The musicians that were featured the most in the 13 concerts I attended at Christ Church’s “Summer Programme” were:
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: 3
- Camille Saint-Saëns: 3
- Frédéric Chopin: 3
- Johann Sebastian Bach: 2
- Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: 2
- Francis Poulenc: 2
- Benjamin Godard: 2
- Ludwig van Beethoven: 2
- George Gershwin: 2
- Johannes Brahms: 2
- Gabriel Fauré: 2
So with 9 pieces in total, the most played composers, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Frédéric Chopin, are all 19th century romantic (or romantically influenced, in the case of Saint-Saëns) composers that, unsurprisingly, wrote scores for what usually is the predominant instrument in these types of musical presentations: the piano. Authors whose most popular repertoire tends to favour larger orchestrations, like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, are understandably less used.
A trend that we’ve been experiencing for the last couple of years is still going strong: the addition of a lesser-played musician from countries outside the few that dominated the romantic and modern eras: In our concerts, this included Norwegians Olav Berg and Ola Gjeilo, and Iceland’s Einojuhani Rautavaara; this trend lives now in par with the more solidified tradition of also showcasing either folk or ultra-localised music; in the UK, as I’ve experienced it, the ultralocal is seldom played in the traditional sense, probably because the English (the local) talent is perhaps perceived to be part of the dominant narrative, while, elsewhere, ultralocal artists are usually perceived as more counter-cultural; what I mean to say is that while in –say– Ecuador, a British performer might throw-in a native song to a playlist to please the local crowd, sprinkling a bit of Handel or CPE Bach in Southport will not be perceived as playing to local favouritisms; what does happen, I’ve appreciated, is that the «othered» musical styles that are added to the bottoms of the repertoires tend to be from a bit further out, probably because one needs to go further away to find something more musically distant: Irish folk seems to be a popular choice, with medieval English and Scottish folk as other(ed) options.
While it is, of course, nice to hear different musical styles (I don’t think I had heard Einojuhani Rautavaara before, and now I’ve found myself exploring his catalogue), the problem that arises with this trend adding local-ish musicians to the tail-end of a playlist is that there is a time constrain (the length of the concert) for a musical playlist that, if you want to keep up with the trend, has to have either folk or lesser-known composers (always as a finale or right before it), and this forcefully takes up a portion of the total of the concert. I particularly enjoy being exposed to new musicians, and I’m not trying to make a judgement on whether this trend is positive or negative: I’m merely stating that the trend not only exists, but is more prominent than ever, and most musicians’ repertoire nowadays follow a rather similar pattern.
Christ Church’s musicians who had a more unique playlist stood out more to me, but this is perhaps because I’ve been doing this for a while and I immediately notice the tried-and-true repertoire that is built from the following mould:
- A romantic
- A modernist
- Another, more modern modernist
- A folk song
- An obscure composer
Maybe this is why the concerts of Mss. Pip Clark or Chiara Lordi stood out so much to me, as they differed from the norm. But look, there is only so many ways to make a cake, and I understand that it’s very difficult to go outside of a recognisable recipe where there are only three ingredients; however, I would‘t mind a concert that only featured just one composer, or, Ares forbid, just one musical era. But what I’d really like to see is more silver-screen compositions featured: only two concerts (as far as I remember) featured songs we know from the movies: Ennio Morricone and Henry Mancini, their creators.
Well, that’s enough of this for now. See you all tomorrow!