Endymion’s composers of choice

 

In the time that I was chairman of Endymion Ensemble, we put on a lengthy series of ‘Composer Choice’ concerts at the South Bank Centre in London. The groundrules for the composers were:

1.      Choose anything you like in the programme provided that it involves a chamber ensemble. (This generally made the concerts more expensive to mount than usual, involving a wide mix of players.)

2.      Be prepared to go up on stage and introduce your choices.

Over the years we had Peter Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle, Hans Werner Henze, Judith Weir (just now appointed Master of the Queen’s Music, succeeding Peter Maxwell Davies), Oliver Knussen, Marc Anthony Turnage, Jonathan Dove, Alexander Goehr, George Benjamin, John Woolrich, Colin Matthews, Gavin Bryars, John Tavener, Thomas Ades, Howard Skempton, John Casken and others.

Most of the concerts were fascinating, but the most memorable introduction was from Birtwistle, who shuffled up on stage and mumbled: ‘I’ve been asked to tell you why I chose these pieces, but I’m buggered if I can remember.’

Birthday Bash with OAE

 

I used to have a birthday party every ten years. My fortieth was in Sydney, with the fiftieth at a half-built Shakespeare’s Globe in London (Endymion playing Mozart and Krommer), and since then they have been held in our village on the Northamptonshire-Oxfordshire border, King’s Sutton.

 

But, as time seems to be truncating (see welcome guest Julian Barbour’s The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics), I’ve been having one every five years.

 

This time around, we were lucky enough to get the Soloists of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment playing Schubert (the Trout Quintet and his earlier Adagio and Rondo Concertante in F), plus Hummel’s Piano Quintet in E flat minor. This last was the great discovery for many.

 

The church was filled with an appreciative audience, its acoustic near perfect, our 1870 Broadwood piano well-tuned, the players – a mix of wonderful old friends and brilliant young ones – in top form, with virtuoso double-bassist Chi-chi Nwanoku (above) at her most animated.

 

All this followed by a convivial tea party in the garden at home with family and friends – efficient waitress-service provided by daughter Dora and BFFs. Deep joy all round.

 

Composing at 98

On Tuesday I went to the UK première of Elliott Carter’s Clarinet Quintet at Richmond Concert Society, played by the excellent Endymion, the clarinettist being the brilliant Mark van de Wiel.

The thing to note is that this extraordinary outpouring of creativity comes, not from a young man, but from a ninety-eight year old American who has been composing for seven, maybe eight, decades. He is a sprightly 102 now and is regarded by many as the world’s greatest living composer.

Of course, Carter is not alone. Among others, Bach, Brahms, Liszt, Wagner, Verdi and Vaughan Williams composed much of their finest music in old age.

And Janacek, who created several of the greatest operas of the twentieth century, didn’t really get going until he was past sixty.