THE ARMED MAN

THE ARMED MAN

Brentwood Arts Festival at Brentwood International Centre

12.07.14

Karl Jenkins' popular and accessible Mass for Peace made a perfect ending to Brentwood Arts Festival's commemoration of the Great War.

Rain on the roof, thunder overhead, and massed choirs behind the Brentwood Symphony Orchestra; it was a stirring occasion. Commissioned by the Royal Armouries for the Millennium, the work begins with distant trumpet and drums, explores mankind's destructive obsession with war using a variety of texts from many ages and diverse cultures and ends with an optimistic vision of peace from Revelation.

In the less than ideal acoustic of the Brentwood Centre's vast hall, Dryden's “thundering drum” fared particularly well, as did the more contemplative orchestral moments from solo cello, and the trumpeter's Last Post, following a great roar from the chorus, and preceding the moving “Angry Flames”. The massed choirs, too, made a splendid sound, in the rhythmic Sanctus, say, or the expansive [could be Korngold] Kipling setting. And the Brentwood Songsters Children's Choir, made its mark with Torches, from the Mahabharata.

The solo singers – no fewer than four in this performance – fared less well, and often struggled to reach the back of the audience. Mezzo Susan Marrs had a lovely moment, though, in “Silent, so silent now” from Guy Wilson's Now The Guns Have Stopped.

The massed choirs – Hutton and Shenfield Choral Society, Brentwood Choral Society, Howard Wallace Chorale, Bra-Vissima, Times and Seasons, Brentwood Songsters – and the augmented orchestra – Brentwood Philharmonic and Phoenix Youth Orchestra – were conducted by Tim Hooper.

An impressive curtain-raiser from the Royal British Legion Youth Band, who took us from Teddy Bears to Va Pensiero, and ended with a Great Wars Singalong and a patriotic medley.

WAR AND PEACE

WAR AND PEACE

The Stondon Singers at Ingatestone Hall

08.07.14

William Byrd was a frequent visitor to Ingatestone Hall, and to his patron the first Baron Petre. More than four hundred years on, he'd be slightly surprised, perhaps, to find the Hall still here, and lived in, and the eighteenth Baron in the audience for this concert.

War, the theme of Brentwood Arts Festival, is also still with us, of course, and Byrd's Civitas Sancti Tui, graphically depicting the desolation of Jerusalem, reminds us that nothing much has changed since the time of Isaiah.

A very different take on the battlefield in La Guerre, a highly coloured description of a French victory [in Italy, in 1515] by Jannequin, jingoistic avant la lettre, performed with relish by the Stondon Singers under Christopher Tinker.

Their a cappella polyphony sounded especially delightful in the panelled hall. Their themed programme, which also included Tallis, Victoria and two guys named Lobo, ended with an optimistic lollipop, one of Byrd's few secular works, the madrigal This Sweet Merry Month of May. 

for those not fortunate enough to be at Ingatestone Hall, or Stondon Church the previous week, here are The Kings Singers with two of the key works ...

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Brentwood Shakespeare Company and Ingatestone and Fryerning Dramatic Club

06.07.14

In the bosky brakes of Ingatestone Hall, a Dream that mingled the traditional and the iconoclastic. A large cast included many seasoned players, and Lisa Matthews' production for the Brentwood Arts Festival was not short of ideas.

Not least the attempt to get back to the spirit of Shakespeare's playhouse; indeed this could easily have been a [generously funded] troupe of itinerant actors pitching up at the Tudor Hall with a rough grasp of the drama, a trunk of assorted costumes and a dog or two to steal the odd scene. Hence their panic, perhaps, when Quince [Keith Morgan] mentions “tomorrow night”, and hence, for some, their shaky acquaintance with the text.

Breeze and aircraft are a challenge to the actor [though the vintage planes made a change from the police helicopters that plague Shakespeare's Globe]. Not everyone was audible all the time. Most successful in this regard were Elliott Porte's Theseus, and Nik Graham's amusingly narcissistic Lysander. And the scene between Sarah Thomson's Fairy and Chrissie O'Connor's charismatic Irish Puck was a model of crispness and clarity.

Assured comedy performances from David Lintin in his Del Boy Bottoms Up t-shirt, Ian Russell as an initially coy, later histrionic Flute, and June Fitzgerald as a lovely cuddly Snug the Lion. The lovers' spat was nicely done, and the fairies had some spectacular choreography to the eclectic score.

Chris Burr's acting edition [in the trim-and-rewrite tradition of the 18^th and 19^th century Shakespeareans] sets the action in prehistoric Britain [though the lovers looked pretty Athenian to me], and Mark Godfrey's blokish “Sandman” Oberon has some rough magick of his own; a pity, though, to rob Puck of her valediction for the sake of some Wiccan silliness ...

ELGAR AND THE GREAT WAR

ELGAR AND THE GREAT WAR

in Brentwood Cathedral

05.07.14

This magnificent collaboration made a mightily impressive opening to the 2014 Brentwood Arts Festival.

Elgar's Spirit of England, written in the darkest days of the war, sets words by Laurence Binyon for massed choirs – here the Brentwood Choral Society, the Cathedral Singers, the Hutton and Shenfield Choral Society and the Ingatestone Choral Society – and soprano. Emily Onsloe's pure, powerful voice was heard to stunning effect, especially in the second movement, “To Women”, and echoing the familiar words of “For The Fallen” - We Will Remember Them. Wonderful to hear this unique wartime cantata live, in all its patriotic glory – dedicated by the composer “to the memory of our glorious men, with a special thought for the Worcesters”.

The concert, with support from the Elgar Society, included some lesser known works from the period: Carillon, a rallying cry from 1914, accompanies a poem by Emile Cammaerts, its mood ranging from dying leaves and sacrifice to martial vengeance. And Le Drapeau Belge in similar vein from three years later. The texts magnificently delivered by actor Malcolm Kimmance. We heard the familiar Sospiri, and Polonia, a sort of Pomp and Circumstance for Poland. The superb orchestra was the ELMS Symphony, conducted by Andrew Wright.

Brentwood student Julia Cockcroft joined them as soloist for Elgar's moving Cello Concerto, written in the aftermath of war, and deeply nostalgic. She played it with an eloquent legato, the phrasing in the Adagio third movement particularly poignant, while the orchestra, under David Pickthall, captured the elegiac majesty of Elgar's last great work.

THINGS TO COME - BRENTWOOD ARTS FESTIVAL

Brentwood Arts Festival 2014

An impressively ambitious programme of events in Brentwood this July to celebrate the arts and commemorate outbreak of the First World War.

Orchestral performances, art exhibitions, plays, yarn-bombing and much more is promised. Organised by the Brentwood Arts Council, the eight-day festivities run from July 5 to 12, bringing together a host of artistic groups from across the borough.

At Ingatestone Hall, there's A Midsummer Night's Dream in the open air and the Stondon Singers, who bring William Byrd back to his Catholic roots.

In the wonderful space of Brentwood Cathedral, we have Elgar And The Great War to open the Festival on July 5, and Karl Jenkins'  The Armed Man, A Mass for Peace, to close it on July 12. 

More information, and online booking, on the Festival website

http://brentwoodartsfestival.org.uk/

and you can find them on twitter, too

https://twitter.com/BwdArtsFestival