Then Only the Empty Spaces at St John the Baptist Church, Bishops Castle on Saturday 24th October 2015

Please note: This concert is in the past and has already taken place.

Then Only the Empty Spaces

Part of the Bloomsbury Chamber Orchestra 2014-2015 Season

Add to my Calendar 24-10-2015 19:30 24-10-2015 21:30 36 Then Only the Empty Spaces This concert by the Bloomsbury Chamber Orchestra features works associated with the First World War, in one respect or another. The works of George Butterworth, who was killed on the Somme in 1916, occupies a position in music equivalent to that inhabited by Wilfred Owen in poetry. His orchestral rhapsody A Shropshire Lad, which opens the programme, acts as a postlude to Butterworth’s settings of A E Housman’s poetry cycle of the same name, and uses themes found in those songs. Love Blows as the Wind Blows, also by Butterworth, is a short and beautiful song cycle, setting words by W E Henley for which the orchestra is joined by the excellent, Shropshire-based tenor, John Bowen. The two remaining works in the first half of the concert are by Michael Turner, a resident of South Shropshire and Music Director of the Bloomsbury Chamber Orchestra. A War Song Medley features many well-known tunes, popular at the time of World War One, which Michael Turner has arranged for the orchestra and the Shropshire Girls Choir. The choir also features in a wholly new piece by Michael Turner, Then Only the Empty Spaces which aims to depict in broad terms the dark days before the declaration of war, the early triumphalist attitude to the war, followed by the realisation of the horrors that beset those on the front line. Both A War Song Medley and Then Only the Empty Spaces receive their world premieres at this concert. The second half is given over to A Pastoral Symphony by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Vaughan Williams had served as an ambulance driver in France and this work, written in 1923, serves as a reminiscence in music of what he witnessed. The second movement includes a passage where the orchestral trumpet imitates the practicing of a bugler, that the composer encountered in France, whose attempts always included a wrong note. For the two vocalises for solo voice that appear at the end of the work, the orchestra will be joined by John Bowen once again. St John the Baptist Church, Bishops Castle DD/MM/YYYY

Details

St John the Baptist Church
Bishops Castle
Bishops Castle
Shropshire
SY9 5FD
England

Saturday 24th October 2015
7:30 PM

Programme

George Butterworth – A Shropshire Lad (Rhapsody for Full Orchestra)
Michael Turner – Wars Songs Medley
George Butterworth – Love Blows as the Wind Blows
Michael Turner – Then Only The Empty Spaces
~ Interval ~
Ralph Vaughan Williams – A Pastoral Symphony (Symphony no.3)

Performers

John Bowen – Tenor
Michael Turner – Conductor

Bloomsbury Chamber Orchestra
Shropshire Girls Choir

Programme Note

This concert by the Bloomsbury Chamber Orchestra features works associated with the First World War, in one respect or another. The works of George Butterworth, who was killed on the Somme in 1916, occupies a position in music equivalent to that inhabited by Wilfred Owen in poetry. His orchestral rhapsody A Shropshire Lad, which opens the programme, acts as a postlude to Butterworth’s settings of A E Housman’s poetry cycle of the same name, and uses themes found in those songs. Love Blows as the Wind Blows, also by Butterworth, is a short and beautiful song cycle, setting words by W E Henley for which the orchestra is joined by the excellent, Shropshire-based tenor, John Bowen. The two remaining works in the first half of the concert are by Michael Turner, a resident of South Shropshire and Music Director of the Bloomsbury Chamber Orchestra. A War Song Medley features many well-known tunes, popular at the time of World War One, which Michael Turner has arranged for the orchestra and the Shropshire Girls Choir. The choir also features in a wholly new piece by Michael Turner, Then Only the Empty Spaces which aims to depict in broad terms the dark days before the declaration of war, the early triumphalist attitude to the war, followed by the realisation of the horrors that beset those on the front line. Both A War Song Medley and Then Only the Empty Spaces receive their world premieres at this concert.

The second half is given over to A Pastoral Symphony by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Vaughan Williams had served as an ambulance driver in France and this work, written in 1923, serves as a reminiscence in music of what he witnessed. The second movement includes a passage where the orchestral trumpet imitates the practicing of a bugler, that the composer encountered in France, whose attempts always included a wrong note. For the two vocalises for solo voice that appear at the end of the work, the orchestra will be joined by John Bowen once again.

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