This morning's event at Marlowe Music Week was "full orchestra" in the Holy Redeemer Hall on Days Lane.
In addition to strings, there were full woodwind sections, plus horns and trumpets. The only things missing were trombones and tubas.
An interesting selection of music was played:
Elgar "Sea Pictures" started off the session and was followed by another Elgar offering which turned out to be an arrangement for voice and orchestra and didn't work without a singer, so we abandoned that!
Then we moved on to the "Faithful Shepherd Suite", which is Handel's music arranged by Sir Thomas Beecham.
Various branches of the theatre were represented by Sullivan's "Iolanthe" Overture and Gounod's "Faust Ballet Music". The latter contains some very exciting bassoon passages, written mainly on tenor clef. If you have to stop and think about the notes you're playing, you're too late!
The session was rounded off by Eric Coates' "Three Bears". I hadn't come across this before. It is based on the theme "Who's been sitting in my chair?" and this motif makes its way around the orchestra several times in the course of the piece.
Many participants went to lunch at a prearranged venue: the house of one of the participants, but I came home to see what Stephen was up to and to make sure he got some lunch. He's been installing some plumbing for me and decided to encase it in expanding foam before finishing off the floor surface on either side of it. Unfortunately, it came onto rain while he was thus occupied and the foam absorbed moisture from the air and expanded rather more than it was intended to...
This evening's event is a combined orchestral session with another orchestra in Dartford. There were only limited woodwind places available and I decided not to attend, as I have somewhere else I'm supposed to be on Tuesdays. (My regular band rehearsal, to be exact!)
Helen
Last Revised: 10th August, 2001.