Brighton Year-Round 2026

Sussex Musicians SMC Chapel Royal

Sussex Musicians Club

Genre: Live Music, Music

Venue: Chapel Royal, Brighton

Festival: Brighton Year-Round

Low Down

Review

There was a change – or rather addition – to programming, we were told.  The welcome new initiative of asking a student to perform first added a real dash to the Czech-infused evening. Previously there’s been challenges to mounting February concert showcases for students, and diffracting this way makes total sense, lending a focus to that particular student.

Maya Compton played first a in piece of Uwe Korn: Caballes Espanole. A bright typically radiant piece of 20th century Spanish genre pianism, blazing with sun. Then Bach’s Prelude and Fugue No. 12 in F minor BWV857 from Book 1 as contrast. Compton plays warmly and with a glow of true musicianship. She articulated Korn with panache and Bach with inner voices. It’s a great idea and apart from next time it’ll become with luck an institution. In future –  this was last minute – the performance will be indicated in the programmes.

The evening’s programme then got officially underway. Beatrice Sales known for both viola and violin today played the latter with regular pianist partner Andrew Biggs in a wide ranging programme.

Joseph Suk, Dvorak’s son in law (1874-1935) write many melodically stunning pieces before his tragic maturity in the light of the death of his father-in-law Dvorak and the composer’s daughter Otalka to whom he was married. He then wrote less (from Op 27-40) but nearly all were masterpieces.

His earlier Op 17 4 pieces for Violin and Piano from 1901 have retained their place, though not recently in the UK. A full Sonata would have done, ‘pieces’ tend to be relegated to “salon” status. The Op17/2 ‘In poco triste’ is more lightly melancholic than really sad as the marking indicates. A rising (almost yearning) melody ensures it stays in the memory. It’s slightly capricious but that’s nothing to the Op17/3 following. The ‘Appassionato’ is stunning in its frenetic quick-fire theme, manic doted rhythms and angular, emphatic melody more a kind of farting frantic search. These pieces have rather slipped from the repertoire but deserve hearing often.

Lili Boulanger (1893-1918) sister of the great composer/teacher Nadia, died at 24 in 1918 but even so her achievement is astonishing. She was the first woman to win the Prix de Rome in 1913 (her sister gained second prize in 1909). Her Nocturne and Cortege dating from 1911 show early mastery. The languid Nocturne owns a gentle obsessive quality. The Cortege is a bright aubade warm and optimistic with a hint of Spanish rhythm about it.

Sales and Biggs play with a sovereign touch. Sales has a fullness of tone and I’ve not heard her play better. Biggs too performs with discreet panache.

They end with the 3rd movement finale of Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 1 in D major Op 12/1. Marked Allegro it’s the relatively straightforward in Beethovenian terms. A succinct ternary structure. Again the duo adopt a style appropriate to the composer. Here they sound lean and driven, with a smile.

Lucy Marie soprano performs songs with pianist Celia Vince. Ivor Gurney (1890-1937) ended as we know in an asylum. Before the war unbalanced a creative mind already disturbed by a dual genius – for composition and poems – Gurney composed most of his songs early; for which he was nicknamed “Schubert” as the most gifted of Stanford’s students.

He set few of his own poems however. The first. John Masefield’s song from a play ‘By a Bierside’ about the death of a Roman soldier clearly resonated with Gurney in the trenches. Be that as it may it’s still a song rooted in the modal chimes of Vaughan Williams and with a magnificent postlude tends to outbid the singer Mair cuts through though.

‘All Night Under the Moon’ about summer time is more trance like and close to his most famous song which succeeds. A rapt Mair floats over the spaced chords and progressions Vince accords the piano.

‘Sleep’ by John Fletcher is Gurney’s early masterpiece. The Elizabethan melancholic escape with its magical oscillating chords and the Gurney’s off kilter harmonies soar in an astonishing arc that spares to the top yet holds the melancholy. It’s an extraordinary song and Mair is fully up to it

Finally ‘Spring’ might be the closest Gurney came to either composers like Roger Quilter or indeed Peter Warlock. It’s perky witty Elizabethan enjoining to make merry is still edged with Gurney’s off-tonal language but is recognizably in the British musical Renaissance tradition. Just. It’s too wittily edged to be comfortably inside.

And finally… cellist Siriol High-Jones with pianist Kevin Allen play another Czech rarity that shouldn’t be: Martinu’s  Cello Sonata No 2 written in exile in 1941, around the time of his Symphony No. 1. He wrote three altogether. Despite writing occasionally too quickly, Martini (1890-1959) is the great Czech composer of the 20th century after Janacek and Suk’s time; and the most prolific of masterpieces. Taking the greatest Czech composers: Smetena, Dvorak, Janacek, possibly Novak, Suk and Martinu the last two – and the slightly lesser Novak – have been miserably performed in the UK. But then Janacek was too: until Charles Mackerras thrust him under our collective ears.

The opening Allegro is typical of Martinu’s motor rhythms though here the shadow of the times falls in it. Thers shadowy development and secondary themes though overall this movement is relatively

The Largo is dark and deeply wrought of midnight. It plays at a pace that truly is Largo. The chiming of the piano comes like a till. But this slows still further Hugh-Jones with a rich sustained tome seems with Allen to stop time.

The Allegro commodo that follows blows this away with Allen driving figures and ostinato ferociously as Hugh-Jones arches a fine angst-ridden melody over it, driven to hard-won optimism. A terrific piece. Why Martini is not more played and celebrated over here is a baffling case of risk aversion. He was once popular. A stunning professional performance – like all performers tonight this is one of the finest SMC concerts of recent times. And most adventurous.

Published October 12, 2026 by Simon Jenner