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Mitsuko Uchida, piano

Schubert – C Major Sonata, D. 840

Schubert – G Major Sonata, D. 894

Like almost every other festival this year, Petworth’s annual summer music festival, which normally takes place in July, fell victim to the restrictions imposed in response the coronavirus pandemic, but rather than cancel this year’s festival altogether, its organisers sensibly moved the music festival to the autumn and combined it with the literary festival. The events are all online, though some are live, with audience, to create “a real ‘Petworth’ feel about them” (Stewart Collins, Artistic Director) and, as always, there’s a fantastic line up of performers and guests, including Sheku and Isata Kanneh Mason, The London Mozart Players with Howard Shelley, and Mitsuko Uchida. Petworth Festival always attracts an impressive roster of performers and amply confirms that there is very high quality music-making to be found outside of the capital.

We’re all pretty used to watching concerts via livestream and videocasts now; superior technology allows such broadcasts to be presented with high-quality sound and visuals, which undoubtedly enhances the experience. It’s impossible to entirely recreate being in a concert hall, but one of the advantages of livestream is that you can choose when the view the concert: watch it live or at your own convenience, perhaps in the middle of the afternoon, as I did with this particular concert. With my laptop connected to the tv in the living room and a cup of tea in hand, I settled down to enjoy Mitsuko Uchida playing two sonatas by Franz Schubert.

I’ve only ever seen Uchida performing in the vast space of the Royal Festival Hall, yet every time she has managed to shrink the space, drawing us into her personal, musical world to create the atmosphere of a salon concert. This is particularly true when she plays Schubert, a composer who despite writing large-scale works, is a master of the introspective, and, as I have written on this blog, a composer for these corona times.

Uchida is very alert to Schubert’s idiosyncrasies, his chiaruscuro and elusive, shifting moods, and I always feel that she is very at home with this music. She creates the most remarkably sense of intimacy through hushed pianissimos, tapered sonorities and a sensitivity to Schubert’s “psychological dynamics” – where a fortissimo, for example, is tempered by a certain restraint and emotion is implied rather than made explicit in sound. She highlights details or moments of significance with a touch of rubato here, a little more pressing forward there, and these feel spontaneous, of the moment, never contrived (of course the ability to do this so effortlessly comes from a long association with the music and a deep knowledge of it).

Uchida also seems to subscribe to Andras Schiff’s assertion that one must “follow” Schubert, allowing the expansiveness of this music to unfold gradually. Her melodies have a warm cantabile, her dynamics subtly shaded, often revealing dark, mysterious layers beneath.

In the D894, described by Robert Schumann as “most perfect in form and conception”, she created a timeless serenity in the opening movement, opting for a relaxed moderato (rather than Richter’s famously ‘meditative’ slowness) to allow the narrative to flow naturally into the dramatic grandeur of the development. What followed was a second movement with a contrasting rhythmic vigour in the more passionate passages, a tender, folksy lullaby in the third movement, and an elegant, supple finale replete with pastoral charm.

122117455_4474452515958519_7672388628339138679_oSchubert isn’t a showy composer, and nor is Uchida a showy performer. For this concert, she was dressed soberly in a dark fluid trouser suit, but there was a glint of showiness in her footwear – the most elegant silver shoes which lent a roccoco flair. Of course, the superb camera work allowed one to enjoy such details: to get up close and personal with the performer as the camera lighted on her  hands and face, revealing myriad expressions, often unconscious, and which perhaps offered a glimpse to the personality beyond the notes.

Petworth Festival continues until 1 November – more information

Photo credits

Decca/Justin Pumfrey

Petworth Festival

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Conductor and festival director Tom Hammond thinks we should all bother with music. In this guest post, he explains why and previews this year’s Hertfordshire Festival of Music.

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I’m writing this less than two weeks before the opening of the 2019 Hertfordshire Festival of Music (HFoM), with the sweaty brow of the accidental concert promoter desperately hoping to see more tickets flying off the shelves.

We’ve programmed some fabulous music and musicians in this our fourth year: Fauré, Haydn, Schumann, Ravel, Mozart….with Steven Isserlis, Orchestra of the Swan, Anthony Marwood, Clare Hammond, the Carducci Quartet, to name only a few.

Steven Isserlis
Clare Hammond
Anthony Marwood
ZRI

It’s not just classical music traditionally presented (although there’s some of that, and no apologies for it!) with two performances from the effervescent ZRI mashing Brahms with klezmer and gypsy styles plus their need live-to-film performance Adventures with Charlie Chaplin, an amazing jazz trio in a magical venue, and even a guided visit to Haydn’s summer holiday home when he was here in 1791. Plus three Featured Living Composers (Peter Fribbins, Alan Mills, James Francis Brown) and three major outreach projects involving more than 200 young people. Basically shed-loads of stuff, and really good stuff!

Since the Festival began – the initial germ of the idea coming to me back in 2015 – we’ve welcomed around 2,500 people to concerts in Hertford and Hertfordshire, given education and performance opportunities to around 500 younger people (schoolchildren as well as conservatoire level students) and raised something like £150,000 in external funds and Box Office revenue. Raising that sort of money for music is incredibly hard work as anyone who’s ever tried will know, taking hours of your life that could be spent doing vastly more enjoyable things….

The money that we’ve raised has gone directly into the music economy via paying our artists – about £75,000 on musician’s fees alone, and we pay at a decent rate –  plus all the other elements of the musical food chain, including commissions, hire of copyright materials, piano tuners, keyboard hire, sound and lighting equipment, etc., etc. Where that money certainly isn’t going is into my back pocket, nor that of my co-Artistic Director. We’ve also got a very hard-working board of trustees, because we’re now properly formalised as a charity, plus our FOH team who also do it for the love of music.

And why on earth would anyone do this?!

I have asked myself that question many times, not least as so many areas of running a Festival are things for which I’ve had absolutely no training, experience or aptitude and I’m already pretty busy with my main work as a conductor and producer. But, when I read my social media newsfeeds, or see classical music mentioned in the national media, it’s too often report after report about cuts in music education and how music is being marginalised. Or how to make it ‘relevant’. Or how it’s seen as for only posh people…. You don’t need me to go on because it’s jaw-clenchingly boring to do so, and moaning is too easy and the time could be better spent doing something about it.

What I and my colleagues at HFoM are trying to do, albeit in a nascent way which needs constant refinement, is simply put amazing music on in appropriate spaces that heighten the audience experience, plus open out opportunities for young people, and try to buck the above trend. As a colleague of mine once said to me, we are attempting to act as incubators of this amazing art form and when the day finally comes and politicians actually read the gazillions of studies that show how music helps people in so many ways and fund it again, someone can buy us all a pint.

Until then, if anyone fancies coming along and helping us continue beyond this year we have plenty of tickets left to sell. With only two exceptions, you can walk to all our performances in less than twenty minutes from train stations, all of which are well-served in and out of London. It will be light well into the evening, hopefully sunny and warm too. Tickets are not expensive, indeed some events are totally free, many offer £5 seats for anyone in full-time education, and they are in nice places with good pubs, restaurants and countryside nearby.

Hertfordshire Festival of Music runs from Thursday 13 to Sunday 23 June 2019. This year’s principal artist is cellist Steven Isserlis who will be giving masterclasses and performances during the festival. Full programme of events

Tom Hammond is co-Artistic Director of Hertfordshire Festival of Music, and a conductor and record producer.

www.hertsmusicfest.org.uk

Meet the Artist interview with Tom Hammond

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22069948_1912056895725052_5514396914646253568_nFor this, its 47th year, Rye Arts Festival has a new director of Classical Music, cellist Alison Moncrieff-Kelly. With this year’s festival just over a month away, I asked Alison to give us a taster of some of the highlights on the programme and to tell us a little more about what goes into organising a festival….

What can we expect from the classical music element in this year’s Rye Arts Festival and what are the events we should be looking out for?

As the incoming classical music Director for the Rye Arts Festival (RAF), I felt that I had to do a bit of research into what had gone before. The Festival has a wonderful pedigree, and the spread of musical interest has been remarkable; but what I did notice was that singers in particular had been less represented than other performers. So I lifted the phone to my close friend Iain Burnside, to brainstorm ideas. I very much admire the work Iain does in curating dramatised performances; and as one of the themes of the Festival is commemoration of the end of the First World War. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to put on ‘A First War Poet of England Am I’, a celebration of the songs and poems of Ivor Gurney. This will bring to the Rye Arts Festival Roderick Williams, along with Iain Burnside, and the actor Philip Franks, who will perform the poems. It’s an incredible privilege to have this combination of talent in our first week.

We also have Dame Emma Kirkby leading a programme of music by Dowland, Campion, Danyel and Ford with her group, Dowland Works. This is a wonderful opportunity to fill St Mary’s Rye with that famous crystalline voice.

I have tried to vary the offer, so there is also a big choral event – The City of London Choir are performing a programme of Elgar, followed by the Duruflé Requiem, Chamber recitals include The Revolutionary Drawing Room, who are performing ‘Music in Time of War’ in Winchelsea Church, and violinist Ani Batikian will perform music ‘From Armenia to Armistice’.

We have two wonderful pianists in the Festival: Danny Driver joins us for a recital that will include Rachmaninov York Bowen and Henriette Bosmans. Then Kenny Broberg, the winner of last year’s Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition, makes a welcome return to the Festival, performing the Mozart G Major piano concerto with the Hastings Philharmonic. This performance marks the beginning of a new relationship between the Rye Arts Festival and the Hastings Philharmonic.

We are also delighted to be consolidating a longstanding relationship with the Worshipful Company of Musicians by promoting two of their young artists in our lunchtime series – guitarist Laura Snowden and Buck Brass Trio.

Alisdair Kitchen and Euphonia Studio are giving the only UK performances of Les Mamelles des Tiresias this year. We are very proud to have Alisdair on board as the Rye Arts Festival in-house opera director – he’s a veritable powerhouse of creative invention!

How did you select the performers/programmes for this year’s RAF?

The idea was to start with the WW1 theme, and work from there. It’s been fascinating to discover how many strands led out of that central theme – so for instance, the Armenian armistice idea was very much Ani’s own inspiration. I love the enthusiasm that all the performers show for the Festival and the WW1 theme – the excitement has been extraordinary.

Can you tell us more about your role as Director of Classical Music?

My role is to create the classical music element of the Festival and to make sure that as many elements of the musical spectrum as possible are represented. I already have plans in place for the next two years, and am looking forward to continuing to broaden the scope of what the Festival offers.

This is your first year as director of classical music for RAF. What have been the challenges and pleasures?

It’s been a steep learning curve in terms of the organisational aspects of the job – an awful lot to put into place for a September Festival  when i was only appointed in October; but the committee has been wonderfully supportive, and I have found the energy and commitment around me incredibly stimulating. That, and the spontaneous enthusiasm from the performers has been really heartening.

What can people expect from the Festival? What kind of audience does it draw and what do you hope people will take away from the Festival?

People can expect a wide-ranging and varied programme, with some younger, emerging talent alongside stars of the classical firmament such as Roderick Williams and Emma Kirkby. The audience comes both from the local area and from London – there are a lot of second home owners in Rye, so the net is cast pretty wide. I hope people take away a sense in which the whole of the Rye area is expanding in cultural terms. It’s really accessible from London, and the town is magical – fabulous history, atmosphere, literary connections.

How do you see the music festival developing under your directorship?

I’d like to develop the mixed-media idiom that we initiate this season with Iain Burnside’s Gurney show. Iain is a fountain of creativity and I want to tap into that! I’m interested in several of his shows – Schwanengesang, which is a composite of the song cycle with dramatic interludes, was a brilliant piece of theatre that I saw him produce at the Guildhall. I also want to build on Emma Kirkby’s first appearance at the Festival: we’re discussing a residency for next year, to combine some workshops as well as performances. Other than that I’m really open to new ideas – definitely want to do move away from the traditional recital mold as the only form. There’s so much potential for other ways of performing.

You are a musician yourself – has this affected your approach to RAF?

Yes – I remember a friend of mine who works in management telling me that he thought he would make a really good manager, because he had been so badly managed so many times in the past, that he really knew what was needed to keep his staff happy. I have experienced some of the best and some of the worst of this challenging profession, and I think I know how to invite people to offer their best ideas, rather than telling them. Time will tell; but I’m a great believer in letting artist’s have their heads – they know far more about it from their vantage point on the stage, intuiting the audience response.

What are you most excited about in this year’s programme? What are your personal highlights?

I’m really challenged to answer this one, because I’m excited about the whole Festival, and not just the musical part: i anticipate getting no sleep for two weeks while I try to attend every single event! It’s a fantastic multi-arts Festival with a staggering range of talent and skill. Ask me again afterwards!

The 47th annual Rye Arts Festivals runs from 15-30 September 2018. For full details and tickets please visit the festival website

 

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This coming July sees one of the UK’s most stylish ‘small is beautiful’ annual festivals celebrating a ‘significant’ year – the 2018 Petworth festival is the 40th such event. Founded jointly by Lord Egremont and Robert Walker, the well-known composer who hails from the area, and now run by Artistic Director Stewart Collins, the 40th year boasts a programme built to match and salute this milestone. Topping the bill is a stellar list of performers that includes Dame Evelyn Glennie, Stephen Isserlis, The King’s Singers, Ji Liu, Alistair McGowan, Barbara Dickson, Darius Brubeck, Gyles Brandreth, Joe Stilgoe, Paul Merton, ….

An “experienced but never complacent” festival man, Stewart Collins tells me that he “has always sought to balance the various elements of the festival whether celebrating the West Sussex locale through its venues (ten are used this summer); the appeal to and involvement of the local community; and the balance of performing genres.” Following these loose guidelines, the 2018 programme offers three specific strands; firstly events that celebrate the festival’s 40 years, with concerts featuring performers who have particularly made waves at recent festivals and three in particular with former Festival Artistic Directors – Robert Walker (twice) and David Owen-Norris; secondly performances that doff the cap to the massive anniversary that is the conclusion of the First World War; and thirdly a whole series of events featuring young and emerging performers and others specifically aimed at the younger and family audience.

But it is the quality of the audience experience that most excites Stewart Collins about the Petworth event.

Because most of our venues are modest in size, Petworth audiences have an extraordinary opportunity to witness and participate in very high quality events in very intimate surroundings. The performances of the 1918-related theatre piece Between the Crosses in Petworth House’s ancient chapel are just one example, but it is the acoustic of Petworth’s St Mary’s Church that makes so many of the festival’s events “absolutely magical.” Steven Isserlis from a maximum of 50 feet, will be a wonder to behold, just as will be the King’s Singers who stop off in Petworth as part of their own 50th anniversary odyssey, not to mention the concerts lined up featuring baritone Christopher Maltman and the much lauded early music ensemble La Serenissima.

And with other smaller scale events being scheduled for the nearby Champs Hill Music Room, itself one of the most perfect and unique settings for chamber music in the region, the festival is obviously blessed with great options.

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A Festival concert in the Stable Yard of Petworth House

The magnificent acoustics of the almost eerily beautiful Stable Yard of Petworth House that the Festival is so privileged to be able to use, will set the tone of this special anniversary year as the festival opens with a performance by the Armonico Consort, combined with the choir of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, featuring Thomas Tallis’ choral masterpieces, Spem in Alium and the 60-part mass by Alessandro Striggio

The 40th Petworth Festival runs from 17th July to 4th August 2018

Festival tickets go on sale to Friends of the Petworth Festival on Friday 13th April. Many events sell out during this priority booking period. To become a Friend of the Festival (minimum donation £25) contact the festival box office on 01798 344 576 or mail info@petworthfestival.org.uk

Full details of the 2018 Festival programme at www.petworthfestival.org.uk

imageStewart Collins is Artistic Director of Petworth Festival