Reviews of 25th Anniversary Festival
22-28 August 2007

Sunshine added a glow to Presteigne's 25th-anniversary celebrations. For some festivals, the Australian theme - honouring artist Sidney Nolan, their first president - might have sufficed. Not for Presteigne. Its irrepressible artistic director, George Vass, went several better by commissioning 16 new pieces, showing commitment with a vengeance.

Young lions were well represented. David Knott's Hover for clarinet and piano combined a natural cut and thrust with glittering poise; John Hymas's Caprice for solo soprano saxophone artfully mixed capriciousness with contemplation, while the early austerity of Huw Watkins' Prelude for solo cello was countered by its soaring flight into ecstatic harmonics. Meanwhile, Joe Duddell's Four (mere) Bagatelles had a wonderful clarity and assurance, expressed most tellingly in the chords of the third bagatelle, which reached a positively serene acquiescence.

There were new works from an older generation, too. Michael Berkeley's Second Still Life for oboe and harp had an unexpected calm. Hilary Tann's Shakkei for oboe and small orchestra was strongest when articulating a nostalgia ostensibly for her native Wales but perhaps also now for her adopted America. David Matthews' Venus and Adonis, for sweetly seductive violin and forceful piano, replicated the success of his recent Proms symphony, with the Welsh folk-song Mae 'Nghariad Ii'n Fenws (My Love's a Venus) emerging as the ultimate distillation and resolution of all that had transpired.

The music of composer-in-residence Peter Sculthorpe radiated its own fiery glow. Cellist Alice Neary and saxophonist Amy Dickson, in particular, did him proud, underlining the vibrancy of this rather remarkable event.

Recent rain made the Welsh border country look particularly green and pleasant over the weekend. The weather's been good for composers, too: for the 25th edition of Presteigne's delightful Festival of Music and the Arts, its artistic director and conductor George Vass was able to commission 14 world premieres: almost one for every concert.

Admittedly they weren't the size of giants. But when four minutes bring such concentrated thought as Joseph Phibbs's Agea, who's measuring? The French players of the Psophos Quartet, probably the best young string group in Europe, attacked this miniature fantasy on three notes with the same passion, faultless intonation, and ensemble precision we heard in Schumann, Beethoven and Dutilleux.

Gabriel Jackson's String Quartet No 3, Llanandras Melodies, also unveiled by Psophos, whipped an invented folk tune through another four-minute kaleidoscope. Easy listening? And why not? Simplicity doesn't have to equal triviality. Michael Berkeley proved this with his seven-minute Second Still Life, a spare but haunting piece for oboe and harp. This was beautifully delivered by the harpist Lucy Wakeford and oboist Virginia Shaw (eloquent too in the unduly tricky metres of Hilary Tann's Shakkei).

Next to some of these chiselled sounds, David Matthews's 12-minute Adonis seemed of almost romantic opulence. A musical recreation of the Greek myth, the performance needed better balanced sound between Adonis's stand-in (Gretel Dowdeswell, piano) and the Venus of Sara Trickey’s violin. But nothing dampened the resourceful use of a Welsh folksong, flowering in full at the end, or the flexible pleasures of Matthews's style.

Other agreeable Presteigne memories? The vim and polish of the ad hoc Presteigne Festival Orchestra, drawn from students. Young voices to watch out for, such as Charlotte Mobbs and Lucie Spickova, bouncing through a Haydn mass with the City of Canterbury Chamber Choir. Cecilia McDowall's moving motet Ave Maris Stella, written in 9/11's shadow. And the sun, every day.

Sleepy Radnorshire probably had a first on Thursday when the current Presteigne Festival of Music and the Arts got underway to the earthy sounds of a didgeridoo announcing the start of the evening's concert.

There is certainly a strong Australian theme to this year's festival, but nothing could have sounded more English than the opening work, Hugh Wood's Divertimento for String Orchestra.

With an attractive bracing pastoralism which makes it a bedfellow of similar pieces by Tippett, Lennox Berkeley and the rest (there is even a spectacularly Elgarian descending seventh motif), it made a splendid launch to the line-up of no fewer than 25 festival commissions this year, each one marking one year of the festival's existence.

Biting in attack, an amazingly assured performance by the Presteigne Festival Orchestra once again testified to the remarkable results conductor and festival director George Vass obtains from his gifted young players in minimal rehearsal time.

Wood was in the audience, just one of a whole clutch of composers who flock to Presteigne for their performances. Another was Huw Watkins, here fulfilling the role of pianist in Mozart's A major Concerto K414, affectionate and analytical with a composer's ear, but a major composing presence later in the long weekend.

The brilliant young Australian saxophonist Amy Dickson was soloist in Richard Rodney Bennett's Seven Country Dances, her flowing phrasing drawing a striking range of tones and colours. Vass's buoyant account of Haydn's Mercury Symphony was an appetising taster for Presteigne's Haydn bicentenary celebrations in 2009.

Watkins was the hardworking and accomplished pianist in Friday afternoon's recital. Framed by substantial Brahms works -- Sara Trickey the violinist in a surging, ardent C minor Scherzo, Catriona Scott the clarinettist in a richly lyrical E-flat Sonata -- there were no fewer than four contemporary works, each with its composer in evidence.

David Knott's Hover for clarinet and piano sounded perhaps more French than Welsh, despite being conceived as a commission celebrating the beauty of the Welsh countryside. Huw Watkins' Dream chilled with frozen violin sounds, a clarinet stretched to its extremities, the piano reinforcing the phantasmagorical atmosphere, and Hugh Wood's Poem for Violin and Piano took us up into the stratosphere with an air of quiet mystery.

But it was From Nourlangie by the veteran Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe which made the deepest impression. With a wonderful build-up of effect from the clarinet, violin and piano trio, this North Australian land- and seascape was so timelessly evocative that I just didn't want it to end.

There was more wonderful Sculthorpe in Friday evening's very special concert from the exciting young Psophos Quartet, when his String Quartet No.8, again proudly Australian in its content, gripped a packed audience.

Outer movements largely for solo cello use its capacity for multitexturing to evoke the didgeridoo (that instrument again), crystalline upper strings provide glacial harmonics, and funky percussive string patternings bring an Indonesian feel to central movements. Sculthorpe planted a kiss on both cheeks of these remarkable demoiselles at the end, and who could blame him?

Also present was the likeable Joe Duddell, here for the premiere of his Four (mere) Bagatelles. These endearing miniatures pay deliberate homage to role-models, so we delight in lovely dancing Tippettian rhythms, spot a tune from Stravinsky's Symphony in C, and bask in the lush gentleness of the third movement -- drawn from the Debussy Quartet, of which the Psophos players went on to give a crisply contoured reading which grew in conviction as the work itself does through its movements.

Amy Dickson's late-night concert demonstrated again how much this gifted player is at one with her instrument.

After hearing her give the premiere of the saxophone version of his Songs of Sea and Sky, with its release into sweet lyricism, Peter Sculthorpe told me how the experience has inspired him to make it the basis of a complete concerto for her.

Local composer John Hymas heard the premiere of his Caprice, his lightness of touch suggesting an urban sophistication a la Poulenc belying its apparent "noble savage" inspiration.

Much rougher and visceral was Mark-Anthony Turnage's Two Elegies Framing a Shout, Dickson and pianist Catherine Milledge heroically combining in this harrowing and taxing musical experience.

Saturday afternoon's Psophos concert was a fascinating object-lesson in technique serving content instead of merely being on display for its own sake.

Henri Dutilleux's Ainsi la Nuit explores every facet of string technique during its brilliantly-structured, inevitable progress. Gabriel Jackson's String Quartet No.3, Llanandras Melodies(named for this Welsh festival which commissioned this premiere), is an unflashy compendium of compositional procedures as it journeys through highly-attractive quasi-folktunes. But coming in at barely five minutes, it's over before it's started.

The Presteigne Festival has a unique capacity for bringing composers, critics and a trusting audience together (often coming together in the welcoming Radnorshire Arms), and Saturday's full-house evening concert was a triumphant example of how irresistibly it reaches out to everyone.

Given in memory of Joan Hughes, a stalwart festival presence, it brought more evocative Sculthorpe, the premiere of Hilary Tann's Shakkei for oboe and orchestra, a convincing meeting of soundworlds and cultures, with soloist Virginia Shaw shaping a beautifully produced line, and more mouthwatering Haydn in the Missa Sancti Nicolai.

But it was Cecilia McDowall's Ave Maris Stella, a favourite of Joan's, which set the seal, the stylish City of Canterbury Chamber Choir, soprano Charlotte Mobbs, and the PFO responding under Vass's supple direction to all the music's warmth of heart.

Among the many joys of the Presteigne Festival is the meaningful programme planning of artistic director George Vass. Concerts are always designed with a shape and purpose, usually by juxtaposing old and new music to illustrate themes and explore moods.

On Monday, for example, Britten and Schumann framed little-known Donald Tovey with two world premières based on Welsh folksongs - a logical and symmetrical package. The first of these, Peter Fribbins' Fantasia on Bugail Yr Hafod, sympathetically realised by violist Sarah-Jane Bradley and pianist Gretel Dowdeswell, came over as a slight, often gently magical work.

Cecilia McDowall's Y Deryn Pur, scored for the same forces as Britten's Phantasy Quartet (Virginia Shaw the expressively plangent oboist in both) was much more substantial, elegiac and evocative of landscape and birdsong, in an unaffected style that charmingly spoke from the heart.

Later in the evening George Vass presided over a concert subtitled The Genius of Percy Grainger. Although very enjoyable, some might have hesitated to describe the assorted folksong arrangements and instrumental pieces we heard as works of genius. Still, they were decently played by the Presteigne Festival Orchestra and elegantly sung by the City of Canterbury Chamber Choir; and the unnamed tenor soloist in Brigg Fair was super.

A particular bonus was the chance to hear Walter Leigh's Harpsichord Concertino, a delightfully unassuming example of English reserve mixed with quiet virtuosity. Carole Cerasi played it with limpid fluency, and also gave the première of Geraint Lewis's Symphony for harpsichord, a five-minute solo piece that began like William Byrd and degenerated into flourishes of silly modernism.

Gretel Dowdeswell's piano recital on Tuesday offered greater rewards. Again, symmetry was to the fore, with Beethoven sonatas - the E minor, Op 90 and Op 81a "Les Adieux" - framing two gorgeous pieces by Festival composer-in-residence Peter Sculthorpe, and another world première, Lynne Plowman's ripplingly tuneful Lullaby for Ianto, popped in the middle.

Dowdeswell invested her Beethoven with an almost Schubertian lyricism, broken-chord figuration as delicately fingered as a song accompaniment, and perfectly moulded phrasing. Sculthorpe's Nocturnal was also completely riveting and tantalizingly atmospheric, in places sounding like moonlight glistening on a tropical pool.

There was even more fascinating Sculthorpe on Tuesday evening. Alice Neary, so richly effective in Tovey's Elegiac Variations the day before, here gave a stunning account of Sculthorpe's Cello Dreaming, her solo part singing over the complex string accompaniment and exotic percussion (beautifully fashioned by Vass and his PFO) in a glorious threnody, at other times keening like a bird (wonderful control of harmonics) and even imitating a didgeridoo.

Less aurally intriguing perhaps, but equally approachable, was David Matthews' Aubade. As a companion-piece to the Sculthorpe (symmetry yet again) it shared similar qualities, notably its meltingly beautiful string writing, luminous sonorities, mewing birdsong, and some excruciatingly difficult instrumental parts, especially for the horns, happily well accomplished here.

The two mainstream works in this Festival Finale (actually Walton's Sonata for string orchestra is not something ensembles face on a regular basis) again made one marvel at how much George Vass accomplishes in such a short time with his young players. True, there were one or two hairy moments in the Sonata, but it was an exhilarating reading, especially in the scintillating scherzo and glowingly broody Lento.

Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante offered somewhat safer territory (Vass seemed positively benign in his direction) and this lovely work displayed considerable zest and elegance, especially from soloists Sara Trickey and Sarah-Jane Bradley, whose playing quite bubbled with galant sweetness. Lovely stuff and an obvious audience favourite.

The 25th Presteigne Festival was enlightened, invigorated and given an even deeper sense of purpose than usual through the presence of this year's composer-in residence, Peter Sculthorpe. Out of modesty, he would probably disown the title 'Father of modern Australian music', but that effectively is what he is, having nursed many younger talents in the Music Department of Sydney University and, no less, through the example of his own music and musical attitudes.

Now in his late 70s, he looks back for his 'epiphany' to the moment when, at Oxford University on a scholarship, he was told by his tutor, who was then writing the very early music volume of the 'definitive' Oxford History of Music, that Australian aboriginal music was 'of no importance'. 'Well', thought Sculthorpe, 'it may not be important to you, but it's important to me.'

In the half century since then he has drawn consistently on the traditions of aboriginal music, both in detail and in general outline: he feels that landscape has a crucial effect on all artists and that the flatness of Australia is reflected in his own works, which make much of drones and repetitions. At the same time, he told me he doesn't believe in 'an Australian sound', and the truth of this is borne out in the strong personal voice that comes through his music. Like him, it is warm and direct, muscular and alive, sharply focussed but never rudely overbearing. The great thing for any artist, he believes, is 'to find out who you are'. I know I speak for the enthusiastic audiences for his music last week when I say that now we too know who he is, and feel grateful and privileged for the opportunity. For those who weren't there, the record catalogue awaits your attention.

Given the troubles the BBC is having at the moment - dodgy phone-ins and broadsides from Jeremy Paxman - it's good to see they've got one thing right, in selecting the Psophos Quartet as New Generation Artists. And they recorded for future transmission not only the three concerts given by this excellent quartet, but also the Sunday evening concert by some of Presteigne's best-loved artists, which included works by composer-in-residence Peter Sculthorpe, David Matthews and Bartok, and ended with a superlative performance of Schubert's Trout Quintet.

As director of the Festival, George Vass said in his charming speech on the final night, an 80% audience rating this year proves that he also is doing something right. To some extent this success is due to a policy of non-ghettoisation. The programme mentioned above was only one of many that mixed old and new, so that concerts took on the flavour of good meals, with spice and sugar complementing each other.

Among the challenges this year were the 15 newly commissioned works (one for each year of George's tenure), and these, while inevitably of varying impact, contained some treasures. For me, Michael Berkeley's Second Still Life for oboe and harp was one such, hiding its technical assurance beneath an unpretentious surface; Christopher Lyndon-Gee's Over Litton also had a great feeling of place and space. Hugh Wood's Divertimento for string orchestra got the whole festival off to a cheerful start, while not attempting the lyrical flights that distinguish David Matthew's Adonis for violin and piano, a piece of rapturous beauty that held the audience spellbound.

Beyond music there was an entertaining yet thought-provoking recitation of poems by Jo Shapcott and Simon Mundy, and Barrie Gavin's expertly fashioned documentary film on Percy Grainger - as he warned us, by no means all high jinks and jollity, rather a searing portrait of a tortured soul.

But at the centre of it all was the music of Peter Sculthorpe, one of George Vass's more inspired choices, and Sculthorpe's wonderful Cello Dreaming (one of the composer's own favourites) summed up the strong yet deeply reflective nature of his music. Copies of the CD vanished from the table within minutes.

Next year, Vaughan Williams and Michael Berkeley, with some Messiaen. I don't quite see how George Vass will improve on this year, but I'm certainly not betting against the possibility.