Varied collection of modern greats

At a recent meeting of the Bognor Regis Recorded Music Club, scheduled speaker Nicholas Light was unable to attend, but happily his wife, Dr Pauline Buzzing, stepped in to give his lecture.

Pauline is a well-known and popular speaker on musical topics, and the audience at Mosse Hall gave her a warm welcome.

Pauline explained her own taste and preferences in music tended towards the 18th and 19th century, but being open to persuasion she was happy to learn from Nicholas' theme for the evening '“ 20th Century Greats.

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More than any other time, the 20th century was full of experiments '“ impressionism, serialism, neo-classicism were just a few of the '˜isms' explored by composers trying to find their own voice.

Nicholas had found a variety of composers and styles to illustrate this, and the first offered was Benjamin Britten. He wrote the Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge when he was asked to write a new work for the Boyd Neel Orchestra to play at the Salzburg Festival in 1937.

Boyd Neel said of it: 'We had here not just another string piece, but a work in which the resources of the string orchestra were exploited with a daring and invention never before known; indeed, it remains one of the landmarks of string orchestral writing in musical history.'

After the brilliance of that opening, Nicholas chose the Rondo final movement of Gerald Frinzi's Clarinet Concerto '“ one of the happiest 20th century works, here played by Emma Johnson with the RPO under Sir Charles Groves.

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Nicholas is obviously a champion of the next composer, Malcolm Arnold, whose music seems seriously under-rated, perhaps because he wrote 132 film scores during his prolific career so that these have overshadowed his deeply serious and interesting symphonies, as well as his concertos.

Club members heard the finale of the Piano Concert for Three Hands, commissioned by the BBC for a Prom in 1969.

Highlights of the rest of the programme were the first movement of Samuel Barber's romantic Violin Concert, the Allegretto of Shostakovich's 5th Symphony and the final Trio from Act 3 of Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier.

There were also, as a complete contrast to those well-known works, some unknown, sometimes spiky and atonal works such as Varese's Ionisation for 13 percussion instruments.

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However, the Danish Vagn Holmboe's Symphony number 3 was melodic, full of Danish folk tunes.

In his vote of thanks, club programme secretary Eric Bareham thanked Pauline for delivering Nicholas' choices in an entertaining way, and said it was especially good to hear such brilliant yet seldom-heard works.

The club's first meeting of the New Year was January 3. For further information, contact secretary Maureen Wright on 01243 827358.