Entry for August 12, 2007 – Marlowe Music Week pictures up!

I’ve now put up all the pictures Stephen and I took during Marlowe Music Week. There is one big index which will take you to all of our Marlowe pictures, and not just this year’s: Marlowe Ensemble pictures by Helen Stephenson and Stephen Andrews

Some of my pictures this year aren’t very good, as I relied too heavily on the shake reduction facility of my new digital SLR camera and tried to take pictures at ridiculously slow shutter speeds.

Many of Stephen’s pictures could be improved by editing, but if Stephen wants them edited, he will have to do it himself, as I’ve got plenty of unedited pictures of my own to worry about without taking on his as well! 🙂

The picture is of me playing away on Friday evening during our Full Orchestra session.

Entry for August 10, 2007 – Full Orchestra

Friday evening saw us gathered in the hall belonging to the Holy Redeemer Church in Days Lane, Sidcup for our final musical activity of Marlowe Music Week: Full Orchestra conducted by Malcolm’s son Nick.

The music on our stands consisted of Mozart’s Idomeneo Overture, arranged by Aubrey Winter, Sullivan’s Overture to The Yeomen of the Guard, Wagner’s Mastersinger’s Overture, and Dvorak’s 5th Symphony in F Major. The parts we were playing off predated the renumbering of Dvorak’s symphonies and proclaimed it to be his third, but that has been known to be incorrect for a good many years now. They were tattered dog-eared parts which have been through the hands of many musicians.

I nearly brought things to a halt during the Dvorak when I went to take a breath and my reed followed my lips instead of staying on my crook, and as I opened my mouth, the reed fell. I wasn’t wearing a skirt, so had nothing to catch it, and it went onto the floor and disappeared from sight. I dared not stand up to look for it for fear of stepping on it, but a sharp-eyed young trombonist behind me spotted it under my chair nestled up against my handbag. He leant forward and retrieved it and handed it back to me and as he sat back into his chair, he upset his music stand!

I gave the retrieved reed a bit of a wipe with my fingers, put it back on my crook and resumed playing. I hope they’ve cleaned the floor recently… 🙂

There was a presentation session after the tea break. Malcolm and Sheila got theatre ticket vouchers in recognition of their hard work in making the Music Week happen. There was also recognition for Mary, the hostess of Thursday’s barbecue, and for the various people who had served refreshments and washed up afterwards. Joyce, who was our “Party Pieces” hostess, and also hostessed a lunch on Tuesday, received a token of our appreciation at the end of the “Party Pieces” evening.

Stephen took along a laptop which I had loaded up with the pictures we’ve taken during the week, and it was a popular gathering point during the tea break. I think my website will be getting a few hits over the next few days. I’d better get Stephen’s pictures online!

Today’s picture is one that Stephen took during the Full Orchestra session. It shows the two bass players; who were both wearing blue shirts, the bassoon section consisting of Margaret and myself; and most of the brass section.

Entry for August 09, 2007 – Party Pieces

Thursday evening of Marlowe Music Week saw us all gathered at Joyce’s house for “Party Pieces”.

Folding chairs arrived with some of the audience and were set up in the front room; and the double doors were thrown open between the front and back rooms, exposing our “stage” for the evening. The evening’s programme was taped over a picture frame.

We settled in for the first half, where we heard a polished performance of a trio sonata, a couple of piano solos, one of which was definitely on the light-hearted side; and some singing. Oh, and I think the horn solo was in the first half as well. The horn player arrived from stage left – actually he appeared through the french windows from the garden!

We had a light supper and enjoyed Joyce’s garden as dusk fell. We returned after our “interval” for some more music, plus a monologue performed by Malcolm. It was all about the Battle of Hastings and it was pretty good.

The evening finished in the traditional way with a rendition of the Four Indian Love Lyrics by Amy Woodforde-Finden. Which reminds me: I must remind Stephen that if any copies of them come through the charity shop that he should purchase them for the Marlowe Ensemble, as we still don’t have quite enough copies for every singer to have their own copy. 🙂

Entry for August 09, 2007 – Classical Orchestra

It was Thursday morning, so it had to be Classical Orchestra! It was a good-sized orchestra, and included eight cellos and two double basses. There were no clarinets (this was music written before the clarinet became commonplace) but there were flutes, oboes, bassoons, horns and trumpets. There was also one mandolin player at the back of one of the violin sections.

We read through Schubert’s Symphony No.5 in B major D485, Joseph Haydn’s Symphony 98 (Oxford) and Mozart’s little-known Symphony No.36 KV425. I have to say it isn’t one of the better Mozart symphonies, but the final movement was just about up to Mozart’s usual standards.

We nearly had chaos at one point. People had lost their place and the music ground to a halt and it turned out that the wind players had letters on their parts, the conductor had bar numbers on his, while the string players didn’t appear to have any rehearsal marks at all. It took a lot of discussion to get us all synchronised for the mid-movement restart!

The lady with the mandolin has a trumpet she would like to get rid of and I’d expressed an interest. She brought it along today and one of the horn players (who is also a trumpet player) looked it over for me. He doesn’t think there’s much wrong with it, but suspects that there is an obstruction in it somewhere. Anyway, I’ve brought it home, but wonder whether I’d do better to get Stephen a new or near-new student trumpet rather than spending money on getting the used one fixed.

Most of the assembled company attended a barbecue lunch, but I came home to take it easy for the afternoon. Well, sort-of easy. I’m doing some laundry as I’m running short of clothes! Plus catching up on this blog. I’m having a busy week and there’s lots to write about. 🙂

Entry for August 08, 2007 – Wind chamber music

Wednesday evening saw a collection of twelve people in a house (fortunately a detached one!) on the edge of Blackheath. We were playing wind dectets. The extra two people were Malcolm, who was taking a well-deserved evening off (he\’s the main organiser of the week) and Nick, who played his clarinet some of the time and conducted us for the rest of the time.

Two flutes, two oboes, two or three clarinets, two bassoons and two horns sat themselves down in a circle with their music stands touching around the inner circle and proceeded to work their way through a Raff dectet, and arrangement of Carmina Burana for wind dectet (which definitely needed Nick to conduct rather than play) and two Richard Strauss dectets. Actually, I think the Strauss had twelve parts, as there were two spare horn parts which remained unplayed.

Then Terry, our host for the evening, provided a light supper.

The picture is another one from the coffee morning. My music pad ensures that my chubby chin cannot be seen in this photo. 🙂

Entry for August 08, 2007 – Coffee Morning concert

Wednesday morning’s Marlowe Music Week activity was a coffee morning, which took the form of a light music concert where the audience enjoyed light refreshments while we played.

Here was the programme:

• Tik Tak Polka (Strauss)
• Chanson de Matin (Elgar)
• George Gershwin Melodies
• Among the Poppies (Second movement of ‘From the Countryside’ by Eric Coates
• Stephen Foster Fantasy
• Second New Sullivan Selection (well it was new about 80 years ago!)

INTERVAL

• Arcadians Overture
• Capricious Hoe Down (strongs only)
• The Lost Chord (Sullivan – sung by Carl, who emerged from behind his double bass for this number)
• Cavalleria Rusticana
• The King and I
• The Dam Busters

The audience had a good time and we raised nearly £200 for the church whose hall we have been using all week.

The picture shows Margaret and myself conferring prior to the start of the concert.

The orchestra configuration for this concert was that the string players were at the front of the main hall, with the woodwind players in one line across the front of the stage and the brass players in a second line behind the woodwind players. This configuration does mean that it’s a good idea not to wear a short skirt! As you can see, my yellow outfit covered up the parts that should remain covered up, as did Margaret’s black trousers.

Entry for August 07, 2007 – Light music rehearsal and band rehearsal

Today’s Marlowe Music Week activity was a rehearsal of the light music to be performed tomorrow at the coffee morning where we have our one and only paying audience for the week. We ran through the whole programme and ironed out a few bumps and wrinkles.

Most of the musicians then headed off for lunch with one of the cellists at her place, but I returned home, where I discovered that Stephen had gone down to his Mum’s, so I was home alone.

I made myself some lunch and sat down with a Greater Than Killer Sudoku (here’s the latest one: http://www.killersudokuonline.com/#gtkweekly) and it didn’t seem long before Stephen was home again. As this week is a holiday, if I spend the afternoons chilling out with a Killer Sudoku, then so be it.

As the Marlowe Activity this evening didn’t require bassoons, I put in an appearance at the Beckenham Concert Band’s rehearsal. We spent the evening working on Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances and Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance. After mostly playing things straight through with the orchestra earlier in the day, it was interesting to sit down with the band and really dissect some quite challenging music.

I took back the purple band jacket I wore on the bandstand in Greenwich Park the other weekend. The band’s next outing is in Surrey and I’m undecided about whether to put my hand up for it. I’ve been on that particular gig for the past two years, and as I’m not a “regular” in the band, I don’t feel that I have to do it if I don’t want to this year. By taking the jacket back, I don’t have it hanging up at home acting as an influence making me do that gig (and travelling there!) but if I change my mind and decide nearer the time that I want to go, the wardrobe department will be happy to lend it to me again. Meanwhile they’re just as happy to have it hanging up in the band’s wardrobe than at my house.

Entry for August 06, 2007 – Wind Chamber Music

This evening we had a group of nine wind players: two flautists, one oboist, two clarinettists, two bassoonists and two french horn players.

We actually played octets most of the evening and the two flautists doubled on the same part.

Donizetti was first up. He was a bit weird, and was followed by a modern French composer whose music was more than a bit weird. We struggled to the end of the piece, missing out the odd repeat here and there, and actually enjoying parts of it!

Then out came the Mozart Serenade in C minor for two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons and two horns. It comes out about this time most years, and although I don’t generally play it in between, I have got to know it. Margaret elected to play first bassoon, and I went along with that. She said afterwards if she’d remembered what was in the Finale she might have given the first part to me to play. 🙂 I think Margaret’s actually in better practice than I am, though, so I didn’t remind her about the Finale when she chose to play first. It’s nice to share the work out.

After that it was the turn of Beethoven, and then we finished up with the Overture to the Marriage of Figaro arranged for wind octet and went and enjoyed the refreshments laid on by the Brocklebanks, whose front room we had been occupying.

Entry for August 05, 2007 – Marlowe Music Week has begun!

This evening, we got Marlowe Music Week off to a flying start with chamber music at the Youngs’ place.

We started out with a string group upstairs and a mixed string, wind and piano group downstairs, which is where I was playing. Our double bass player (who is also a jolly good clarinettist) had heard an arrangement of Dvorak’s Serenade for Strings in E major, Op.22 arranged for piano, two violins, viola, double bass, clarinet, horn and bassoon and he’d tracked down the sheet music, which took a lot of effort. Apparently Dvorak started writing this serenade for this instrumentation, but the piece in this form was lost, so the arranger was trying to recreate it.

I found the bassoon part a bit tricky as it had a lot of very low notes. They are probably easier to play on the bottom string of a cello than on a bassoon, where they require a lot of dexterity with the left thumb!

Anyway, we played all the way through the piece and it sounded like Dvorak’s Serenade, although our rendition was not entirely according to the printed music on our stands!

Then we stopped for some cool drinks and sat out in the garden in a lovely summer’s evening and chatted while we took on liquid.

We went back inside and reformed into a different groups with all the string players gathering downstairs and a wind quintet retiring to the upstairs back room, where we played Gordon Jacob, an arrangement for wind quintet of a Mozart string quartet, and a short fun piece where Beethoven’s 5th had been given the Bosa Nova treatment!

It was an enjoyable start to our week of music making.

The picture isn’t related to music: it’s Stephen holding Ace the owl earlier in the day at Sedlescombe.

Entry for August 05, 2007 – Step back in time – working bygones

Stephen and I went to Step Back in Time – Working Bygones Show at Sedlescombe in East Sussex today.

The traffic jams on the A21 were not good, and we were tempted to stop at a car boot sale along the way and not persist with the traffic, but we made the effort and we found the show down a narrow country lane in East Sussex.

The highlights of the show were working farm machinery and working heavy horses. We also each got our picture taken with an owl from the 1066 Falconry tent. My picture is above, and I’m holding Horace. I don’t think he’s any relation of my father, although they share a name!