Fabbo!
Thus the conductor of the orchestra I play in emailed the Committee.
Always on the lookout for clever means of funding, the ever efficient secretary contacted one of those composer trusts, because we were playing a symphony by this guy- early 20thC English, never heard of him and they have given us £500. That will pay for the hire of the Church on the afternoon and evening of the concert, or most of it anyway. The other piece is Dvorak 8 and that will come from Westminster City Music Library, is out of copyright and will cost a lot less to perform.
Repertoire often comes down to - no soloist, no harp, no extra wind, timps only and out of copyright. (Harps with a harpist for the afternoon rehearsal and evening concert cost £100 each.) As the conductor likes early 20thC French stuff, it can be tricky. We get threatened with having to play Mozart and Beethoven symphonies if we are short of cash, but most of us would be happy to do Mozart 41 or Beethoven 7 now and then!
Committee meetings have taken the form of us sitting in a cafe at the South Bank, listing repertoire with people saying rude things about stuff they don't like. I'm still rooting for Brahms 3 and St John's Waterloo as a venue, but we always come back to the same 3 places, which work fine...so we stick with them.
Brahms 3, Brahms 3, Brahms 3
5 comments:
Brahms 3! Absolutely. 4 is a cliche, 2 is a little worn, but 3 still has a lot of mileage.
Which early 20th-century English guy, by the way?
Brahms 3, worth doing just for the slow mvt.
The English guy? Alwyn
Let's hope they never find out I don't know his stuff! (yet)
Seems he wrote several symphonies. Not sure which one we're doing.
He's the same generation as George Butterworth and York Bowen, isn't he? Maybe a bit later. A golden age.
Butterworth I've played, that figures same conductor. He also has a penchant for English - how shall we say? - Cow pat music. (Not meant cruelly, just descriptively.)
York Bowen wrote a Horn Concerto for Dennis Brain, which I don't know.
I'll have a listen at work. we have a subscription to the Naxos Library which is very useful.
Cow pat music! LOL!
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