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Choirs are invited to join the RSCM’s Sing for the King project

The Royal School of Church Music (RSCM) announces ‘Sing for the King’, a special choral music commission from acclaimed British singer and composer Joanna Forbes L’Estrange to celebrate the Coronation of King Charles III on 6 May 2023.

The Mountains shall bring peace uses words from the Psalms, including ‘Give the King they judge, O God’, ‘The mountains shall bring peace’; and ‘Sing to the Lord a new song’, and is suitable for all choirs in a range of settings. It has enough grandeur for large choirs to sing on formal occasions, while its accessible melodic sweep lends an intimacy that will be enjoyed by smaller groups and gatherings.

Following its very successful and popular Platinum Project to commemorate the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, the RSCM is once again inviting choirs across the UK, the Commonwealth and beyond to join in song to celebrate the Coronation of King Charles III by learning and singing The Mountains shall bring peace.

There are two versions of the music – one for SATBS choir and organ/piano and one for union voices with piano. The accompaniments are interchangeable and those choirs not wishing to learn the full five-minute piece can still join in the project by learning the broad, hymn-like melody of the closing section, making it appealing for young or less experience singers.

Choirs and choral groups are invited to share their rehearsals and performances on social media using the hashtag #singfortheking

RSCM Director Hugh Morris says: “We were delighted that in 2022 many hundreds of choirs were united in singing a piece specially written for the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Now, in 2023, we hope that even more will want to learn Joanna’s The Mountains shall bring peace and join with choirs from around the world to celebrate the first Coronation in 70 years.”

Composer Joanna Forbes L’Estrange says: “I was keen to find words which reflected not only King Charles’s faith but also something of his passion for the natural world and his love of the outdoors. When I think of our former Prince of Wales, I picture him walking in the Welsh mountains or in the Scottish Highlands. I’m also all too aware that this Coronation is taking place during a very turbulent time for our country and our planet and so I was searching for words which would in some way give us all hope for the future. Central to the commission brief was a big, singable tune, the kind of memorable melody which anyone and everyone can enjoy singing at the tops of their voices.”

The Mountains shall bring peace is available from the RSCM’s webshop (www.rscmshop.com) at £24.95 (RSCM members £19.95) for the downloadable music pack (this includes ALL versions, and is licenced to the purchasing choir/institution so can be shared with all choir members) and £2.95 for printed copies (£2.21 for RSCM Members). Full learning resources, including performance backing tracks, will be available from the RSCM’s dedicated Sing for the King website, which also includes further information about the project, a social media wall, and an interactive map showing where choirs can register their performance (www.rscm.org.uk/singfortheking)

Follow the project on social media using hashtag #singfortheking

Taster of the music here

www.rscm.org.uk

For further press information / interviews, please contact Frances Wilson  frances_wilson66@live.com

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The internationally acclaimed pianist Margaret Fingerhut has collaborated with Viktoriia Levchenko, a young filmmaker from Ukraine, to create a short, powerful video called ‘Ukraine will rise again!’

It is set to a stirring piano piece by the Ukrainian composer Sergei Bortkiewicz (1877-1952). Bortkiewicz wrote Les Rochers d’Outche-Coche in 1908 after he was inspired by the mountain scenery in Crimea. The music conjures up the awe and beauty of the landscape, and Viktoriia has matched it with a series of extraordinary images, including powerful footage of the devastation caused by the war. The result is a moving and uplifting video.

Margaret’s grandfather was born in Odesa and she has always felt a proud connection with the country. Her career has taken her all over the world and her numerous recordings have received much critical acclaim and won many accolades.

In 2019 Margaret undertook a major recital tour, devising and performing a special programme of words and music called Far from the Home I Love across the UK to raise money for refugees and asylum seekers. She was presented with a ‘Champion of Sanctuary’ award by City of Sanctuary UK in recognition of her humanitarian work.

Watch the video

Margaret is using the video to raise funds for British-Ukrainian Aid, a charity which sends over vital supplies such as ambulances, first aid kits and portable generators. It also provides assistance to the victims of the war: to orphanages, schools, the elderly and internally displaced people.

Make a donation: www.justgiving.com/Margaret-Fingerhut

Website: www.margaretfingerhut.co.uk

Facebook: @MargaretFingerhutPiano

Twitter: @mfingerhutpiano

Instagram: @margaretfingerhutpiano

(Source: press release)

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“bringing the very best classical chamber music to London audiences at affordable prices”

The innovative and now well-established London Chamber Music Society (LCMS) series returns to Kings Place with a generous and varied programme of Sunday concerts beginning on Sunday 23 January.

Old friends and new ones, including Solem Quartet, Rossetti Ensemble, and the Chamber Ensemble of London, are welcomed for this fine series of concerts with leading international artists. On 30 January, the Chilingirian Quartet, one of the cornerstones of British chamber music, celebrate their remarkable 50-year career in a concert culminating in the First String Sextet by Brahms. Other highlights include wind soloists from the Philharmonia Orchestra on 23 January, with pianist Andrew Brownell, in a programme featuring French music and the Sextet by 19th-century composer Louise Farrenc.

More in the French vein comes with violinist Philippe Graffin, who is joined by his compatriot, oboist Capucine Prin, on 15 May in a concert of oboe quartets as well as a fascinating new arrangement of Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. Further highlights include Finzi’s Dies natalis on 20 March, in a concert of string orchestra works with the Northern Chords Festival Orchestra. There is more wonderful string music on 1 May, with violinist Peter Fisher and the Chamber Ensemble of London, joined by pianist Margaret Fingerhut in Finzi’s ever-popular Eclogue and also music by Vaughan Williams and Britten’s Simple Symphony. As well as the Solem and Chilingirian quartets, on 3 April the Navarra Quartet perform Dvořák’s String Quartet in G, and a new work by the American-Irish composer Jane O’Leary.

This season also celebrates the work of the remarkable Anglo-American composer Rebecca Clarke. The Fitzwilliam Quartet perform Clarke’s short quartet movement, ‘Poem’, on 8 May, in a concert that also features, with Anna Tilbrook, the mighty piano quintet by Brahms. Other trios include clarinettist Mark Simpson, cellist Leonard Elschenbroich and pianist Richard Uttley on 20 February, to include Simpson’s own Echoes & Embers, and the Barbican Trio on 24 April, in trios by Brahms and Saint-Saens.

This season’s coffee concert, on 13 March, is given by cellist Thomas Carroll and pianist Anthony Hewitt, with music by Prokofiev and Rachmaninov’s ever-popular cello sonata in G minor, with its beautiful long romantic lines. Linos Piano Trio open the LCMS 2022/23 season on 2 October.

All concerts take place in Hall 1 at Kings Place and start at the very civilised time of 6.30pm, apart from the coffee concert on 13 March, which begins at 11.30am.

For full details of this season’s concerts & to book tickets, please visit:

www.londonchambermusic.org.uk/

Chilingirian Quartet

The London Chamber Music Society boasts a proud history of Victorian music making in London with the regular Sunday Concerts that developed at South Place and then the Conway Hall from the 1920s. The LCMS continues that rich legacy at Kings Place, its home from 2008, with London Chamber Music Sundays – a diverse annual season of high-quality classical chamber music, ranging from duos and trios to chamber orchestras, coming from the UK, Europe and beyond. Many of Britain’s most celebrated ensembles have regularly appeared in the Series, from the Brosa and Amadeus string quartets of the past, to the Chilingirian and Carducci quartets today.

Artistic Director: Peter Fribbins

Header image: Solem Quartet

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The world’s oldest surviving firm of piano makers, UK’s John Broadwood & Sons, has found the instrument used by Gustav Holst to compose The Planets.

  • The Broadwood piano was bought by St Paul’s Girls’ School for Holst in 1913 and used by the composer during the time he composed The Planets.
  • The instrument will be honoured with a special performance at St Paul’s Girls’ School on 21st September 2019; the same day as Holst’s birthday. The Planets will be performed on the instrument by piano duo John and Fiona York.
  • Additional concerts will take place at Finchcocks, Kent and the Holst Birthplace Museum, Cheltenham.

On 8th November 1913 the Broadwood porters trundled a brand new, grand piano into the newly-built music wing at St Paul’s Girls’ School in Hammersmith, London. The piano was a fine example of the Broadwood Number 5 Drawing Room model, of length 7’ 6’’ (229cm). It had been ordered by the School for placement in a specially soundproofed teaching studio, recently created for their increasingly famous head of music, composer Gustav Holst (1874-1934).

Broadwood Pianos-26.jpg

The serial number of the piano in question is 51868; with casework in rosewood and a special steel ‘barless’ frame – a construction feature unique to Broadwood. Its cost to the School was 225 guineas (less a generous discount for another piano taken in part exchange!). Number 51868 is photographed, in its studio setting, opposite page 42 of Imogen Holst’s famous biography of her father, published 1938.

2217742443_7b28c47f1f_bMost of Holst’s composing inspiration took place whilst he was engrossed at his long table in the School’s soundproof studio. Although he was not a brilliant pianist (his technique was severely hindered by neuritis in his right hand), the Broadwood grand was instrumental in helping him create one of the greatest masterpieces of twentieth-century orchestral music: The Planets. Holst would regularly invite two of the School’s music staff – Nora Day and Vally Lasker – to play to him excerpts from the fledgling Planets on the Broadwood grand to hand, just to hear how the composition was progressing.

It is clear that the Broadwood in question was long regarded as the ‘flagship’ of the School’s fleet of pianos, being moved for important concerts within the School. Broadwood’s: records show that their porters were hired to trundle the grand on at least 17 occasions between 1913 and 1938 from Holst’s room to the Singing Hall or Great Hall, and back.

The fascinating provenance of the instrument was only re-discovered by chance in September 2016, when a routine search through Broadwood’s company’s records proved beyond doubt that grand piano No. 51868 was indeed the one used by Holst at the School. Thanks to the kind cooperation of the piano’s present owner, Katie Smith, the grand piano will once again be publicly seen and heard this year.

The celebrations

Broadwoods are delighted to sponsor a number of recitals to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first public performance of The Planets. The highlight will be a concert at St Paul’s Girls’ School on 21st September (Holst’s birthday), featuring the intriguing piano duet version of the suite, performed on the very same Broadwood instrument used in the piece’s creation one hundred years ago. It should be a remarkable experience to see and hear this treasured instrument as well as The Planets as Holst would have experienced it. Additional performances will take place at Finchcocks piano school, Kent, and the Holst Birthplace Museum in Cheltenham. (Full listings are below)

About Broadwoods

John Broadwood & Sons Ltd is the world’s oldest surviving piano firm, founded in 1728. The company has held a Warrant for supply and maintenance of pianos to the various Royal Households since the reign of George II and can name among its illustrious customers the composers Haydn, Chopin, Brahms, Liszt, Elgar, Holst and Vaughan Williams. The company continues to make, tune and repair pianos at its workshop in Lythe, near Whitby, north Yorkshire. The present-day directors of the company, which is an independent enterprise, include three members of the Laurence family, whose ancestors had worked for many generations in a technical capacity in John Broadwood & Sons’ Soho factory from 1787 until 1922.

Event Listings

Saturday, 21st September 2019, 3pm

Holst Birthday Concert

St Paul’s Girls’ School, Brook Green, London, W6 7BS

John and Fiona York will perform the piano duet version of The Planets on Holst’s piano with Heidi Pegler (soprano) And the Paulina Voices choir from the School.

With an introduction from Dr Alastair Laurence.

Exhibition of ephemera in Holst’s soundproof studio throughout the day.

Admission: £12. Students 18 and under: free entry.

Tickets: holstbirthday.eventbrite.co.uk

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Saturday, 28th September 2019

The Vaulted Concert Room, Finchcocks, Goudhurst, Kent TN17 1HH

An evening with Gershwin and The Planets.

The Planets’ Suite will be performed in its duet version by Jong-Gyung Park and nthony Zerpa-Falcon on a 1920 vintage ‘model 5’ Broadwood grand (identical to Holst’s)

Admission: £10.

Tickets: finchcocks.com

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Two concerts: Sunday 13th October; 2pm and 7pm

The Holst Birthplace Museum, 4 Clarence Road, Cheltenham, GL52 2AY

Greg Tassell (tenor) and Gary Branch (piano)

Inspiration from England: music by Holst, Elgar, Sullivan, Stamford, Vaughan Williams and Britten.

Admission: £20 including wine and canapés

Booking essential: 01242 524846 Or contact curator@holstmuseum.org.uk

 

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(source: press release)