beethoven’s late quartets, Opus 135. This is mostly very genial in mood, though most memorable, is the third, very slow movement in variation form and very beautiful. Very well played too.

The whole programme, although on the short side, was very thought provoking and extremely enjoyable. Ensemble 360 were on good form throughout.

Sprotbrough Music Society

The Gould Trio

On 15 June Sprotbrough Music Society hosted a splendid concert by the Gould Piano Trio and Robert Plane (clarinet). The purely piano trio item was the second trio of Schuman (opus 80), a fine work which announced itself by a brilliant opening movement (first of five overall).

After this, the Gould treated us to an encore, a slow movement from a Haydn piano trio (No. 15 in the Hoboken Catalogue) which calmed down the excitement of the Schuman trio.

The only work which involved all four musicians was the Four Fables by Huw Watkins, a piece noted for its tonal colour; the first fable was recalled at the beginning of the fourth.

The concert had begun with Brahms’s Trio for Clarinet, cello and piano (op. 114) one of those four late works of Brahms inspired by the great clarinettist Muhlfeld.

This, like the others, had an attuned feel to it and it introduced a splendid concert appropriately. Fine playing throughout the evening.

Philip Scowcroft Celebration Concert

The Hall Gate Chamber Orchestra and friends wished Doncaster’s resident music expert Philip Scowcroft a happy 90th birthday with a celebratory concert on 9 July at Chequer Road Baptist Church.

Here’s a celebration reflection from Mr. S himself!

“Celebration? Well, it was to mark my own 90th birthday (which actually took place in June) and a concert devoted – as I am myself – to what was loosely described as British light music.

In this the Hallgate Chamber Orchestra conducted by Mr. Carey Williams, who had devised the programme, played classics of the light music repertoire by Eric Coates; By the Sleepy Lagoon, with ‘vocal refrain’, two movements from the London Suite and the Dambusters March, Ronnie Binge; Sailing By, which once preceded the shipping forecast on the

‘wireless’, and Elizabethan Serenade, Fredric Curzon; The March of the Bowmen from his Robin Hood Suite and Elgar’s Chanson de Matin.

New to me were three piano duets by Thomas Dunhill, attractive pieces doubtless intended for young pianists and played by Carey Williams and Frances Wharton.

Solo singers heard in this programme included Angela Hartley, in popular songs by Elgar; Where Corals Lie and Ivor Novello We’ll Gather Lilacs, tenore David Walters singing songs by Eric Coates; the beautiful I Heard You Singing and the rarely heard Who is Sylvia? And Dunhill’s The Cloths of Heaven, Gary Rolands sang Murray’s I’ll walk Beside You, and amusing interludes by Mike Heywood.

There were also choral songs delivered by the twenty-odd voices drawn from Doncaster Choral Society and directed by their conductor Matt Beckingham, unaccompanied and sensitively sung songs like Stanford’s The Blue Bird and Elgar’s As Torrents in Summer from his King Olaf. And accompanied by the orchestra Howard Goodall’s Psalm 23 (used as the theme tune for the BBC series The Vicar of Dibley).

What a concert this was and with such variety! It ran for two hours without an interval but I felf no sense of tedium doubtless because of the quality of the music and the dedicated performances.

I was enormously grateful to all involved. What a treat!