Music at St. Wilfrid's
Tim Carpenter, Director of Music and Organist at St Wilfrid’s Church, Haywards Heath, has launched a series of free evening recitals following the 6pm Evensong at the Church on the second Sunday of the month. Donations gratefully received at these concerts are for the Church’s newly announced and ambitious Choral Scholarship Fund.
The next recital in the series is on Sunday, March 10 at 7 pm. It is a programme of lovely twentieth-century English chamber music given by the Forest Hill Chamber Ensemble. This comprises multi-talented Tim (cello), violinists Ronan Devlin and Mark Lee, Adam Maha (viola), and Helen Raggatt (oboe). Demonstrating that some rarely performed English chamber music is as fine as any from France or Germany, the Ensemble presents three examples, all inspired by the legendary oboist Leon Goossens.
Gerald Finzi’s Interlude for Oboe and Strings sits alongside his many songs, choral pieces including Lo, the Full Final Sacrifice, and Intimations of Immortality, and his cello concerto. Finzi (1901-1956) was greatly inspired by his love and understanding of poetry, especially by Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, and Thomas Hardy.
Next the Ensemble perform an Oboe Quintet by Sir Arthur Bliss (1891–1975). This leading early twentieth-century English composer was first noted for his experimental works and then for his later, more classical scores. He wrote a piano concerto, scores for three films including Things to Come, the choral symphony Morning Heroes, ballet music, and an opera, The Olympians.
A Quintet for Oboe and Strings by Sir Arnold Bax (1883—1953) rounds off the programme. Bax’s romantically evocative and richly orchestrated work is representative of the late romantic trend in music that occurred in England between the World Wars. Known principally for his seven symphonies and symphonic poems, he wrote much piano music and some magnificent chamber pieces.