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Thoughtfully Put-together
MIKE WHEELER attends a music and poetry event and concludes that further similar events would be well-received
Sinfonia Viva's new Derby season, launched a couple of weeks ago with a family concert, continued with Philip Larkin's England, an hour-long afternoon violin and piano recital built round Larkin's poetry.
Twelve of his poems, eloquently read by Derbyshire poet - with many other career-strands to his name - F Philip Holland, were framed by music from some of his British contemporaries, winningly played by Sophie Rosa, Viva's leader, and Ian Buckle.
Philip Larkin's England concert on 10 October 2024
We began and ended with a nod to Ronald Binge, Derby's answer to Nottingham's Eric Coates. The first few moments of his best-known piece, Elizabethan Serenade, arranged by Tim Jackson, opened the door onto Larkin's survey of various landscapes, 'Here'. A wistful account of Roger Quilter's song 'Dream Valley', in the composer's own transcription, was contrasted with Alan Rawsthorne's playful waltz Pierrette, Rosa and Buckle bringing out its Spanish-inflected temperament.
Sophie Rosa. Photo © Mark Carline / Storyhouse Chester
Rebecca Clarke's Lullaby made a poignant epilogue to Larkin at his most rueful - in 'Annus Mirabilis', one of his best-loved poems ('Sexual intercourse began/In nineteen sixty-three ...'), and 'Talking in Bed'. Another of his most popular poems, 'The Whitsun Weddings', led to 'Moto Perpetuo', the first of two movements from the youthful Benjamin Britten's Suite, Op 6, with Rosa and Buckle making the most of its scurrying start, more forcefully insistent middle section, and eventual fade-out.
Ian Buckle
There was more Rebecca Clarke, in the alternating serenity and agitation of Midsummer Moon, leading to Larkin's 'The Building', in which he reveals its purpose only very gradually, to poignant effect. The fragile lyricism of 'Aria II', from Lennox Berkeley's Concertino, Op 49, was the apt response, with its long-held final diminuendo. From there, via the unsentimental compassion of Larkin's 'The Old Fools', we returned to Britten's Suite, for the skittishly satirical Waltz which, in this context, suggested an attempt to shrug off the preceding mood.
Angela Morley's Rêverie was wistfully dry-eyed, before Larkin's bitter-sweet childhood recollections, in 'I Remember, I Remember'. Binge's Elizabethan Serenade, played complete, and not patronised, as it might have been a few decades go, formed an apt epilogue, with Sophie Rosa's elegant playing buoyed up by Ian Buckle's lute-like figuration.
Ian Buckle and Sophie Rosa
Their thoughtfully put-together programme was rewarded by a virtually full house - including, it was good to see, a school party - suggesting that further events along these lines would be well received.
Copyright © 16 October 2024
Mike Wheeler,
Derby UK
