GEORGE NEWS - At the Arts Theatre on Saturday evening, in an entirely lateral movement, the George Music Society brought us a programme of 20th century French music presented by two delightful and talented musicians.
Throughout the evening we were kept informed as to what and why they had selected each composer and work.
The concert opened with an "hors d'oevre" with Antoine Ouvrard at the piano and Adam Campbell wandering down from the back of the theatre playing the saxophone.
This instrument was invented by a Belgian, Antoine Joseph Sax, in 1846.
The programme opened with Tableaux de Provence by the little-known French female composer Paule Maurice.
This suite is programmatic and characterises young people in love, gypsy dances and ends with a frenetic Bumble Bee. We became aware of the rapport between these two musicians who watched each other carefully through the changes of tempo and moods in this work.
Maurice Ravel wrote the orchestral suite Miroirs as a ballet. He then changed it as a work for piano and it was this version we heard.
The work is full of vigorous rhythms and dances interspersed with a variety of moods and Ouvrard negotiated these nimbly and with a great understanding of the composer.
Poulenc dedicated the last movement of his oboe sonata, Déploration, to his friend Sergei Prokofiev. Coincidentally this was the last music Poulenc wrote. The first movement is a reflective élégie followed by a skittish scherzo. The sonata consists of a variety of different moods and dynamics and employs the full range of the instruments.
After the interval we heard Prélude, cadence et finale by Alfred Desenclos. This was written as a contest piece while Desenclos was a student.
Christian Lauba was born in Tunisia, North Africa and his music incorporates many rhythms and tunes of this country. As the melody of Balafon ambled along I became aware of a kind of conversation between a man and a woman that used the instrument's full potential. It was a masterful piece of playing and the audience was left stunned.
The last piece in the programme was Darius Milhaud's ever popular Scaramouche suite. The work opens with a lively movement followed by a dreamy, melodic second movement where the three main themes come together at the end. A Brazilian samba brings this suite to a resounding end; and the audience responded suitably.
This was a very different concert that took us out of our comfort zones of classical and romantic music and I would like to encourage the society to bring us more of the same.
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