61st Season |
NEWS |
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March 2008 Andover Music Club recently celebrated the last concert of its 61st season with an excellent concert by this internationally renowned ensemble. Their presence on stage was totally focused on the music, their ensemble was not just precise – they played as one, their programme was mostly music for our pleasure. To misquote a popular advert, this was not just any concert; this was the Academy at its best. The concert started with the Martinu Sextet, written in 1932. This was undoubtedly a great piece of modern music, and it established Martinu as an international composer. Like much modern music the skill of composition was often hidden in dissonance, but the ensemble played it so sensitively that their audience could hear all the competing stands of music. Then came the Dvorak A major Sextet. From the first notes it was clear that this was a piece to revel in, full of the glorious Slav folk melodies for which Dvorak is justly famed. The playing was again exquisite, and particularly so the viola, which is so often a sad instrument, but which tonight sang like an alto nightingale. Finally the Brahms B flat Sextet - a majestic work to bring the season to a fitting close. This was Brahms at his happiest, inspired no doubt by the beauty of the countryside surrounding the German Court of Detmold: solo passages with accompaniment, instruments playing together, themes bounced around the sextet and then played against each other, never a dull moment. Brahms cannot be played carefully, and the ensemble played with such wonderful freedom it was a privilege to listen. DE January 2008 The Nemo Brass Quintet returned recently to the Lights for the 4th Concert in Andover Music Club’s 61st Season. For any Latin scholar reading this review ‘nobody’ (nemo) is the least likely name for a Brass group, unless they have taken as their mascot the intrepid and unstoppable Captain Nemo in Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea. Come to think of it ‘intrepid and unstoppable’ is a most apt description of Shaun Crowther (Tuba) playing an arrangement of Monti’s Czardas originally written for the Violin. A Brass chamber concert is full of contrasts: from merriment to solemnity, from classical to jazz. The Quintet played wonderfully from the gravity of ‘Rose without a Thorn’ Suite (attributed to Henry VIII), through the preciseness of Mozart to the romance of Gershwin and Porgy & Bess. They finished the concert with an arrangement of a Song from the Auvergne, featuring a Flugel Horn, and their performance was beyond words. DE |
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Thursday 15th May 2008
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The dinner will be followed by:The Club's 61st
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Presented with the generous support of: |
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Copyright © 2004-2008 Andover Music Club |
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