Beauchamp Sinfonietta, Conducted by Lauren Wasynczuk
Holy Trinity Church, Beauchamp Avenue
Sunday 26 January, 2025
Beauchamp Sinfonietta’s contract coup of the season, Conductor, Lauren Wasynczuk, led a celebration of works by six women composers with precision and agility; her players responding with fluent, full-blooded spontaneity. At six foot six, this native of Los Angeles is blessed with a dignified, striking poise and elegant dress sense. Manchester-based for the time being, having had a long-association with Royal Northern College of Music, Beauchamp would welcome her back without hesitation.
In recent years, Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn has, at last, received the international recognition she deserves. Her Overture in C major, an iconic work full of evocative orchestrations and highly representative of her style, was given a buzzing outing by Beauchamp. Anna Appleby’s Bridges Suite - a love-letter to her native Newcastle - introduced new technologies to the afternoon with the use of an electronic track to the third part of the work, The Millenium Bridge, thus creating a luscious susurration, supported by ‘tremelo’ strings playing. Part one, The High Level Bridge required all players to produce pencils to add percussive effects; part two, The Tyne Bridge inspired the most muscular playing of this work.
Beauchamp dedicated Florence Price’s Adoration to percussionist Hugh Thomas who died overnight. Matters of race and gender prevented her works achieving the recognition they deserved during her life – they do now!! Doreen Carwithen took a break from her Korngold-model existence of building her reputation and earning remuneration from composing film scores, to compose her unpretentious Suffolk Suite - oboist, Aoife Dudley delivering a fine solo.
Another oboist and trailblazer for women in the arts, Ruth Gipps, composed Ambarvalia, a quintessentially British-sounding work in 1988, an uncomplicated work fully employing the intelligent wind section with Bob Ramskil recreating the celeste at the keyboard.
Sixth and last of the women composers was Louise Farrenc whose Symphony No 3 in G minor, composed in 1874, brought this inventive initiative to a close with a rousing four movement display of pleasing clarinet, bassoon, horn and oboe playing, delightfully supported by pizzicato-playing strings. During a lively last movement, Lauren Wasynczuk showed why she has such a big future with an illustration of significant leadership skills needed to succeed.
Clive Peacock
Holy Trinity Church, Beauchamp Avenue
Sunday 26 January, 2025
Beauchamp Sinfonietta’s contract coup of the season, Conductor, Lauren Wasynczuk, led a celebration of works by six women composers with precision and agility; her players responding with fluent, full-blooded spontaneity. At six foot six, this native of Los Angeles is blessed with a dignified, striking poise and elegant dress sense. Manchester-based for the time being, having had a long-association with Royal Northern College of Music, Beauchamp would welcome her back without hesitation.
In recent years, Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn has, at last, received the international recognition she deserves. Her Overture in C major, an iconic work full of evocative orchestrations and highly representative of her style, was given a buzzing outing by Beauchamp. Anna Appleby’s Bridges Suite - a love-letter to her native Newcastle - introduced new technologies to the afternoon with the use of an electronic track to the third part of the work, The Millenium Bridge, thus creating a luscious susurration, supported by ‘tremelo’ strings playing. Part one, The High Level Bridge required all players to produce pencils to add percussive effects; part two, The Tyne Bridge inspired the most muscular playing of this work.
Beauchamp dedicated Florence Price’s Adoration to percussionist Hugh Thomas who died overnight. Matters of race and gender prevented her works achieving the recognition they deserved during her life – they do now!! Doreen Carwithen took a break from her Korngold-model existence of building her reputation and earning remuneration from composing film scores, to compose her unpretentious Suffolk Suite - oboist, Aoife Dudley delivering a fine solo.
Another oboist and trailblazer for women in the arts, Ruth Gipps, composed Ambarvalia, a quintessentially British-sounding work in 1988, an uncomplicated work fully employing the intelligent wind section with Bob Ramskil recreating the celeste at the keyboard.
Sixth and last of the women composers was Louise Farrenc whose Symphony No 3 in G minor, composed in 1874, brought this inventive initiative to a close with a rousing four movement display of pleasing clarinet, bassoon, horn and oboe playing, delightfully supported by pizzicato-playing strings. During a lively last movement, Lauren Wasynczuk showed why she has such a big future with an illustration of significant leadership skills needed to succeed.
Clive Peacock
Beauchamp Sinfonietta, Conducted by George Morton
Holy Trinity Church, Beauchamp Avenue
Sunday 28 January, 2024
Mozart’s reputation for working at a bafflingly rapid pace is best demonstrated in his 18 day turn-around of the music for La Clemenza di Tito, based on the drama by Pietro Metastasio, a well-known Italian poet and librettist. With George Morton returning as guest conductor for the first time since 2021, Mozart’s 1791 overture to celebrate the Coronation of Emperor Leopold II was a secure introduction to a concert full of very different composers and their works. Bassoonists, David Brown and Paul Raybould excelled with majestic phrasing; new string players added to the crisp output in this reflection of the pomp and ceremony for which the opera was written.
Alexander Siloti’s arrangement of Vivaldi’s Concerto Grosso Op 3 No 11 for full orchestra was fertile ground again for those bassoonists to share the limelight with two solo violins, before the full string sections responded well to Morton’s deliberate, fluent approch to leading, the largo a very mellifluous outcome.
The Black Mahler, the Sam Coleridge-Taylor story is a moving account of the composer’s struggles. His incidental music for the 1909 production of Othello was distilled to five movements for his Othello Suite with a lively opening ‘dance’, ‘childrens intermezzo’ with super clarinet playing by Vicki Bacon and equally memorable trumpet playing by Stewart Morris in ‘the willow song’. Oboeist Aoife Dudley deserved the recognition she was given by conductor Martin at the end of Cimarosa’s overture to his two act drama Giannina e Bernardone. Although very popular in his day, his works are seldom now heard.
This afternoon concert of distinct interventions from different composers reached a climax with works by Mendelssohn and Strauss. Conductor, Morton put his own stamp on the afternoon with his smaller orchestral version of the Strauss favourite, Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, Op 28. Condensed variations of works is not new, Mahler did the same thing with a couple of his symphonies. Beauchamp players clearly enjoyed illustrating the lively exploits of the practical joker with the Eb clarinet creating the required the cheekiness of this knave.
Some clever programming helped for this orchestra deliver a fine first outing of 2024.
Clive Peacock
Holy Trinity Church, Beauchamp Avenue
Sunday 28 January, 2024
Mozart’s reputation for working at a bafflingly rapid pace is best demonstrated in his 18 day turn-around of the music for La Clemenza di Tito, based on the drama by Pietro Metastasio, a well-known Italian poet and librettist. With George Morton returning as guest conductor for the first time since 2021, Mozart’s 1791 overture to celebrate the Coronation of Emperor Leopold II was a secure introduction to a concert full of very different composers and their works. Bassoonists, David Brown and Paul Raybould excelled with majestic phrasing; new string players added to the crisp output in this reflection of the pomp and ceremony for which the opera was written.
Alexander Siloti’s arrangement of Vivaldi’s Concerto Grosso Op 3 No 11 for full orchestra was fertile ground again for those bassoonists to share the limelight with two solo violins, before the full string sections responded well to Morton’s deliberate, fluent approch to leading, the largo a very mellifluous outcome.
The Black Mahler, the Sam Coleridge-Taylor story is a moving account of the composer’s struggles. His incidental music for the 1909 production of Othello was distilled to five movements for his Othello Suite with a lively opening ‘dance’, ‘childrens intermezzo’ with super clarinet playing by Vicki Bacon and equally memorable trumpet playing by Stewart Morris in ‘the willow song’. Oboeist Aoife Dudley deserved the recognition she was given by conductor Martin at the end of Cimarosa’s overture to his two act drama Giannina e Bernardone. Although very popular in his day, his works are seldom now heard.
This afternoon concert of distinct interventions from different composers reached a climax with works by Mendelssohn and Strauss. Conductor, Morton put his own stamp on the afternoon with his smaller orchestral version of the Strauss favourite, Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, Op 28. Condensed variations of works is not new, Mahler did the same thing with a couple of his symphonies. Beauchamp players clearly enjoyed illustrating the lively exploits of the practical joker with the Eb clarinet creating the required the cheekiness of this knave.
Some clever programming helped for this orchestra deliver a fine first outing of 2024.
Clive Peacock