{"id":807,"date":"2016-03-14T20:30:15","date_gmt":"2016-03-14T20:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elyconsort.org.uk\/?p=807"},"modified":"2016-03-14T20:33:27","modified_gmt":"2016-03-14T20:33:27","slug":"807","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elyconsort.org.uk\/?p=807","title":{"rendered":"If Music be the Food of Love…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Date<\/strong>: Saturday 12th March, 2016
\nVenue<\/strong>: St Marys Church, Burwell
\nProgramme<\/strong>: If Music be the food of love…
\nFeaturing<\/strong>: Ely Consort, Conductor ~ Matthew Rudd & Accompaniment~ Charlie Penn<\/p>\n

This year, countries across the world are celebrating the life and work of a jobbing actor and playwright from the Midlands who died in 1616. The reason for this is simple. Shakespeare wrote about the things that make us human \u2013 love, death, beauty, sadness, our own ridiculousness. His words are just as relevant now as they were in the seventeenth century.<\/p>\n

The Ely Consort, in its concert in St Mary\u2019s, Burwell, found an interesting way of exploring this idea. They performed a series of settings of Shakespeare\u2019s words by living composers. These contemporary musical interpretations were as varied as the plays themselves. They ranged from Owain Park\u2019s beautiful setting of the sonnet Shall I compare thee to a summer\u2019s day<\/em>, in a performance that captured the yearning and melancholy as well as the joy of love, to Finnish composer Jussi Chydenius\u2019s striking setting of Fear no more the heat o\u2019 th\u2019 sun<\/em>, with words from Cymbeline. Here he pits the altos at the bottom of their range against percussive effects sung by the basses to capture the strangeness of this farewell to a friend believed to be dead.<\/p>\n

Perhaps best of all was Cecilia McDowall\u2019s setting of Sigh no more<\/em>, ladies, a song from Much Ado About Nothing about men\u2019s infidelities. The bluesy swagger of the piece caught Shakespeares\u2019s intentions perfectly and was sung with panache and a clear, full sound by the choir.<\/p>\n

A special mention must go to the beautiful setting of Full Fathom Five<\/em> by one of the choir\u2019s tenors, Dave Bainbridge. Written in 1964 to mark the anniversary of Shakespeare\u2019s birth, the piece had languished in a drawer for 52 years until, in Burwell, it finally received its world premiere. It was worth the wait.<\/p>\n

In Hamlet, the prince exhorts Guildenstern to play the recorder. \u201cGive it breath with your mouth and it will discourse most excellent music.\u201d It was fitting, therefore, that the concert also featured recorder player Olivia Petryszak, a previous Cambridge Young Musician of the Year. Her Bach partita, the solo recorder echoing round the beautiful gothic spaces of the church, was memorable.<\/p>\n

At the end of the evening, conductor Matthew Rudd, accompanist Charlie Penn and the choir gave a sweet, tender performance of Bob Chilcott\u2019s setting of words from Hamlet, The Bird of Dawning<\/em>. The song of the bird, played by the recorder, floated down the nave from the back of the church. It was a magical end to a concert that was a perfect prelude to the Shakespeare festivities that lie ahead.<\/p>\n

Review<\/em><\/strong>: Graeme Curry
\nPhoto<\/em><\/strong>: Peter Lancaster<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"20160310_201727\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Date: Saturday 12th March, 2016 Venue: St Marys Church, Burwell Programme: If Music be the food of love… Featuring: Ely Consort, Conductor ~ Matthew Rudd & Accompaniment~ Charlie Penn This year, countries across the world are celebrating the life and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-concerts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s2MCku-807","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elyconsort.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elyconsort.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elyconsort.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elyconsort.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elyconsort.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=807"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/elyconsort.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":814,"href":"https:\/\/elyconsort.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807\/revisions\/814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elyconsort.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elyconsort.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elyconsort.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}