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Tewkesbury Camerata
Oct. 13th, 2013 04:14 pmI first met ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vix_spes in the summer of 2011 at the first annual shpicnic. It turned out that she was a violinist and originated in Gloucestershire and we kept in touch. Early in 2012 she and a fellow musician founded Tewkesbury Camerata, which is a group of professional and semi-professional musicians, who play three concerts a year to raise money for various charities. I have been to all but one of their concerts (the one I missed was because they had to change the date which clashed with this year's picnic which I was already involved in).
Their latest concert was yesterday evening. The chosen charity was Help for Heroes and the programme was designed to reflect the effects of war given that next year will be the centenary of the beginning of the Great War (which we now know as World War I).
The first piece was Beethoven's Coriolan Overture. I know many of Beethoven's compositions well, but this one I don't. It was good to be able to hear something different that still had a certain familiarity about it. (I'm also still narked that I couldn't get tickets for the Mark Gatiss/Tom Hiddlestone production of Coriolanus at the Donmar Warehouse, but that's another matter.) This was followed by a piece I know extremely well, Schubert's Unfinished Symphony and it was great to watch the music passed between the different instruments; I enjoy seeing music.
After the interval there was a new piece by Cornish composer Simon Milton, called Sinfonietta Op 46. It had been commissioned especially by the Tewkesbury Camerata and was based on the story of Artemis and Actaoen. It showcased two solo instruments, a cor anglais as Artemis bathing and then the violin of a very angry Artemis. I was really taken with the music, although at times had some difficulty following the story through it. It occured to me as I listened that the musical style would work well with Javanese shadow puppets telling the story.
The final piece was Haydn's Symphony No 45, the Farewell. Again, not something I knew, but very recognisably Haydn. In the final movement the orchestra gradually leave, so that by the end the only two players remaining are two violinists, who finish and then they too depart. A very fitting and poignant finale to an evening dedicated to the remembrance of a war.
vix_spes in the summer of 2011 at the first annual shpicnic. It turned out that she was a violinist and originated in Gloucestershire and we kept in touch. Early in 2012 she and a fellow musician founded Tewkesbury Camerata, which is a group of professional and semi-professional musicians, who play three concerts a year to raise money for various charities. I have been to all but one of their concerts (the one I missed was because they had to change the date which clashed with this year's picnic which I was already involved in).Their latest concert was yesterday evening. The chosen charity was Help for Heroes and the programme was designed to reflect the effects of war given that next year will be the centenary of the beginning of the Great War (which we now know as World War I).
The first piece was Beethoven's Coriolan Overture. I know many of Beethoven's compositions well, but this one I don't. It was good to be able to hear something different that still had a certain familiarity about it. (I'm also still narked that I couldn't get tickets for the Mark Gatiss/Tom Hiddlestone production of Coriolanus at the Donmar Warehouse, but that's another matter.) This was followed by a piece I know extremely well, Schubert's Unfinished Symphony and it was great to watch the music passed between the different instruments; I enjoy seeing music.
After the interval there was a new piece by Cornish composer Simon Milton, called Sinfonietta Op 46. It had been commissioned especially by the Tewkesbury Camerata and was based on the story of Artemis and Actaoen. It showcased two solo instruments, a cor anglais as Artemis bathing and then the violin of a very angry Artemis. I was really taken with the music, although at times had some difficulty following the story through it. It occured to me as I listened that the musical style would work well with Javanese shadow puppets telling the story.
The final piece was Haydn's Symphony No 45, the Farewell. Again, not something I knew, but very recognisably Haydn. In the final movement the orchestra gradually leave, so that by the end the only two players remaining are two violinists, who finish and then they too depart. A very fitting and poignant finale to an evening dedicated to the remembrance of a war.
