Stops pulled out for Frome Festival premier
10th July 2007 1pm Christ Church Code: 1002 Author: Christopher Cipkin
The bright interior of Christchurch was the venue for an enjoyable and well-attended Frome Festival organ recital on 10th July. The recitalist was the church's own organist and well-known local musician, Ann Burgess, who played the modest and sweetly-voiced organ (built in 1873), with clear articulation, appealing lightness of touch and a high degree of accuracy. Personally, I like a programme which is highly varied, but also given coherence by a common theme. I was not disappointed as this concert had clearly been well planned. Entitled 'Regeneration: new wine out of old bottles' it demonstrated how composers use melodies from previous generations and reinvent them into something new. It provided all the contrast and colour I anticipated.
The programme's centre-piece was a new work by award-winning young British composer, Naomi Pinnock. A native of Yorkshire and student of the eminent contemporary German composer, Wolfgang Rihm, Pinnock has had her music broadcast on Radio 3 and she is also a short-listed composer by the Society for the Promotion of New Music. Her brother lives in Frome and sings in Christchurch Choir. It is through this connection that Ann Burgess commissioned A Memory Piece , and she also had the honour of performing its world premier. The genesis of this short but remarkable work came from listening and re-listening to recordings of Melothesia (1673) by the English composer, Matthew Locke. After time had elapsed, Pinnock then wrote her work based on her aural perception and memory of Locke's music. The result is a piece structured around a recurring 'rondo' section of long pedal notes, which give the otherwise atonal music a sense of being rooted. For me, the pedal effect also created a slightly unnerving sense of anticipation in the opening section. As this is a work which sounds so different from mainstream repertoire, I found myself having to trust the intentions of both composer and performer alike, and approach the music with an open mind. In the intermediate sections, Pinnock's highly fragmented memories of Locke can be heard in imitations of his ornaments, sensual chord clusters and staccato textures at extreme registers of the instrument. The combined effect, somewhat reminiscent of Olivier Messiaen's idiom, is a sense of musical transparency and space. In a clever development of Pinnock's memory idea, Ann Burgess opened the recital with extracts from Locke's Melothesia; after playing three pieces by other composers she then performed Memory Piece , thus actively involving the audience in the process of remembering.
Developing the 'regeneration' theme, the audience was also treated to music based on ancient plainchant, German Choral tunes, and folk melody. There were three solid works by north German baroque composers. The rich tone of the Christchurch organ's oboe stop was used to good effect in Johann Sebastian Bach's highly ornamented chorale prelude on Schmücke dich, O liebe Seele (BWV 654). Ann Burgess also demonstrated some deft fugal playing in Dietrich Buxtehude's fantastical Praeludium in G minor (BuxWV 148). I was especially taken by the set of slightly rustic variations which formed Georg Böhm's Partita on Ach wie nichtig. These employed some well-considered registration contrasts and clear articulation of the chorale theme. Pinnock's avant-garde composition was complemented by the inclusion of modern music from the French School, which helped give the recital a distinctly contemporary flavour. Jean Langlais' Pasticcio and Pastoral Song were included, as well as a delightful Antienne by Langlais' pupil, Naji Hakim. If the German and French music might be considered dry and full-bodied new wines, then the light and sweet juxtaposition was provided by convincing renditions of familiar English pieces: Holy Boy by John Ireland, Folk Song by Percy Whitlock and a rousing March on Ilkley Moor by Noel Rawsthorne. This last work, based on Yorkshire's 'national anthem', formed a most suitable foot-tapping finale to a programme which had featured a composition by one of Yorkshire's rising musical talents.
Christopher Cipkin
Reading, Berkshire and President of the Berkshire Organists' Association
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