FringeReview UK 2026
Sussex Musicians Club
Sussex Musicians Club
Genre: Live Music, Music
Venue: Chapel Royal, Brighton
Festival: FringeReview UK
Low Down
Surprising remarks came from the opening announcement. The Sussex Musicians Club was remarkably well attended on an icy January evening. Not kidding. It’s been perishing cold!
Bass baritone Alan Ford brought some welcome lieder and a couple of recent British songs with the overall theme of ‘Songs of Loyalty’.
Celia Vince played with aplomb and pint throughout. Ford has chosen songs particularly suited to his tessitura and understands them. There’s affinity and a luminous identification.
Schubert’s ,’An den Mond’ with it’s presaging Schubert’s last music is touched with dark mastery and delivered in a wondering spirit. Schumann’s ‘Stille Tranen’ is distinctively Schumannesque in its vintage piano part; enacting a still point in the poet’s angst.
Mendelssohn though was the revelation. Wig an accompaniment straight out of one of the Songs Without Words Gondola songs, there’s a nagging obsessive lilt to the ‘Venetianisches Gondeklied’ where Ford leans into the muted ostinato. It’s a gem. Vince was notably exciting here
Two British contemporaries follow. Ian Venables (b. 1855) is well known enough to have CDs out on Nazis. Continuing Mendelssohn’s theme ‘The Invitation to the Gondola’ the so g is attractively tonal and might get e been written by say Michael Head born 55 years earlier. It’s lilt is also well suited to the long Intermezzo and postlude given to the piano. The sway of it recalls Finzi too. It’s good to hear more Venables.
Clive Pollard (1959) with ‘Because I Liked You Better’ sets one of Huysmans confessional homoerotic poems, coded (if barely) allowing an enharmonic melody that reminds me of John Ireland’s setting of ‘Sea Fever’s. Beautifully rendered.
Brahms ”Von ewiger Liebe’ concerning a blacksmith and desire redolent with hammer fits surprisingly well. It’s an open rather than ruminant language. In Brahms lyrics vein though still threes with the usual doubts. Heroic and consolatory it rises with Ford to a ringing almost Schubertian climax. Nowhere is Brahms’s reverence for Schubert more in evidence. A haunting and satisfying traversal.
A change of temperature for Glinka’s Trio Pathétique. Scored for clarinet (Mel Boyes), bassoon (Lou Emmel) and piano (Arran Keith) it’s a lighter-hued French lyric piece from its opening, .
Written in 1832 when Glinka was 28, it’s a Parisian product that would look perfectly in place with his exact (within days) contemporary Louise Farrenc (rather than their months older one, Berlioz).
It’s a game of two halves. The first two movements are galant and Frencmance.
This trio might be termed ‘ Pathétique’ though only the bassoon touches a ruminant slightly raffish elegaic quality about it. After the salon ‘Allegro moderato’ the ‘Scherzo Vivacissimo’ follows seamlessly without much tempo change like an appendix to the first movement. The Largo provides the elegy mainiyvled by the bassoon. There’s a pleasant melancholy though this never breaks the mood too much.
Not does the Rossini inflected finale the ‘Allegro con spirito’ recalling Rossini’s William Tell overture and it’s stormy passages. Indeed it’s here with the clarinet leading g that we find the depth lacking in the delightful first two movements. Beautifully rendered by all three soloists.
Soprano Birgit Rohowsky Miller worked with Joanna MacGregor in 1991 in preparing Hugh Wood’s (1932-2021) Piano Concerto for Macgregor to play. She knew Wood socially. Wood who taught at Cambridge- an exact contemporary if Alexander Goehr there – was more independent of the Manchester School generation but shared their loose (in Wood closer) 12 tone aesthetic starting point. Unlike Boulez and others the British school and outriders like Wood were more lyrically independent
Kevin Allen a composer who aesthetic lies quite close to Wood accompanied Birgit Rohowsky Miller with the sovereign touch the soprano brought to Wood’s settings of Edwin Muir (1887-1959) in the Rider Victory. The title poem is an enigmatic piece with its strange prance and lyric gnarliness. It is a poem outstaring a statue of rider and horse. Ghostly yet plain spoken as in much Muir it nags at you
‘Sorrow’ is a darker more elegiac piece. It’s refrains are almost Keatsian in their melancholic exuberance: “welcome joy and welcome sorrow” where Muir says “be my second trade”. Despite the lyric format of this the poems inner language is more troubled and Wood seizes in this. Easier to make a simpler seeming pen complex than say eeender Yeats or Hart Crane or modernists generally with satisfaction.
‘The Bird’ dances round the chromatic scale but is desolate setting what is in effect a ling-limbed lyric without saying a Hardyesque or even Shelleyan plangency. What Muir concentrates on though is “the wide-winged soul”..
‘The Confirmation’ is another enigmatic piece though it is in fact a love poem of tenderness and affirmation doubtless written for Muir’s gifted wife Willa, with whom he translated amongst others Kafka…. The end with “to dream” is truly haunting. The performance here – in a league of its own in difficulty and accomplishment – carries its own overwhelming charge.
Beatrice Sales who often plays the viola tonight reverted to the violin and rekindled her musical partnership with pianist Andrew Biggs. Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No.4 in A minor Op 23 is slightly overshadowed by the Op 24 ‘Spring’ Sonata. But it’s fascinating and ground-breaking in its own right. Starting with a fluid and skitttering Presto it’s clear this work and these players have a keen sense of direction. It’s a strong opening followed by a more graceful and classical Andante scherzoso, piu Allegretto which more than keeps the work in motion. There’s no Adagio here and the quirky off Ruth’s carry into the Allegro molto finale. This is dark and in many respects the most powerful movement of all. Propulsive and even tragic in its resolve it builds tremendously like a prophesy of the ‘Tempest’ ‘Kreutzer’ or Appassionata’ Sonatas. It then winds down to a sotte voce conclusion, still unconsoled. A terrific end to a universally strong set of performances.
Review
Surprising remarks came from the opening announcement. The Sussex Musicians Club was remarkably well attended on an icy January evening. Not kidding. It’s been perishing cold!
Bass baritone Alan Ford brought some welcome lieder and a couple of recent British songs with the overall theme of ‘Songs of Loyalty’.
Celia Vince played with aplomb and pint throughout. Ford has chosen songs particularly suited to his tessitura and understands them. There’s affinity and a luminous identification.
Schubert’s ,’An den Mond’ with it’s presaging Schubert’s last music is touched with dark mastery and delivered in a wondering spirit. Schumann’s ‘Stille Tranen’ is distinctively Schumannesque in its vintage piano part; enacting a still point in the poet’s angst.
Mendelssohn though was the revelation. Wig an accompaniment straight out of one of the Songs Without Words Gondola songs, there’s a nagging obsessive lilt to the ‘Venetianisches Gondeklied’ where Ford leans into the muted ostinato. It’s a gem. Vince was notably exciting here
Two British contemporaries follow. Ian Venables (b. 1855) is well known enough to have CDs out on Nazis. Continuing Mendelssohn’s theme ‘The Invitation to the Gondola’ the so g is attractively tonal and might get e been written by say Michael Head born 55 years earlier. It’s lilt is also well suited to the long Intermezzo and postlude given to the piano. The sway of it recalls Finzi too. It’s good to hear more Venables.
Clive Pollard (1959) with ‘Because I Liked You Better’ sets one of Huysmans confessional homoerotic poems, coded (if barely) allowing an enharmonic melody that reminds me of John Ireland’s setting of ‘Sea Fever’s. Beautifully rendered.
Brahms ”Vonewiger Liebe’ concerning a blacksmith and desire redolent with hammer fits surprisingly well. It’s an open rather than ruminant language. In Brahms lyrics vein though still threes with the usual doubts. Heroic and consolatory it rises with Ford to a ringing almost Schubertian climax. Nowhere is Brahms’s reverence for Schubert more in evidence. A haunting and satisfying traversal.
A change of temperature for Glinka’s Trio Pathétique. Scored for clarinet (Mel Boyes), bassoon (Lou Emmel) and piano (Arran Keith) it’s a lighter-hued French lyric piece from its opening, .
Written in 1832 when Glinka was 28, it’s a Parisian product that would look perfectly in place with his exact (within days) contemporary Louise Farrenc (rather than their months older one, Berlioz).
It’s a game of two halves. The first two movements are galant and French. Glinka though finds his voice in the latter two. And the piano part played by Keith is fiendish, superbly realised by Keith. All three soloists though gleam in this performance.
This trio might be termed ‘ Pathétique’ though only the bassoon touches a ruminant slightly raffish elegaic quality about it. After the salon ‘Allegro moderato’ the ‘Scherzo Vivacissimo’ follows seamlessly without much tempo change like an appendix to the first movement. The Largo provides the elegy mainly led by the bassoon. There’s a pleasant melancholy though this never breaks the mood too much.
Not does the Rossini inflected finale the Allegro con spirito recalling Rossini’s William Tell overture and it’s stormy passages. Indeed it’s here with the clarinet leading g that we find the depth lacking in the delightful first two movements. Beautifully rendered by all three soloists.
Soprano Birgit Rohowsky Miller worked with Joanna MacGregor in 1991 in preparing Hugh Wood’s (1932-2021) Piano Concerto for Macgregor to play. She knew Wood socially. Wood who taught at Cambridge- an exact contemporary if Alexander Goehr there – was more independent of the Manchester School generation but shared their loose (in Wood closer) 12 tone aesthetic starting point. Unlike Boulez and others the British school and outriders like Wood were more lyrically independent.
Kevin Allen a composer who aesthetic lies quite close to Wood accompanied Birgit Rohowsky Miller with the sovereign touch the soprano brought to Wood’s settings of Edwin Muir (1887-1959) in the Rider Victory. The title poem is an enigmatic piece with its strange prance and lyric gnarliness. It is a poem outstaring a statue of rider and horse. Ghostly yet plain spoken as in much Muir it nags at you
‘Sorrow’ is a darker more elegiac piece. It’s refrains are almost Keatsian in their melancholic exuberance: “welcome joy and welcome sorrow” where Muir says “be my second trade”. Despite the lyric format of this the poems inner language is more troubled and Wood seizes in this. Easier to make a simpler seeming pen complex than say set Yeats or Hart Crane or modernists generally with satisfaction.
‘The Bird’ dances round the chromatic scale but is desolate setting what is in effect a ling-limbed lyric without saying a Hardyesque or even Shelleyan plangency. What Muir concentrates on though is “the wide-winged soul”..
‘The Confirmation’ is another enigmatic piece though it is in fact a love poem of tenderness and affirmation doubtless written for Muir’s gifted wife Willa, with whom he translated amongst others Kafka…. The end with “to dream” is truly haunting. The performance here – in a league of its own in difficulty and accomplishment – carries its own overwhelming charge.
Beatrice Sales who often plays the viola tonight reverted to the violin and rekindled her musical partnership with pianist Andrew Biggs. Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No.4 in A minor Op 23 is slightly overshadowed by the Op 24 ‘Spring’ Sonata. But it’s fascinating and ground-breaking in its own right. Starting with a fluid and skittering Presto it’s clear this work and these players have a keen sense of direction. It’s a strong opening followed by a more graceful and classical Andante scherzoso, piu Allegretto which more than keeps the work in motion. There’s no Adagio here and the quirky off Ruth’s carry into the Allegro molto finale. This is dark and in many respects the most powerful movement of all. Propulsive and even tragic in its resolve it builds tremendously like a prophesy of the ‘Tempest’ ‘Kreutzer’ or Appassionata’ Sonatas. It then winds down to a sotte voce conclusion, still unconsoled. A terrific end to a universally strong set of performances. .
