You are here: Home > News > Newsletter archive > Feb 2009You are not logged in.

Newsletter for February 2009

This is an edited version of the Havant Orchestras newsletter which is provided in printed form to players and Friends of the Orchestra.

From the Chairman ...

A Happy New Year to you all.

It was a great pleasure to talk to so many of you after the last concert and to hear your enthusiastic response to the whole programme.  Our soloist Katya is eager to come back to play with us again but she did say – please can it be a non-Russian concerto next time for a change!

The Friends have already started the ‘social’ year in fine style with a splendid lunch provided by Beryl Harding.  The event raised a considerable sum for the Orchestras and was a wonderful opportunity to meet one another and chat.  A very big ‘Thank you’ to Beryl for her hospitality and culinary skills from all who attended.

The Chamber Orchestra start the ‘musical’ year with a sparkling programme, with as usual some familiar and some less familiar works.  Our soloist in the concerto is our local favourite Karen Kingsley whose playing never fails to delight.

Sadly I shall miss this concert and so miss the opportunity of hearing Karen and discovering the Gounod Symphony.  You don’t need to feel too sorry for me however as I shall be in Plymouth playing Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings. 

I’m sure you will be pleased to know that my ticket will not go to waste.  It will be used by someone who has never been to our concerts before.  This is the way many of our most loyal supporters were recruited so please do likewise - if you can’t get to a concert make sure your ticket is used by a friend or by alerting Margaret Packe to its availability in which case it can be used to entice another music-lover to join our supporters. 

I hope you all have a most enjoyable evening.

Tony Gutteridge

Ferneham Hall, Saturday 7 February

6.30 Pre-concert talk by Angela Blackwell in the auditorium, all welcome
7.00 Interlude by local young musicians in the Octagon Lounge (see below)
plus ...
Books and CDs for Sale in the Meon
7.30 The Concert
Intermezzo, Nocturne & Scherzo - Midsummer Night’s Dream  Mendelssohn
Suite Masques et Bergamasques  Fauré
Piano Concerto No 2 
Soloist: Karen Kingsley 
Saint Saëns
Interval - 20 minutes
Symphony No 1 in D  Gounod
9.35 approx end of concert

... then have a safe journey home

Pre-Concert Entertainment

Angela’s talk at 6.30 will focus on ‘the French element’ of the concert.

The Interlude from 7.00 to 7.20 will be played by Violin Duo Catherine Lawlor and Emma Fry.  Both are in 6th forms - Catherine at Peter Symonds, Winchester, Emma at Portsmouth High School for Girls.  More information on the handbills in the Octagon and Bar Areas on Saturday.

Please can you help on Saturday?

We need programme, CD and book sellers; hosts for the pre-concert music players; hosts for new listeners and hosts to make guests welcome.  Advice and information will be given!

Thanks in advance of your offers of help which should be directed to: Sandra Craddock on 023 9248 3228 or sandra.craddock@ntlworld.com as soon as possible.

From Our President, Pauline Buzzing

Having been out of action for much of the autumn, I’m delighted to be totally restored to health and keen to take a full part in activities again.  Last year we ran a successful Afternoon School on some of the works the Orchestras would be playing in the May and July concerts, and we hope to do the same this year.  Look out for more information in Newsletters nearer the time - and at the March concert.

Meanwhile, I’ll look forward to chatting to as many members and friends as possible before and after the concerts.  We’re always interested in your reaction to the Orchestras’ work, so don’t hesitate to give an opinion.

Notes from the Conductor.....

Three of the four composers in this HCO concert enjoyed considerable fame in their lifetime and startled the world with early precocious talent.  The fourth, Gabriel Fauré had to wait until after his 50th year for a degree of recognition in France and, perhaps owing to the nature of his output - songs and small-scale works - was understandably categorised as a miniaturist.  There are tenuous links between the careers of these four composers, some having met up and others admired from a distance.  Gounod first came across the music of Mendelssohn whilst the recipient of the Grand Prix de Rome during which he encountered  Mendelssohn's married sister Fanny who marketed her brother’s work with gusto.  Saint Saëns was an avid admirer of Gounod’s music, taught Fauré the piano and was eventually succeeded by him at the famous Madeleine Church.  The influence that each had on the other is less definable, though there are undoubtedly some strong shared flavours - the slow movement of Gounod’s first symphony is almost pure Mendelssohn; the delicacy of Fauré’s late incidental music to Masques et Bergamasques reflects the clarity and piquancy of Mendelssohn and the genial charm of Saint Saëns’ themes in his 2nd Piano Concerto is lifted straight out of Gounod’s balletic melodies.  However, beyond all these superficial audio links there is one strong bond which binds these composers together, not just in the works we are performing but in the whole range of their output.  That factor - perceived initially by Saint Saëns as a strong feature of Gounod’s compositions - is the feminine gene, one which radiates through all the music - giving birth to sounds and ideas that are fragrant, charming, neatly turned out, graceful and balletic and largely gentle to the ear.  True there are the occasional rhetorical gestures of conflict, looking backwards to the masculine strife of the classical period, but this is the new age of elgance in the Arts, a welcome quality and one of some strength and consistency.


There have been occasional adverse comments in past concerts about the immediacy of the piano sound in concertos.  We have usually had the lid removed to create more of an intimacy within the orchestra and to give the woodwind players behind the piano better sight-lines.  So for Karen’s concerto perfomance on Saturday we shall retain the lid, using a short stick to give more forward projection of sound to the audience and tier the wind and brass concomitantly higher above the piano.  Sounds good in theory, hope it will work in practice - do tell us!

Peter Craddock

Looking Ahead to Next Season    1

Concert Dates for 2009-2010

Hayling Island  19 September 2009
Ferneham Hall  10 October, 28 November, 6 February 2010, 27 March, 15 May and 3 July

Looking Ahead to Next Season    2

Publicity, etc.

All the dates, music and soloists are arranged for 2009-2010 and it is almost time to prepare all the printed material needed to publicise our activities and inform our audiences about the music.  Which brings us to the Programme Book. 

This has developed from the earliest single programmes for each concert which were two sheets of A4 (or even foolscap) paper and duplicated on a manual Roneo machine and folded together containing very short notes and a list of players.  Next came printed copies for each concert, with some decoration, possibly slightly longer notes and some adverts.

Finally, 22 years ago, for the first full season at Ferneham Hall, the first Programme Book for the whole season appeared - although it was ‘only’ 36 pages compared with the current 48.  Looking through a 1987 copy the format was very similar - after all programmes needed to tell the reader about the music and performers as they still do today!  However, one particular fact would probably catch the reader’s eye - the programme notes were written by only two people whereas the current edition acknowledges five. 

This means that the notes vary much more in content and style and we are hoping that you, the readers, will tell us whether there are any formats/styles or information that you particularly enjoy/appreciate and/or would like to see in the notes in future.  For instance, would you prefer indented sections for the movements, more or less technical terms, explanations of technical terms, more or less ‘background information’, etc?

Comments to: Tony or Sandra and Peter, please - after the concert! by post or email: 23 Grove Road, Havant PO9 1AR or acg@waitrose.com for Tony and 152 West Street, Havant, PO9 1LP or sandra.craddock@ntlworld.com for Sandra and Peter.

CDs for the March concert

Sourced by GE

Nicolai           Overture: Merry Wives of Windsor
Philharmonia Orchestra  /   Laurenc Siegel
Collection: ’Most Famous Overtures’
Laserlight 15514  ?mid price

Sibelius         Scènes historiques Suite 1
New Zealand SO  /  Pietari Inkinen
c/w : Scènes historiques Suite 2 and
King Christian II Suite
Naxos 8.570068  bargain price

Lalo                Cello Concerto in D minor
Julian Lloyd Webber / LPO / Jesus Lopez-Coboz
Collection: Julian Lloyd Webber - Celebration
RCO 74321 84112-2  2 discs  ?mid price

Schumann     Symphony No 3, ‘Rhenish’
Dresden Staatskapelle/ Wolfgang Sawallisch
c/w Symphonies 1, 2, & 4 and Overture, Scherzo and Finale
EMI 764815   2 discs  ?mid price

Editor’s note: Sourcing prices and suppliers for the discs has been problematic!  Naxos should not be a problem but the remainder are elusive so if your favourite shop cannot help, the Internet can.  www.amazon.co.uk have them all at varying prices - from 1p to £50+! www.crotchet.co.uk lists the Lalo at £13.69 but not the remainder.  Hope this helps.

CDs, BOOKS, MUSIC & SCORES FOR SALE

Browse before the concert, during the interval and afterwards in the Meon Area

10% of Sale Price to Orchestra Funds

Bursary Holder update

Ludovic Morlot (bursary holder 1999-2000)...

... conducted a ‘Neglected Genius’ concert with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra in Manchester on 24 January.  The programme was: Dukas’ La Péri, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 27, Ravel’s La Valse and Harrison Birtwistle’s Night’s Black Bird. 

It was reviewed in The Guardian with these superbly glowing comments -

‘Every so often in the musical world, a comparatively unknown quantity comes along and takes everyone's breath away. Such was the case last week...  This is the kind of programme that can expose a chink in a conductor's armour.  Yet Morlot did everything wonderfully well.  The BBCPO clearly loved every second and were on devastating form.  If Morlot carries on in this vein, we may well have a remarkable new star in our midst .’ 

As if we didn’t know this already!  Hope he conducts further south soon.

Music at Havant Arts Centre

Friday 20 February, 8.00pm - Solstice String Quartet

with   David Campbell, Clarinet

Quartet Op 64 No 6  Haydn
Quartet Op 74, The Harp  Beethoven
Clarinet Quintet  Brahms

Jamie Campbell and Nicholas Shardlow, Violins,
Meghan Cassidy, Viola,
Gregor Riddell, Cello

The Solstice String Quartet was formed at Cambridge University in 2003 and was selected by both the Tillett Trust and Park Lane Group for support in 2008. The quartet will make their debuts at the Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room this year and are studying in Madrid with Günter Pichler of the Alban Berg Quartet.

Music in Chichester

... at the Assembly Room, North Street

Thursday 19 February, 7.30pm - Chamber Domaine

Thomas Kemp, violin, Adrian Bradbury, cello and Stephen de Pledge, piano

Piano Trio No 1 in C minor  Shostakovich
Piano Trio in A minor  Ravel
Adagio  Mozart arr Pärt
Piano Trio in D minor  Fauré

Thursday 19 March, 7.30pm - škampa Quartet

Quartet in G D887  Schubert
Meditation on a Bohemian Chorale  Suk
Quartet No 7 Concerto da Camera  Martinů

Tickets £14, students £6 from the Festival Theatre Box Office: 01243 781312

... and at St Paul’s Church, Northgate

Saturday 4 April, 7.30pm - Chichester Symphony Orchestra

Overture The Hebrides  Mendelssohn
Kol Nidrei 
Soloist: Raymond Greenlees
Bruch
Vltava (The Moldau)  Smetana
Symphony No 3, Rhenish  Schumann

Tickets £9, Senior citizens and students £7, under 16s free

From Bastows Classics 50a North Street and at the door

Society Contact Details are on Page 46 of the Programme Book


Website kindly hosted by