Great Fen Concerts
Peterborough Cathedral
Wednesday 6th May
Cambridge, King’s College Chapel
Thursday 7th May
Alina Ibragimova violin
Garry Walker conductor
The Times
8 May 2009
Britten Sinfonia / Walker at Peterborough Cathedral
By Hilary Finch
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/live_reviews/article6243081.ece
I’m glad to report that a crane has recently been spotted for the first time in 300 years on Holme Fen and Woodwalton Fen, between Peterborough and Huntingdon. And Sibelius’s Scene with Cranes was performed in Peterborough Cathedral as part of a concert in aid of the Great Fen Project: to restore and hand back to nature 9,000 acres of this precious landscape.
The Fen country is very much of the Britten Sinfonia’s own residency landscape and, before the Sibelius — played with the finest of string textures and evocative clarinet solos — they had given the world premiere of a new work by John Woolrich, called Whitel’s Ey. Think “Whittlesey”, and you’ll know what he’s on about. Woolrich claims to have been inspired by a walk in the Great Fen and John Clare’s poetry and journals.
But anyone expecting a quiet moment or two of wetland melancholy would have been in for a shock. This was 12 minutes of strident brass chords, dark, whooping horns, the disturbing dazzle of high piccolo, and the thwack of pizzicato and percussion. Melody and rhythm were fractured, split between registers and instruments. And there were disconcerting moments of stillness, like the glaring reflections of wide sky and water.
This compact, angry piece seemed heavy with the menace of fear: of flood? Of mental instability? Of apocalypse? Whatever it “meant”, it woke the audience from their reveries as Vaughan Williams’s lark ascended (robustly, in the violin of Alina Ibragimova), and Mahler’s meadow flowers spoke to him (in Britten’s arrangement of the second movement of his Third Symphony). And then, after cuckoos and summer nights on the river from Delius, there was Britten himself. His late folksong suite, A Time There Was, was played with a will, and conducted by Garry Walker with the sentient intelligence and supple sensitivity that he had brought to everything in this nature-study of an evening.
Calendar
Next Production
Padmore sings Mahler
Bradford on Avon, Cambridge and London
12 - 17 May 2012
Due to family illness, Mark Padmore has had to withdraw from this performance. He will be replaced by baritone Roderick Williams.
Britten Sinfonia at Lunch 4
West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge
01 May 2012 1:00pm
Renowned tenor, Mark Padmore joins Britten Sinfonia for the final concert in the 2011-12 At Lunch series. At the centre of this programme is a work by British composer, Jonathan Dove, co-commissioned by Britten Sinfonia and Wigmore Hall with support from the Tenner for a Tenor campaign.
Britten Sinfonia at Lunch 4
Wigmore Hall, London
02 May 2012 1:00pm
Renowned tenor, Mark Padmore joins Britten Sinfonia for the final concert in the 2011-12 At Lunch series. At the centre of this programme is a work by British composer, Jonathan Dove, co-commissioned by Britten Sinfonia and Wigmore Hall with support from the Tenner for a Tenor campaign.
Norfolk & Norwich Festival - Padmore Sings Mahler
St Andrew's Hall, Norwich
11 May 2012 7:30pm
Due to family illness, Mark Padmore has had to withdraw from this performance. He will be replaced by baritone Roderick Williams.
Padmore sings Mahler
Wiltshire Music Centre, Bradford on Avon
12 May 2012 7:30pm
Due to family illness, Mark Padmore has had to withdraw from this performance. He will be replaced by baritone Roderick Williams.
Padmore sings Mahler
West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge
16 May 2012 7:30pm
Due to family illness, Mark Padmore has had to withdraw from this performance. He will be replaced by baritone Roderick Williams.
Padmore sings Mahler
Southbank Centre's Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
17 May 2012 7:30pm
Due to family illness, Mark Padmore has had to withdraw from this performance. He will be replaced by baritone Roderick Williams.
Brighton Festival - Mahler & Schubert
Corn Exchange, Brighton Dome, Brighton
19 May 2012 7:30pm
Due to family illness, Mark Padmore has had to withdraw from this performance. He will be replaced by baritone Roderick Williams.
Bury St Edmunds Festival
The Apex, Bury St. Edmunds
20 May 2012 7:30pm
Britten Sinfonia returns to the festival for in 2012.
Brighton Festival - King Priam
Corn Exchange, Brighton Dome, Brighton
27 May 2012 7:00pm
‘I have to sing songs for those who can’t sing for themselves. Those songs come from the torments and horrors that have happened. I can’t lose faith in humanity.’ Sir Michael Tippett
Britten Sinfonia at Museo Reina Sofia
Museo Reina Sofia , Madrid
28 May 2012 7:30pm
Fabián Panisello conducts his song cycle Libro del Frio with soprano Allison Bell and Britten Sinfonia
