{"id":3082,"date":"2011-10-14T09:38:01","date_gmt":"2011-10-14T08:38:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/music-matters\/?p=3082"},"modified":"2011-10-14T09:57:54","modified_gmt":"2011-10-14T08:57:54","slug":"a-class-apart-trombone-quartet-are-top-brass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/music-matters\/2011\/10\/14\/a-class-apart-trombone-quartet-are-top-brass\/","title":{"rendered":"A class Apart: trombone quartet are top brass"},"content":{"rendered":"

Celebrating a decade of support from Furley Page Solicitors, this year’s Lunchtime Concert season got off to an heraldic start with a visit from the award-winning trombone quartet, Bones Apart<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Bones<\/a>
Bones Apart<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A well-conceived programme blended an array of musical styles, all inspired by the works of Shakespeare, ranging from the Baroque to Bernstein. Three movements from Purcell’s The Fairie Queen<\/em> opened the concert, including a light-footed arrangement of the ‘Chaconne.’ There was also some warm, lyrical playing in Mendelssohn’s incidental music to\u00a0 A Midsummer Night’s Dream<\/em>, with the melody originally appearing in the French horn in the orchestral version here beguilingly played by Jayne Murrill.<\/p>\n

The group showed their sassier side with Duke Ellington’s jazzy Such Sweet Thunder<\/em>, which had the group demonstrating a deft, rhythmic jazz feel and crafted wah-wah mute-playing, all solidly underpinned by Lorna Macdonald. The ensemble then showed some astonishingly deft playing in Tchaikovsky’s incidental music to Hamlet<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Written for an RSC production, Jason Carr’s Poem Unlimited<\/em> combined five separate motives, each reperesenting one aspect of Polonius’ famous pompous litany of theatrical characteristics, where each facet – comedy, historical, romance, tragedy – was given a separate thematic idea, all woven together. The piece had great rhythmic vitality and some richly colourful sonorities.<\/p>\n

A luminary of British jazz, the late John Dankworth’s ‘If Music Be The Food of Love,’ demonstrated a wonderfully lyrical, jazz flavour in an arrangement by Helen Vollam, apparently done with the blessing of the great man himself who came to hear its first performance: an accolade indeed.<\/p>\n

The group finished with two pieces from Bernstein’s\u00a0West Side Story<\/em>; ‘One Hand, One Heart’ had a rapt audience holding its breath as the group wove a magically lyrical portrayal of the doomed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, an intimacy then thoroughly and riotously dispelled with ‘Gee, Officer Krupke,’ which was brash, lightning-fast and delivered with great panache, awash with glissandi<\/em>\u00a0 to the delight of an enthralled crowd.<\/p>\n

The players were on magnificent form, demonstrating some virtuosic skills combined with instinctive ensemble playing that had the four players working as one. A magnificent way to begin the new season and to celebrate ten years of music-making with Furley Page: top brass.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
l-r: Nicola Ingram (Music Society Secretary), Sarah Davies (Society Treasurer), Peter Hawkes (Senior Partner, Furley Page), Susan Wanless, Chris Gray (Society President): image credit Mick Norman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Furley
Sponsors of the Lunchtime Concert series<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n