- Press Reviews
Gower Festival Concert, Concerto 'delle Donne, Swansea Bach Choir, All Saints' Church, Oystermouth - 14 July
The voices of Concerto delle Donne, Donna Deam, Gill Ross and Faye Newton blended with the female singers of the Swansea Bach Choir in this fascinating insight into the tradition of French religious music.
The concert's central figure was Marc-Antoine Charpentier — forgotten until the 1970s but now re-established as the greatest composer of the French Baroque,
His motets and miniature oratorios for women's voices show him developing away from Italian influence to a distinctively French musical character, short sectional contrasts and complex vocal layering producing an extraordinary combination of fervour and opulence.
The tradition was carried on by Charpentier’s successor Couperin, whose Tenebrae Lessons for two high voices, ravishingly sung in this performance, are as a musical depiction of Holy Week about as unlike his contemporary Bach’s St Matthew Passion as one could imagine.
We were also given some 19th and 20th Century works by Poulenc and Caplet, together with Faure’s beautiful Canticle de Jean Racine. In between, organist Alastair Ross played solo pieces including Dunrufle’s marvelously atmospheric Chorale Variations.
John Hugh Thomas conducted with real style and flair.
NHR
Libor Novacek, St George's, Reynoldston - 16 July
The Gower Festival has welcomed many terrific pianists in its time, but few can have made so powerful an impression as the young Czech Libor Novacek — an impression as much of his stamina as his musicianship, since he drove 200 miles from Uppingham to play an extraordinarily demanding programme at Reynoldston, and then 200 miles straight back again.
The hard-living temperament was well suited to an early Brahms sonata, full of impetuous
rhapsodic surges, and to the closing item, Debussy's Fireworks.
The piano nearly exploded. But Novacek was equally at home in gentler Mozart, and especially in Janacek's In the Mists, a kind of Czech homage to Debussy, but with its own quirky strangeness.
Novacek held nothing back – he seemed to be playing with his entire body, lungs included -and he established a charming rapport with the audience. A virtuosic triumph.
NHR
Red Priest: Pirates of the Baroque; St John the Evangelist Church, Gowerton - 17 July
The timbers of St John's were soundly shivered by the colourful virtuosity and lively stagecraft of a piratical quartet named Red Priest, in honour of the flame-haired Venetian Antonio Vivaldi.
Their talent and costumed buccaneering put both bite and barque into the baroque which they firmly believe must not be knocked but soundly rocked.
Theirs is the kind of music which takes captives and makes converts. The calm waters of Gower were transformed by tempestuous energies.
The rapid recorder-playing of Piers Adams was matched in agility by the ricochet bowing of his wife Julia Bishop, and the warm sonorities of Angela East's 1725 cello complemented the corsair continuo of creative re-arranger Howard Beach.
Performing without scores, they swaggered and swashbuckled their way through the concert with disciplined abandon.
Their theme was the rapacious pirating of musical ideas, but the irreverent skill with which they spiked the musical canon in the Adagio e spiccato of L'Estro Armonico, Op. 3, Concerto No. 11 in D minor showed them worthy of their name.
MJF
Lucy Crowe and Anna Tilbrook, St Illtyd's, Ilston - 18 July
The Gower Festival keeps unearthing magnificent young singers, and the latest is the soprano Lucy Crowe, whose recital with the pianist Anna Tilbrook covered a wide range of period and mood.
Her voice is effortlessly powerful, clear, naturally expressive. Having warmed up with Purcell and Handel, she moved on to Schubert, Gretchen am Spinnrade and Nacht und Traume quite electrifying, and her Richard Strauss group brimmed over also with intensity of feeling.
Stepping through the porch for the interval one sensed the sunlight drawing in, the stream rustling by the shadowy churchyard.
Thank goodness the second half was lighter in mood — apart from a harrowing piece by Ivor Gurney — and towards the end she displayed a real gift for comedy and jazz as well.
Anna Tiibrook was a marvellously sensitive and discreet accompanist.
NHR
Wihan Quartet, St Teilo's Bishopston - 19 July
What is it about the Czech Republic that it produces so many superb musicians?
Whatever the reason, Gower Festival audiences have every right to be grateful —having enjoyed the talents of, first, Libor Novacek and now the Wihan Quartet, one of the very best, in the same week.
It can't be overstated how amazing it is that, for the price of a ticket to a conference or football match, you can go to a small Gower church and hear performers you would normally expect to find at Carnegie Hall.
The Wihan played Haydn's half-courtly, half rustic Lark with simple delicacy and beautifully clear articulation in the rapid finale.
Schubert's Rosamunde quartet was full of wistful dances that somehow suggested warmth and chill at the same time, and the closing item, Dvorak's opus 61 was in the hands of such masters, so mellow and burnished and seamlessly eloquent that it became just music; you hardlynoticed anyone was playing it. Nobody wanted to leave.
NHR
Acoustic Triangle, St Cenydd, Llangennith - 21 July
The Gower Festival commands a growing international reputation for the quality of its classical musicians.
In recent years the festival has developed an exciting and innovative dynamism. At the Llangennith concert last weekend, the trio Acoustic Triangle created a unique blend of sounds and improvisations drawn from a variety of musical traditions.
The melding of classical and jazz styles is seldom attempted and rarely successful but this versatile group produced a thrilling and creative programme.
The trio achieved a lyrical, almost gentle, mood with mellow saxophone, subtle double bass and sensitive piano in ‘And then she was gone’ (Simcock) and ‘Rosa Ballerina’ (Garland).
By contrast, remarkable energy and drive underpinned two numbers, Buleria (Garland) and Fundero (Simcock), both of which acknowledged strong Hispanic influences.
An extended work, Coffee Time (John Taylor) was the perfect platform for the extraordinary talent of young Welsh pianist, Gwilym Simcock.
RFD
The Vermeer Piano Trio, St Cenydd, Llangennith - 23 July
Although Colin Firth was notably absent from St Cenydd's and pear! earrings were limited to the audience, the spirit of Jan Vermeer triumphed in the subtle chromatics of the electrifying trio that bears his name.
The perfection of balance and dynamics achieved by the three superb technicians produced a sonorous synaesthesia of colour and sound.
The violinist Ruth Palmer, who received a Young British Classical Performer Brit Award in May, bows with a spell-binding intensity and was matched by the confident maturity of Naomi Williams's taut playing and rich cello tones.
Alexei Grynyuk is a powerful but sensitive pianist and there was a visible empathy between all three performers as keyboard percussiveness was captivated by the sinuous strength of strings. Nuances of mood and meaning played between composer, performers and audience in exploratory and engaging performances of the Ravel and Tchaikovsky A minor trios.
The Ravel was a late substitution, unfortunately for the billed Mendelssohn Piano Trio Op, 49, which would have provided a D minor test of dynamics.
MJF
Partita at St Cattwg's Church, Port Eynon - 24 July
No classical composer wrote for wind instruments with as much understanding and affection as Mozart. And in their Gower Festival concert at Port Eynon, the wind group Partita returned Mozart's compliment.
Besides two of his wind sextets for clarinets, horns and bassoons, they performed pieces for the same combination of instruments by Beethoven and Weber, playing throughout with a rhythmic zest and variety of colouring that was captivating.The concert was also a lesson in the advantages of playing this music on instruments of the period.
They may be more fallible and less powerful than their modern descendants, but they have a speaking quality, echoing the human voice, and a subtlety of articulation and dynamic shading which modern wind instruments perhaps lack.
Hearing them played with skill and infectious enthusiasm, and hearing the young musicians of Partita talking about their instruments, too, made for an enthralling evening's entertainment.
HD
The Henschel Quartet, Church of Saints Rhidian and Illtyd, Llanrhidian - 26 July
Like some famous German quartets of the past, the young Henschel Quartet is a family affair. Twin brothers Christof and Markus Henschel take the violin parts. Their sister Monika plays the viola. And only the cellist of the group, Mathias Beyer-Karlshj, comes from outside the family circle.
Their Gower Festival concert at Llanrhidian began appropriately with the greatest of all German composers. Beethoven. His early B flat Quartet is tuneful, witty and, in the scherzo, rhythmically teasing. But perhaps the best playing of the evening came in the very different sound world of Shostakovic"s Eighth Quartet. Written in Dresden in 1960, this music is sad, eerie and at times, violent. It evokes war and the victims of war, and the Henschels caught its mood to perfection.
They ended with a different sound world again, the 'new world' of Dvorak. Combining native American folk tunes with those of his native Bohemia, Dvorak's F major Quartet is popular and the Henschels' lively performance will have won the work new friends. Generously, they gave their audience an encore. This was their first visit to Wales — the first of many let's hope.
HD
Jennifer Pike (violin) and John Reid (piano) St Peter's Church, Newton - 27 July
The peaceful setting of St Peter's Church was invigorated with the energy of young talent at the penultimate night of the Gower Festival 2007.
Jennifer Pike (violin) and John Reid (Piano) captivated the large audience from the outset with a programme that showcased amazing virtuosity and deep musical expression.
The rapport between the musicians was evident as they opened with Schubert's Sontatina in G minor. This demanding work was performed with panache. Jennifer Pike remained technically faultless throughout the virtuosic passages of Prokofiev's Sonata No 2 in D and in the lyrical passages revealed the beautiful sound of-her rare Venetian violin. This exceptional talent proved her musical maturity and sensitivity goes far beyond her 17 years.
The second half of the concert treated the audience to Eigar’s Sonata in E minor. In this the pair displayed immense stamina and musical power, leaving the audience demanding more and, true to form, the duo finished with two explosive encores.
Kathryn Bromham
The following Reviews of 2006 Gower Festival events are from the South Wales Evening Post
Orchestra of the Yehudi Menuhin School: All Saints, Oystermouth – 15 July
The 2006 Gower Festival got off to a flying start with the young string players of the multi-national Yehudi Menuhin School under their conductor Malcolm Singer.
The first half of the concert was given over to Vivaldi’s complete Four Seasons, deservedly the most popular of his works, combining virtuosity, charm and power, and it was fascinating to hear it played by musicians of about the same age as those for whom it was written, the young nuns of a Venetian convent.
The performance was suitably fresh and energetic. Each season was fronted by a different violin soloist; all four were excellent, the fourth, Mari Lee, exceptional.
Later, we had some spirited Mozart and a characteristically brooding and agitated work by Peter Maxwell Davies, before the orchestra produced a fitting farewell both to the audience and to several of it’s own members who were about to leave the school, with an inspired performance of Tchaikovsky’s glorious Serenade for Strings – outstanding playing. NHR
Swansea Bach Choir: All Saints Church, Oystermouth – 16 July
In the second of this year’s Gower Festival concerts, Swansea Bach Choir, under their director John Hugh Thomas, offered a programme on the Christian theme of faith, hope and charity.
The warm acoustic of Oystermouth Church is ideal for choral music and the choir’s wide range of dynamics and colour was heard to good effect in anthems by Harris, Lauridsen, Rutter and Geraint Lewis. Three sacred pieces by Rossini, ably conducted by Katie Thomas, provided a nice contrast in style. Songs by Samuel Barber and Alan Bush were performed with wit and assurance by Elin Manahan-Thomas and the pianist John Reid. But perhaps the highlight of the concert came with two works by Hilary Tann.
Commissioned for the choir’s 40th anniversary, her splendid setting of Psalm 86 was premiered. It was followed by The Moor – mysterious, withdrawn and wonderfully sensitive to the words of R S Thomas’s poem of the same name. HD
Galliard Ensemble: St Hilary’s, Killay – 17 July
The Galliard Ensemble are a collection of superbly accomplished young wind soloists, originally from the Royal Academy of Music and known throughout Europe and, on a sweltering evening at Killay, they showed glimpses of virtually the full range of the wind quintet repertoire.
Their suave, powerful Mozart was complimented by pieces from Milhaud and Ibert, deeply evocative of the rustic, outdoor origins of wind music, perfectly suited to the views of wooded hillsides and sunset from the church porch during the interval. By contrast, the absurdly difficult Scherzo by Bozza sounded like a wood pigeon crashing into a hornet’s nest, and the concert closed with two other modern works – a brief quintettino by Part, playful and violent, and Berio’s equally playful Opus Number Zoo, complete with spoken, or rather shouted texts, cartoon animal fights alternating with some beautiful, fragmentary contemplative passages. Holst’s Wind Quintet, recently discovered and reconstructed from his sketches, was in many ways the most absorbing work of the evening, the horn and bassoon more prominent than usual, the shifts of mood rapid and subtle. Marvellous playing throughout and a delightfully convivial atmosphere. NHR
Ruth Palmer and Katya Apekisheva: St John’s, Gowerton – 18 July
Two outstanding performers, and two different musical temperaments.
First, Ruth Palmer offered a Bach partita, her violin extracting every available touch of sensibility. She plays with an extraordinary physical expressiveness, as if her soul were turned inside-out, acting out the feelings she draws from this very difficult music.
For the second piece, a Mendelssohn sonata, she was joined by Katya Apekisheva.
Her assured, fluent, strongly rhythmed piano was a fine contrasting voice. The players’ different, but complimentary, personalities were particularly evident in the agitato of the last movement.
What would happen in the Cesar Franck double sonata that formed the second half of the evening?
Better than dialogue between the two – great drama, with each player inspired by the qualities of the other.
The drama rose to a pitch of intense energy in the third and fourth movements. In the familiar last section each instrument seemed to accommodate itself to the nature of the other and this produced a finale both lyrical and assured.
As an encore the very appreciative festival audience were treated to a witty and engaging ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’. AJV
Gower Festival Lecture: Reynoldston – 19 July
Malcolm and Ruth Ridge closed their festival lecture by outlining a wish list of what would help safeguard Gower as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which it has been for 50 years. This included a distinct section of the Local Authority dedicated to Gower; an agency to enforce constraints on inappropriate development; proper rewards for the farming community to help them maintain the living landscape; tourism development sensitive to the AONB status; and, possible extension of the area north east into Upper Gower.
This wish list concluded a researched and illustrated account of the process by which Gower became, in 1956, the first AONB in England and Wales.
The Gower Society was particularly active in getting the original area of 47 square miles extended to 73 by the inclusion of Fairwood and Clyne commons and coastal areas west of Mumbles.
An excellent slide show was followed by a lively question session which included the matter of dredging off Gower. AJV
Elizabeth Watts and Paul Plummer: St Illtyd’s, Ilston – 20 July
The standard of music making at this year’s Gower Festival has been quite exceptional, but this evening at Ilston may have been the best yet.
The church absolutely rang to the voice of one of the UK’s most exciting young singers.
Elizabeth Watts seemed equally at home in English, French and German repertoire, in drawing room charm and in operatic power.
Her Mozart was graceful, her Strauss passionate, her Debussy fiery and quirkily humorous, the settings of Traherne by Elizabeth Maconchy were virtuosic and striking.
Everything was faultlessly enunciated, in four languages, and touched with a perfectly judged sense of drama – with such expressive eyes I wonder if she’s been signed up for Carmen yet?
Among many highlights were the powerful and nicely contrasted Strauss group, Britten’s strangely dark, almost sinister arrangement of The Last Rose of Summer, and the half-ironic, half-tender setting by Geoffrey Bush of a scene from Virginia Woolf’s novel To The Lighthouse.
A word for Paul Plummer, whose expertly sensitive and unobtrusive accompaniments gave the singer the perfect platform to display a talent that will undoubtedly thrill many more audiences. NHR
Vertavo String Quartet: Sts Rhidian and Illtyd, Llanrhidian – 21 July
The Norwegian
all-female quartet reminded us how deeply attuned Frank Bridge was to
musical developments in Europe; an important composer in his own right, not
just the teacher of Benjamin Britten.
In this 250th anniversary year some Mozart was
obligatory, and the Vertavo's rendition of the Hunt quartet was
uncompromisingly vigorous, even rather driven at times, but with a kind of
austere delicacy in the slower, quieter passages, the cello playing
especially sensitive. The lyrical lines were beautifully shaped, the
passages of angry or ironic defiance given full measure.
The audience was torn between calling for an encore
and not wishing the impact of such a work and such a performance to be
diminished.
Martyna Jatkauskaite: St Gwynour’s Church, Blue Anchor – 22 July
Lithuanian pianist Martyna Jatkauskaite made a welcome and keenly anticipated return to the Gower Festival on Saturday, with a varied programme ranging from Scarlatti to Ligeti that allowed her to demonstrate many facets of her command of the instrument.
In the quieter moments of her recital a Scarlatti she showed subtlety and delicacy.
To one of Chopin’s more passionate Nocturnes she brought a broad romantic sweep.
This was a technically demanding programme performed with bravura and yet, despite the virtuosity and pyrotechnics, my abiding memory will be of the delicacy and restraint she brought to the Scarlatti. BC
Fidelio Piano Quartet: St
Cenydd's, Llangennith – 24 July
The Fidelio Quartet presented a well-designed and richly varied
programme, beginning with the first of Mozart's two piano quartets, a
powerful work full of tumultuous exchanges, especially in the first
movement.
The Fidelio's account of the dancing rondo, which
closes the work, was particularly good.
The Schumann Piano Quartet which followed is a work
that makes great demands on the performers - met without any difficulty
here.
The scherzo second movement and the lyrical andante
third, full of lovely string writing, were an unqualified joy.
After the interval, Faure's first quartet was like a
glass of cool champagne at the end of a hot Gower day, with its bubbling
scherzo and its sparkling closing allegro.
It all made for a richly enjoyable evening in
beautiful surroundings, much appreciated by a capacity audience. GP
Peter and Zoltan Katona: Oxwich – 25 July
The guitar duo,
twins Peter and Zoltan Katona, first visited the Gower Festival nine years
ago. On a perfect evening in Oxwich, an enthusiastic and knowledgeable
audience welcomed them back.
The evening programme began with an arrangement of a
Rossini overture. This gave a taste of the dramatic range, the percussive
and rhythmic energy and the lyrical facility of which the guitar is capable.
A Bach dance suite followed this, in all its many-voiced intricacy and
variety. A triumphant trio of dances from a Falla ballet was full of
Hispanic energy and melodrama. Falla appeared later in a stunning,
atmospheric and highly narrative series of extracts from another ballet,
displaying the wonderful energy, and artistry of the Katonas' playing. Two
other 20th Century pieces, by Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Piazzola, completed an
evening of brilliant musicianship. AJV
Gemma Rosefield and Michael
Dussek: St George's, Reynoldston – 26 July
In the intimate surroundings of Reynoldston church, the pianist
Michael Dussek and cellist Gemma Rosefield began with a powerful
interpretation of Beethoven's fourth cello sonata, and followed with
Webern's Three Short Pieces, which in such surroundings, sounded both more
approachable and more spiritual than they can in other contexts.
After Webern's terseness, Shostakovich sounded
positively garrulous in his Sonata in D minor; Michael Dussek made the most
of the clangorous writing for piano, and the mock-sinister finale was
splendid.
Finest of all was Chopin's Sonata, in which both were
perfectly attuned to the work's long melodic lines; the tone of Rosefield's
Gagliano cello of 1704 was at its most ravishing. The dancing rhythms of
David Popper's Hungarian Rhapsody and the lyricism of Mendelssohn's Song
Without Words rounded out a joyful evening. GP
The following Reviews of 2005 Gower Festival events are from the South Wales Evening Post
Laurette Pope: St Illtyd’s Church, Oxwich - 19 July
The Swansea-born harpist Laurette Pope gave a delightful recital in the seaside setting of Oxwich Church. Her technical skill and sensitivity were formidable and her enthusiasm for her instrument and its music were most warmly communicated. It is unfortunate that the repertoire for solo harp should be so thin, the problem being to find works which stretch beyond salon grace and impressionist shimmer to pose some real imaginative and interpretive questions. In the respect, while the Faure Impromptu was robust and challenging, the Sonatas by Dussek and John Parry attractively delicate, and the Fantasie by Spohr - with its reminiscences of, or borrowings from, Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata - set considerable physical demands, the most interesting music was the most modern. In their harp pieces the two Welsh composers William Mathias and Gareth Glyn, without losing sight altogether of the instrument's traditions, explored unusual sonorities and a range of harmonic and rhythmic complexity to produce a blend of old and new. It would be good for more modern composers to investigate the harp's potential, especially with such brilliant young performers as Laurette Pope to inspire them - as she has herself was inspired, as she told us, by hearing Gower Festival harpists as a girl. (NHR)
Buddug James (Mezzo-Soprano), Andrew Wilson-Dickson (Piano) and Penclawdd Primary School pupils: Penclawdd - 21 July
Buddug James is a wonderfully versatile singer (from Baroque opera to jazz). In a programme called A Celebration of Cultures as part of the Gower Festival, she presented an enterprisingly chosen sequence of folk songs, set by composers ranging from Haydn to contemporaries such as James Macmillan. She sang convincingly in at least half a dozen languages and she has the good recitalist's gift of creating a convincing character very quickly, helped by her expressive face and gestures. Her voice is particularly powerful in its lower registers and Ravel's Kaddish was especially memorable.
Andrew Wilson-Dickson's accompaniment was as impeccable as one would expect, and a particular delight came in a newly commissioned piece from him, excellently performed by choir and instrumentalists (including sweeping brush!) from Penclawdd Primary School. (GP)
Rebecca Carrington: Reynoldston Village Hall - 22 July
Rebecca Carrington conjured a wonderful evening of musical entertainment with just her own 18th Century cello and highly inventive skills. She is a fine, classically trained cellist. She has a good strong singing voice and a talent for all kinds of musical mimicry, with a sense of humour that flowers as she performs. She can make her cello mimic the sound of the bagpipes, the indian sitar, the one-string Japanese fiddle, the blues guitar and more besides. To this she adds her own parodic singing, or imitations of accompanying instruments, such as Miles Davis’ trumpet or a wah-wah trombone. Larking about with classical instruments is nothing new, but Rebecca Carrington uses her performance to showcase not only her own range and versatility but that of the often under-exploited instrument she plays. And her own compositions reveal deep feeling for diverse musical traditions. (AJV)
London Concertante: St Peter’s Church, Newton - 23 July
The London Concertante are a seven-piece string orchestra whose programme at St Peter’s was a perfectly judged demonstration of their gifts and versatility. Mozart’s early D Major divertimento had an arresting grace and beauty, a sonata by the 12 year old Rossini was full of foretastes of the liveliness and wit in his later works, and Bartok’s Romanian Dances were brought evocatively and exotically to life. Two works beautiful in other ways were Elgar’s famous Serenade for Strings, a miracle of thematic unity with a wonderfully soaring slow movement, and Samuel Barber’s even more famous Adagio, a tune of lament and consolation, played with an intensity that had the audience almost pinioned. The final work was Holst’s St Paul’s suite, full of gigs and reels and a homage to Tudor England, with the Greensleeves tune blazing out over wild figurations. A delightful concert with, unusually, an encore in each half in contrasting styles – a languid Piazolla tango, and a frantic Gypsy Rhapsody to finish, composed by one of the Concertante’s violinists – a hint of what’s to come in next Saturday’s performance by one of this group’s offshoots, Zum. (NHR)
Wendy Dawn Thompson: St John’s Church, Gowerton - 27 July
The young New Zealand-born mezzo-soprano Wendy Dawn Thompson was a finalist at this year's Cardiff Singer of the World competition, and showed why in her superb recital at St John's. She was completely at home in a considerable variety of styles, ranging from some of Schubert's more mournful lieder to the brittle after-hours cabaret wit of William Balcom. Her rendition of Schubert's Der Musensohn was full of irresistible gaiety. Passion and vulnerability came through equally strongly in a Richard Strauss group, and she switched without strain to the French repertoire, some Debussy and three exquisite songs by the under-valued Reynaldo Hahn. The emotional character of each piece was effortlessly inhabited, and she sang with an infectious enjoyment as well as great feeling and musicianship - an opera star of the future.
Her accompanist, Lindy Tennent-Brown, also from New Zealand, was a perfect foil, her playing subtly complementing the singer and often reaching tremendous heights of dramatic expressiveness. Rarely can a wet evening in Gowerton have been so alluringly transfigured. (NHR)
Oboeworks: St Mary’s Church, Rhossili - 28 July
It's a long way to Rhossili, especially when the wind is from the west and the rain is falling. But those who made the journey for the Gower Festival concert at St Mary's Church were rewarded with some fine music. Generously sponsored by Norman Smart, the performers were the oboist Imogen Triner, with string-players Roger Huckle, Moira Alabaster and Richard May, who are collectively called Oboeworks. The heart of their programme was Mozart's Oboe Quartet, a miniature masterpiece with a slow movement recalling the composer's operatic style and a dancing finale. The oboe was heard alone in Britten's vivid Metamorphoses after poems by Ovid. But the most intriguing music-making came in a work by Peter McGann. Inspired by an old photograph of a holidaying couple, it offered all kinds of surprises - from mouth-organ tunes to the voices of children playing. Not for the first time Gower provided just the right background for an evocative performance. (HD)
Brodsky Quartet: Sts Rhidian and Illtyd Church, Llanrhidian - 29 July
There are so many excellent string quartets around nowadays, and many of them have appeared at the Gower Festival in recent years - the Belcea, the Salomon, the Skampa - but this year we have had two, the superb Vanbrugh Quartet last week and now the renowned Brodsky at Llanrhidian. They follow a growing modern trend of playing standing up, and this seemed to intensify the projection of every last detail of the music. An early, high-spirited work of Schubert's was followed by the seamlessly inventive quartets by Debussy, who cannot have written anything more beautiful than the closing bars of the slow movement, a bird rising over a grave. Smetana's first quartet is a tremendous work, deeply personal, written out of his struggle with encroaching deafness; it is full of fierce gestures, chill laments, defiant efforts at dancing, and sudden brightenings of melody, before falling away into silence. The Brodskys played the entire programme with great sensitivity and power, never losing the balance and the sense of mutual sympathy between the instruments that lifts a quartet into the highest class. They let their hair down, too, in a rousing Sarasate encore that sent everyone out whistling. (NHR)
Zum: Llangennith Village Hall - 30 July
This year's Gower Festival came to an exhilarating close with a remarkable performance by five-piece band Zum. Their eclectic music fuses gypsy fiddle-playing with modern jazz, tango with klezmer, Irish jig with palm court. Everything is held together by the virtuosity and wit of their playing, both as individuals and as an ensemble. Violin (Adam Summerhayes), piano (David Gordon), cello (Chris Grist), bass (Jonny Gee) and accordion (Eddie Hession) are blended in music of tremendous rhythmic drive and passion, or of hushed delicacy. There are abrupt changes of tempo, idiom and mood, both within individual tunes and between tunes. Everything they do has an underlying sense of dance - whether a tango by Astor Piazzolla or Thelonious Monk's Round Midnight. A packed audience loved it! (GP)
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