SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

The Leaves of Life: Christmas Music from the English Tradition The Mellstock Band at The Regent Theatre, Minehead, Somerset  13.12. 2007 (BK)

The Mellstock Band are:
Dave Townsend (Director) - Concertina, Voice
Tim Hill - Clarinets, Voice
Philip Humphries - Serpent, Voice
Charles Spicer - Oboes, Cor Anglais, Voice


If you think Christmas cheer  comes in bottles, then think again: the Mellstock Band knows better.  These virtuoso musicians -  they are all superb instrumentalists - kept an audience enthralled with a two-hour programme of song, dance music and readings that was at least thirty minutes too short. This  concert was so joyous, so uplifting and so downright heart-warming,  that it  was  positively therapeutic. The  audience felt happier for being there.

Dave Townsend is  - wait for it - a Morris Man,  steeped in the English dance tradition as deep as anyone can be. But  he knows a forgotten secret and he knows it very well: the English dance and song tradition  is  important - not simply culturally (though that may be truer than many of us think) but because it's  packed with musical treasures.

The band's name comes from Thomas Hardy. It's his  pseudonym for the village musicians of Stinsford in Dorset, who led dancing, carolling and church singing there during his lifetime. Hardy himself played fiddle and concertina for weddings and parties in the village and his  novels mention the clarinet, flute and oboe. The modern Mellstocks play  instruments recognisable from Hardy’s time and  include a serpent, the bass version of the renaissance cornetto played with a trombone mouthpiece and recorder fingering. Hardy described  the serpent as having a  “rich, deep note” and the group combines  it with the other instruments  and vigorous tuneful part singing to create  an  astonishing (and far too rare) sense of pleasure and excitement.

This music is by no means trivial. As Christmas music goes,  it's as significant in its own way as a very good Messiah or the King's College Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols: it  ought to be better known, especially when done as well as it was here. "West Gallery music" or "Gallery music" (and occasionally "Georgian psalmody") of which the Mellstocks'  carols are examples, was performed by English parish church and chapel bands and singers in the 1700s and early 1800s. It  was sung in both Anglican and non-conformist churches, and was particularly popular in rural areas. Many  (but not all) of its composers  were amateurs and  this large and relatively neglected body of work is the antecedent for the later American traditions of 'Shape-Note'  and 'Sacred Harp' singing.

Despite its deceptive simplicity, West Gallery music is particularly emotionally expressive, fitting the words  to be sung with a sincerity hard to match elsewhere. When there's joy to be celebrated, it's joyful;  often with rollicking fuging tunes that are sheer toe-tapping delight. When solemnity was called for though, West Gallery composers matched the mood with melody and simple harmonies tailored precisely to the psalmody texts. Above all however, this is music written for both singers and listeners equally. "Since singing is so good a thing,' William Byrd once said, 'I wish all men would learn to sing."  West Gallery composers agreed.

A typical Mellstock Christmas programme has themed readings - presented mainly by actor and oboe player Charles Spicer,  who has appeared with the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company - from Hardy, William Barnes, Dickens (naturally) and others,  interspersed with much dance music from Hardy's time and with  carols from the Hardy MS. The three themes in this programme were 'Ghosts and Greenery  - Christmas Superstitions', 'There were shepherds abiding in the fields' and then 'Then let us be merry.' And very merry it was too, full of gentle good-humour and all-round  goodwill, all presented perfectly. Therapeutic, as I said at the beginning.

So here's a prescription for a Christmas to remember, if you need a last minute present for yourself (!) or for  someone else.  Rush out now for a Mellstock CD post-haste. Then,  after beginning Christmas Eve listening to the  King's College Nine Lessons and Carols  on BBC Radio 4, (what else?) play the Mellstock Band disc the next day. Your turkey will taste even better.


Bill Kenny

The Mellstock Band web site is Here