22nd October – Rush Hour concert
Two new young composers will be featured in our Rush Hour concert on October 22nd – Declan Molloy (top left) and Phoenix Archbold (bottom right). Their work will brought to life by Bridget Carey (viola), Hugh Webb (harp) and Nancy Ruffer (flute) who we last heard in their delighful Debussy/Archbold recital back in March.
Declan studied music at Oxford and at the Royal Academy, and has since also worked in musical theatre and in film, one of his films being selected for screening at the Slamdance Film Festival in Utah.
In the piece we are playing tonight, The Elements, each of the four movements captures one of the earth’s four main elements: water, wind, earth and fire.
Phoenix first studied composition while at school and then at the Royal College of Music Junior Department.
Her piece, Meandering Shadows takes us through a forest containing many shadows, represented by the harmonics in all three instruments. In the melodic lines the instruments literally shadow each other.
In between the pieces the trio will ring the mood changes with three Astor Piazzolla tangos.
£15 for the concert and one (or several) glasses of wine. Book here.
40 hours of Vexations – 17th -19th October at the St Pancras Clock Tower
No one really knows what Eric Satie’s Vexations was all about. Wikipedia suggests that it could be:
- Satie’s coming to terms with (or sending up) Wagner’s ‘unending melody’.
- A suggestion that any harmonic and rhythmic system was only a matter of habit for the hearer so that after listening 840 times to a chordal system that is at odds with any habitual one one would possibly start to experience this new system to be as natural as any other.
- A piece sufficiently ‘vexatious’ that it would help him forget being rejected by his lover Suzanne Valadon
- A spoof on the very popular 19th century perpetuum mobile genre with an ‘indefinite’ number of repeats, mostly leaning on dextrous virtuosity.
Nor does anyone know whether Satie ever really meant Vexations to be performed – he never mentioned it, certainly never played it and it was not published in his lifetime. Given that playing it involved repeating the same short motif, probably on the piano, 840 times taking somewhere between 30 and 40 hours, it is not a piece for the faint hearted.
None the less a number of pianists have take up the challenge the most recent being Igor Levit in May 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 840 sheets of music were sold individually to assist out-of-work musicians. More common have been ‘shared’ performances where several pianists have taken on the task – and that is what will happen at the St Pancras Clock Tower on the 17-19th October.
Ten pianists will rotate over 40 hours, each playing for approximately an hour and twenty minutes – and all to raise money for Help Musicians.
If you want to get involved you can drop by the Clock Tower at any point between 10am on the 17th and 2am on the 19th – or you can check in to the Live Stream.
For more information go here.
And do not forget to look at our Upcoming Events page for other concerts not listed in this post.
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