Little could Adrian
Williams have known when he founded
the Presteigne Festival in 1982, that
twenty one years on it would be celebrating
its coming of age in such resounding
health. As the premier Welsh Borders
music event now approaches its twenty-third
year there have still been only two
artistic directors in its history, Williams
himself and George Vass, who took over
the mantle in 1992.
The musical accent
at Presteigne has always been a commitment
to living composers. Not new music in
the vein of the avant-gardist Huddersfield
Contemporary Music Festival, but music
that explores a strong melodic vein.
Hence such figures as John McCabe, David
Matthews, Michael Berkeley, Cecilia
McDowall and Adrian Williams himself
have become synonymous with the festival.
Composers with a strong presence in
recent years have included Robin Holloway
and Joe Duddell amongst others, whilst
the 2005 festival will see Ian Wilson
as composer-in-residence as well as
premieres of song cycles by David Matthews,
McDowall and McCabe. There will also
be centenary features celebrating the
music of Tippett and Alan Rawsthorne.
Not bad for a festival that began its
life on a shoestring budget and a desperate
plea for funding from Welsh Arts!
Of the ten composers
commissioned for A Garland for Presteigne,
most have seen their music performed
at the festival on several occasions
in the past with James Francis Brown
and Geraint Jones (the latter well known
as successor to William Mathias in the
role of Artistic Director of the North
Wales International Music Festival)
receiving festival commissions for the
first time.
It is Brown’s
contribution, Words, that commences
the cycle, a rapturous setting of Edward
Thomas celebrating the Welsh hills and
Herefordshire. The language is strongly
lyrical and it is interesting to note
the occasional hint of Tippett; surprising
perhaps for the youngest of the composers
represented. Visitors to the Festival
will know that John McCabe has
been a regular presence over the years
both as composer and pianist. His Two
Gladestry Quatrains are settings
of Jo Shapcott, Gladestry being the
local village in which the poet has
been resident for some years. The words
themselves are reworkings of Rilke’s
French poems, McCabe setting the first
in a scherzando-like manner, nimble
and fleeting whilst the second, Cefn
Hir floats a gently soaring vocal
line over a simple, chordal yet magically
effective piano accompaniment. South
Wales-born Hilary Tann currently
lives and works in the United States
although her music has been heard regularly
at Presteigne. Wings of the Grasses
sets a nature-inspired text by Menna
Elfyn that encapsulates a recurring
theme in the Tann’s music. A Perfect
View by Rhian Samuel, another
Welsh composer with American connections,
initially comes across as one of the
more adventurous contributions in terms
of its musical language. Its passage
however soon takes a different path,
progressing to a concluding unadorned
major chord on the words "shower
of gold". The centrepiece of the
cycle, Geraint Lewis’s My
Paradise Garden, is also
the longest of the songs at a fraction
under nine minutes. A touching, melodically
appealing response to Cecilia Chance’s
idyllic picture of old age spent in
a country garden, this is the most stylistically
conservative of the songs, imbued with
an obvious feeling of nostalgia and
sentimentality. In Shropshire Hills,
South African-born John Joubert,
for many years a lecturer at the University
of Birmingham, turns to a text by Stephen
Tunnicliffe. Joubert’s music accurately
reflects the often-austere view that
Tunnicliffe takes of the Shropshire
landscape. Landscape is also evident
in Cecilia McDowall’s The
Buzzard, the vocal line charting
Simon Mundy’s succinct evocation of
the archaeology and landline of the
Radnor valley. Alongside John McCabe,
Michael Berkeley is the only
other composer to contribute two songs.
Nettles and Tall Nettles
are settings of A.E. Housman and Edward
Thomas respectively, the Housman a dark
response to the poet’s words of love
resulting in tragedy. Tall Nettles
explores austere yet more lyrical territory.
David Matthews takes us into
mellower surroundings with his For
a Wine Festival, a song of fruitful
grape harvests with words by Swansea
poet Vernon Watkins. It is difficult
to imagine a more fitting song to conclude
the cycle than Adrian Williams’
Red Kite Flying, a soaring, emotionally
exhilarating portrait of the Red Kite
flying over the Radnorshire hills, lifting
the heavy heart of the commentator.
The fact that the words are by Williams
himself (although he initially chose
not to disclose this in the run up to
the premiere) more than hints at a biographical
connection.
There are numerous
past examples of collaborative works
such as this that can seem cobbled together
with little or no overall feeling of
consistency or satisfaction. What sets
this cycle apart for me however is the
careful choice of composers. Whilst
there are subtle differences of language
there is also a sense of cohesion present
that makes this one of the most successful
ventures of its kind that I am familiar
with. Canadian soprano Gillian Keith
is by turns sensitive and muscular where
required and is a singer that I suspect
we will hear considerably more of in
the future. Simon Lepper is a young
accompanist with a reputation that has
grown rapidly of late and on the evidence
here, deservedly so.
With a total playing
time of just under forty-two minutes
it is a shame that another song cycle
by a composer associated with the festival
could not have been included to give
the disc a more respectable duration.
These days a disc of less than three
quarters of an hour is short thrift
indeed. Look on it as a case of quality
rather than quantity however and you
will not go too far wrong.
Christopher Thomas
Gillian Keith (soprano) Simon Lepper (piano)
