Britten
Sinfonia Wind Quintet At Lunch: A
behind the scenes experience
I enjoy the concert experience - sitting
down and watching one or more musicians perform with polish and flair. It is
well known that performers spend enormous amounts of time in the practice room,
yet the audience will never know any of that build up; a concept conveyed
perfectly by this picture of an iceberg. As a performer myself, I have always
been intrigued with knowing what went on before the concert. How do
professional musicians prepare their performances?
I recently had a rare opportunity to listen
in on a pre-concert rehearsal by the Britten Sinfonia wind quintet. Sitting
very quietly in the top seats of the West Road Concert Hall, I listened for an
hour.
The first thing to strike me was the
different seating formation of the quintet. Compared to a string quartet, wind
quintets allow more flexibility in regards to where the players sit. In my own
experience, the following arrangement was common: (from left to right) flute,
oboe, bassoon, horn, clarinet. The Britten Sinfonia players sat: bassoon, clarinet,
flute, oboe, horn. Never experiencing such a formation, I was unsure how
effective the overall sound would be. I was quickly won over. The bassoon and
horn created a ‘surround sound’ bass line coming from left and right, of which
the block of three treble instruments projected over the top. By the time the sound
reached the audience, it was a perfect blend.
The quintet members did not rehearse every
single piece from beginning to end - which I assume was simply not necessary,
and they wanted to preserve energy for the concert. Their playing was
interspersed with lively, humorous chatter and old stories of concert
disasters. The group was clearly more than just five musicians performing a
quintet recital; they seemed genuine friends. The issue of leadership in
chamber music can often be a challenge, however the members all took turns at
directing the flow of the rehearsal.
The four recurring focuses of their
repertoire during the rehearsal were: communication (particularly who was
showing the beat and leading in the other players), tuning chords, keeping a
consistent tempo, and negotiating more effective places to breathe. As a
student, it is reassuring to know that professional musicians also have to continue
developing these challenging areas of chamber music.
My ‘behind the scenes’ experience ended as
I quietly exited the rehearsal while the quintet had a break between pieces. I
began to wonder how hearing the rehearsal would affect my experience of the
concert. Though, as soon as the quintet sat down to perform, the events of the
rehearsal moved to the back of my mind and I was overtaken by the wonderful
blend of timbres.
Simone Maurer (Sinfonia Student 2014-15)
Spectacular Jones,
Graceful Nielsen
The wind quintet
comprised from leading members of the Britten Sinfonia dazzled Cambridge with
its virtuosity and musicianship, in bringing to life three contemporary works,
and one more staple piece of repertoire.
Berkeley’s Re-Inventions and Seeger’s Suite for wind quintet were both lively, with
the former offering a contemplative approach to the well known Bach repertoire,
and Seeger’s exciting work showing the full breadth of wind quintet
capabilities.
However, the lunchtime
concert really came to life with the OPUS2014 winner, Patrick John Jones’s Uncanny Vale, a new work for wind quintet, which explored harmonic and timbral
possibilities in a pioneering way. Creating a strange, eerie atmosphere, the work
was altogether more expressive than Berkeley or Seeger, and really captured the
audience’s imagination, exploring ideas of fantasy and the mind.
Nielsen’s famed wind
quintet is a more familiar work in this size of ensemble, and offered the
composer’s unique sonority and handling of tonality. The players from Britten Sinfonia worked well to produce a clean sound, resulting in a poised,
elegant but nonetheless vivacious account of the Danish composer’s great work.
Carl Wikeley (Sinfonia Student 2014-15)
