The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

First of all, congratulations to Lee Ward, Clare Dawson and William Melvin on such an original idea for a recital – voice, violin and organ, and sometimes all at once. In matching ensembles of black, with trousers all round, they made a pleasing picture. Which never comes amiss!

And what a range of styles! We began with one of the greatest English love-songs, “If Music be the Food of Love” by [certainly to your reviewer’s mind] England’s greatest composer, Henry Purcell. Organist of Westminster Abbey [and not too grand to go round to the Tavern with the Lay Vicars for a drink and maybe a few tunes], producer of ravishing theatre music, and much else, he was a star. Never having heard [or indeed sung] it except with harpsichord or piano, I wondered how this would work, but Lee scaled the organ down to chamber proportions, allowing Clare to spread her wings. All the music in the programme was eminently singable for her, and that’s what she did. She sang. And that’s not as easy as it sounds.

The next group was quite a surprise. Four Songs for Voice and Violin by Gustav Holst were, as the ads say, exactly what it says on the tin. This brought forward the promising young violinist William Melvin. Holst, of course, was in the same line of business as Lee – he taught at St Paul’s Girls’ School for many a long year. He was extremely interested in folk and medieval music at a time when they were lost to sight in the general music world. These songs wove almost seamlessly in and out of one another, like one long song, as did the violin and the soprano, the top voices of their respective instrument types. Clare and William were sensitive to each other, and this worked very well. To the modern ear, accustomed to “real” medieval music, where musicians can reach for a rebec on the spot, these songs might seem very much of their kind, and perhaps a little dated as an idea, but they were very relevant when written. The last song is an example of the quite passionate medieval “love” songs which were in fact addressed to Christ [in this case] or the Virgin Mary.

The next three songs were a pause for thought, as they were an arrangements of three of Hugo Wolf’s settings of poems by Mörike. With the organ? If Schubert goes straight to the heart, and Mahler to the [frequently tortured] soul, Wolf engages the brain. A star accompanist’s dream – or possibly nightmare – he did, however, write quite a few songs, several with religious texts, with simply flowing accompaniments, and these were the ones Max Reger had chosen to arrange. As a composer, he couldn’t be much more different from Wolf! The second song in particular gave Clare a chance to show off her top range, as it was in the tradition of “angels” carols in German, of which there are quite a lot, and these angels were high-flyers! The last song, which is a prayer, has its comparisons in songs by Schubert and Schumann. Now we turned to “Les Angélus” by Vierne. He had a long career as organist of Nôtre- Dame, dying of a heart-attack actually in mid-recital. Born blind, he was able to have some treatment, but he remained partially sighted and composed on oversize music paper on an easel. He left his memoirs, but they have never been published in full because, embittered and disappointed that he never got the professorship of Organ at the Conservatoire, among other problems, he was so appallingly rude in them about his colleagues!

Bells have had a long career in music – from simple rounds like “Frère Jacques” through the enchantingly English change-ringing of “The Bells” by Byrd, sometimes affectionately known as The Birds by Bell, on to the high drama of Russian opera.. And the Angelus hasn’t been forgotten, famously in Act 1 of “Tosca” where the Sacristan comes fussing in , interrupting Cavaradossi’s painting, and launches into the Angelus.

And Vierne had inspiration close to home. One of the most Parisian sounds, after the cheerful “Oy!” of the metro, and the sharp two-tone don’t-mess-with-les-flics sirens of the police cars, is the great bell of Nôtre Dame, as it rolls out over the city, and so poignantly after 9/11.

Vierne was a virtuoso player, but the organ at Nôtre-Dame has had a rebuild since his day, and it is awesome. Like some great, coiled golden dragon, this organ wakes, and I swear the towers are rocking and the gargoyles are clinging on like mad! So the bells in this accompaniment begin rather gently, and the shadow of Fauré [a distinguished organist himself] hovers over the vocal part, which was most gratefully written for Clare’s voice. The three songs cover morning, noon and evening, and the bells ebb and flow to suit.
After an interval, to get our heads around it, as it were, we returned to Purcell with his lovely lullaby of an Evening hymn – “Now that the sun has veiled his light, and bid the world goodnight….” It suited Clare, and showed Purcell was keeping an ear on Europe. Hallelujah! Lovely dotted notes – and on that very word!

Kept on one’s toes, we had another change of style, to the German composer, Sigfrid Karg-Elert. He not only was an organist – he was a devotee of the harmonium, and broadcast a weekly recital on it from his home. Many a weary musician, after a long stint in a recording studio, might like the idea. But I’m not sure how they would go down on Radio 3! It would be rather good to hear this piece completely unprepared, as the introduction of the violin, and then the voice, to what seems to be going to be a massive organ piece, is a real surprise. Lee was able to let rip , and show what our organ can do, but it was elegantly toned down for the two “soprano voices”. It must have been an interesting experience for William to work with this combination – And at the end, the organ comes up with what can only be Brahms “Lullaby”!

The programme concluded with Bible Songs for Voice and Organ by that quintessentially English church composer Charles Stanford. Except he wasn’t – he was Irish, and quite politically-minded too. A prominent teacher, he loathed anyone who disagreed with him, he loathed “modern” music – and he loathed Richard Strauss’s music with a passion [though I’m sure that wouldn’t have bothered Strauss, who was doing very nicely]. I have to say Dvorak had already been there with Biblical songs [though scored for piano] and made a very fine job of it. The most successful, to my ear, was A Song of Battle, with strong overtones of the Agincourt song – one imagined the Israelites bashing away in armour, like an illustration from a Book of Hours! Clare kept an even, flowing line through all the songs, with a particularly nice top note at the end.

By this time, we had a lot to think about. And keep an eye out for the National Youth Orchestra when the Proms are televised – William is co-leader this year. We wish him well as he starts at the Royal Academy of Music. And to our old friends Lee and Clare, many thanks!