Top notch wind ensemble dazzles MAAA audience
Were you lucky enough to hear the award winning wind quintet, Ensemble Renard, comprising five of the country’s most outstanding young musicians, at Kilmory Castle on March 8?
I was certainly bowled over by these talented individuals who regularly perform as freelance musicians with The London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, The English National Opera, The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, to name but a few.
We were presented with a very varied programme that had something for everyone, starting with Italian composer Isabella Leonarda’s ‘Sonata Nona’ from Op.16, composed by this extraordinary woman who lived her entire life in a convent where she wrote over 200 musical compositions.
Her instrumental sonatas were the first ever to be published by a female composer in 1693.
We quickly switched to a bit of fun for the second piece of music on the programme, ‘Three Sea Shanties’ by Malcolm Arnold.
Written in 1943, the sea shanties are traditional folk songs that were sung aboard merchant sailing ships as early as 1830, to accompany mechanical labour on board. They are full of character, with exciting twists and turns, and we instantly recognised the most commonly sung one, ‘What shall we do with the drunken sailor’, which provided as much fun for the audience as for the players.
We then moved on to Felix Mendelssohn’s ‘Lieder Ohne Worte, Op.19’ - Songs without words, originally written for piano but arranged here for Ensemble Renard by their own French horn player, George Strivens, a talented musician.
We were presented with five of the songs, all very enjoyable, and we also got to hear the wonderful flautist, Ellie Blamires, on the piccolo.
Felix Mendelssohn had a lifelong connection with Scotland, as he visited on a tour in 1829 and fell in love with the Scottish landscape.
He wrote two of his greatest musical pieces after being inspired by the scenery here: ‘The Hebrides Overture’, and ‘The Scottish Symphony’.
Next came a selection from George Gershwin’s ‘Porgy and Bess’, presented in a very challenging arrangement that was played magnificently by the outstanding musicians in the group.
Just when you think it can’t get more difficult than that, we were presented with the most challenging piece of the evening, Argentine composer Lalo Shifrin’s work ‘La Nouvelle Orleans’.
This was really a bit of a mad piece to play, an attempt to evoke jazz by a classical composer, finished off at very high speed and delighting the audience.
Lalo Shifrin is best known to audiences for his film scores: ‘The man from UNCLE’ and ‘Mission Impossible’.
Next, we were presented with the sublime piece ‘Andante fur eine Walze in eine kleine Orgel’ K. 616, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
This was originally written for mechanical organs in the 18th century, when they were extremely popular at fairgrounds etc.
A mechanical organ is a pipe organ that uses a piano roll player to play pre-selected music, rather than having someone playing the keyboard manually. We enjoyed the arrangement for wind quartet very much.
The last piece of the evening was French flautist and composer Paul Taffanel’s ‘Wind Quintet in G minor’ in three movements.
We were taken on a nice, melodic journey to start off with, followed by the French horn and clarinet featuring prominently in movement two.
Movement three finished off as a bit of a high speed romp that delighted the audience.
An encore was demanded, and we got a traditional Scottish Robert Burns song led by the flautist to finish the concert.
Ensemble Renard delighted their audience with their exciting and highly professional musicianship, and a superb programme of very varied selected music. We hope to see them again in the not too distant future! This concert was funded by Nadara A’Chruach Wind Farm Community Fund.
Don’t miss the last concert of the season on Saturday April 26 in Ardrishaig Hall at 7.30 pm with Nikita Lukinov (piano) + RCS String Quartet, who will be performing Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4, amongst other pieces.
Lili Walden
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