A successful visit to Metz was organised by our Committee Member Antonella Calvi. A full report is available — click to read.
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A Winter Journey on a sunny spring evening
Some 50 members, friends and locals gathered in Strassen at the Centre Barblé to support the leukemia charity Télévie by following the narrator of Franz Schubert’s Winterreise on his journey through the landscape of melancholy, from despair to resignation. Bass-baritone Nick Berry, renewing a partnership with pianist Rüdiger Pansch begun some years ago at Lincoln College, sang the 24 lieder from memory – a heroic feat compounded by the need to battle with the unhelpful acoustic of the Salle Barblé. What seems to have inspired Schubert was not so much the prevailing gloom in Müller’s poems (often in vogue at times of political stagnation, and no doubt echoed in Schubert’s own life – although he evidently went on to write several quite jolly pieces later) but rather the frequent and rapid changes of mood chronicled in the narration. These we were able to follow in detail, thanks to the full supporting text provided in the programme with a parallel English version, and they were brought out with impressive skill and versatility by the Berry-Pansch duo. We look forward to their return to Luxembourg, perhaps to treat us to some Hugo Wolf or Richard Strauss, in the not too distant future.
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Sadly, the Society's founding Secretary, Chris Sibson, has died after a long illness.
Read an Obituary
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Members of the OUSL enjoyed one of the most entertaining
evenings of the society's brief history in the shape of the c17 musical and
literary medley on the life and times of Samuel Pepys. This
offering, devised in Scotland by early music expert James Ross, was adapted for us by Chris Coggill
and the late Chris Sibson, and the evening was hosted by Edward and Philippa Seymour.
The programme comprised readings from the famous diary that refer to Pepys's
delight in music and dance, interspersed with contemporaneous music. Pepys
writes with such spontaneous pleasure and natural innocence that one could
forgive him much. There seems little that might need forgiveness, other than
on the part of his wife.
He found time, despite his hedonistic life, to
discharge, as an exceptionally uncorrupted and competent secretary of the
Navy, the duties of a key officer of state under King Charles II, and to
serve, in due course, as President of the Royal Society.
Who cannot love Samuel Pepys, who hears extracts from his diaries, read in such a rich tone
and with fine phrasing as were employed by Dick Holdsworth? Pepys's values
are epitomised in this famous quote, from a diary entry of March 1665:
“Music and women I cannot but give way to, whatever my business is.”
His resilient humour appears in his observation that it is “strange to see
how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody.” He was often up late
at night, enjoying improvised parties of dance and song. Then, after the
fun, he would sit down by a candle at his desk and compose his diary. Many
entries end with the brief phrase, “and so to bed”.
The programme included songs of the period, divinely sung by Barbara Hall
and Chris Vigar. Among them was the work of Pepys's own proud hand, “Beauty,
Retire”, as well as extracts from the first English opera, The Siege of Rhodes.
The music was played brilliantly on instruments of the Restoration period by the versatile ensemble of Eva Berg, Chris Birch, Chris Coggill, Edward Seymour, Karlheinz Backes and Mick Swithinbank.
We could imagine the audience transported, at any hour of the day or night,
to the rooms of Pepys and friends, to take part in a lively song or
instrumental recital, to dance a stately Coranto or a gayer, faster Jigg or
to indulge in a fleeting amorous exchange.
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