Last Friday members and friends of the Shipston Music Society gathered in the Methodist Church for an hour of “Mello Cellos”, organised by Chris Wimpenny, a local teacher of the cello. What an enjoyable experience this proved to be as we followed the learning process from elementary through to advanced, displayed by the eleven performers. Bronwyn and Caroline began the proceedings, each playing fairly simple pieces but with confident bowing and secure intonation which bodes well for their future progress. Lottie, Elsie, Libby and Alice joined forces to tackle the well-known Canon in D by Pachelbell followed by Scoo-ba-dee-doo by Martin. Playing in a group means listening to fellow performers and trying to blend one’s sound with their’s. For such young performers the result was most impressive. Next “on the podium” was Lola who performed Etude by Kummer and Allegro by Chinzer. Both displayed confident bowing, smooth and quite gentle for the Etude and more robust in the Allegro. Maria’s performance of Chanson Triste by Tchaikovsky, with lovely slow legato playing, captured the sadness suggested by the title. Alice came next with La Foi by Georg Goltermann, a cellist and composer who was born in Hannover in 1825. This piece requires strong legato playing to bring out the melody with feeling and Alice did not disappoint. Next came Dan with Nina by Pergolesi which was originally composed as a song, but with a beautiful melody it was soon adapted for instrumentalists and Dan certainly captured the essence of the composer dreaming of the young girl, in his lovely performance. Josh followed with Sicilienne by Maria Theresia von Paradis, an Austrian composer (and friend of Mozart) who lost her sight before her 5th birthday. She was blessed with very acute hearing and a real sense of melody. Sicilienne requires the performer to bring out the pathos and longing in this beautiful piece and Josh really excelled himself in doing just that! The quartet then returned to perform Cheeky Czardas by Butterworth which provided a lively contrast with their previous piece and was played with obvious enjoyment Arianna then came forward to perform the C major Prelude by J.S.Bach which displayed an understanding of the music and showed off her excellent intonation and phrasing. Finally Dan and Josh returned to give us a rollicking performance of Allemanda by de Fesch, a Dutch violinist and composer – a fitting finale to a most inspiring journey into the joy of playing the cello.
I was impressed by the confidence of our performers, particularly the younger members of the group who will not have had much experience of playing to an audience. Chris Wimpenny is to be congratulated on coaching these young cellists who were able to perform such a fascinating programme for us to enjoy, and also for the organisation of eleven cellists with eleven cellos to move to and fro at the right time - without mishap – which was beyond belief! We do hope they will return for us in the future.
After the interval and refreshments, the AGM took place with our new Chairman, Laurie Grove, at the helm and was completed quite quickly.
