From 20-28 September the Kent-based concert series Music@Malling focused on the music of John Woolrich in his 70th birthday year, with performances from the Marian Consort, Fretwork, Susan Bickley, and Fidelio Trio.
The focus also saw the world premiere of Woolrich’s Be Aware on 22 September from Gabriella Swallow, Lizzie Ball, and Morgan Szymanski. The work for violin, cello, and guitar is cast in 8 epigrammatic movements and was performed in the Great Hall, Ightham Mote. It is inspired by artist Ana Maria Pacheco's reliefs, and a recording of the work will feature as a sound installation as part of the exhibition of her work in the Old Chapel at the National Trust property, which runs until 24 October.
On 20 September the Marian Consort, directed by Rory McCleery, performed Woolrich’s Three Choruses (1998), a 7-minute setting for unaccompanied voices of Christopher Smart and Horace (translated by the former). The concert was the first time all three of its constituent parts were performed together as a set. Its first movement is a nimble, two-part homophonic setting of ‘A Hymn on Melancholy’; the second is Smart’s translation of Horace’s Ode ‘The Years Glide Swiftly’, which is also an homage to J.S. Bach. The last part sets Smart’s ‘A Hymn against Despair’.
They were followed by Fretwork and Susan Bickley on 25 September, who performed ‘Three Arias’ and ‘Three Fantasias’ from Woolrich’s From the Book of Disquiet, a 17-minute miscellany of fragmentary and unfinished texts by Fernando Pessoa for alto and viol consort. Woolrich’s spare, pointillist musical language captures the elliptical, oblique character of Pessoa’s elusive texts. The group also performed George Benjamin’s Upon Silence, with violist Richard Boothby discussing both works in a recent article for The Strad.
Fidelio Trio concluded their focus on 28 September with Woolrich’s piano trios The Night will not draw on (2008) and Toward the Black Sky (1997). The latter, 10 minutes in length, is a mosaic of chorales, frenetic string duets, slow melodies, and lullabies, taking its title from Paul Verlaine; the former, the same duration, is inspired by E.T.A. Hoffmann’s tribute to Haydn in his Kreisleriana, and evokes “'A world… of eternal youth, as though before the Fall; no suffering, no pain; only sweet, melancholy longing for the beloved vision floating far off in the red glow of evening, neither approaching nor receding”.
On 3 October pianist Jo Havlat and friends continue the composer’s 70th birthday celebrations at Folkestone New Music with Ten First Performances – new chamber works honouring Woolrich from Colin Matthews, Tansy Davies, Dominic Muldowney, Philip Cashian, Howard Skempton, Louise Drewett, Morgan Hayes and Rūta Vitkauskaitė. It follows the July focus on Woolrich’s music Here is My Country: John Woolrich in Context, which featured performances from Huw Watkins, Chamber Domaine – led by Thomas Kemp from Music@Malling – the Salomé Quartet and a selection of Woolrich’s songs from Sarah Dacey, Sarah Parkin and pianist Gamal Khanis.