Ripieno

On Saturday we went to the summer concert of the Ripieno Choir (last mentioned on 17th March), held at the Menuhin Hall of the Yehudi Menuin School at Cobham, half way between the local crem. and the Chelsea Football Club training ground. We did wonder whether the school was one of the good causes on which the Club spread a bit of soothing dosh, but there was no evidence of anything of the kind in the course of the concert.; no footballers swanning around with their WAGs on complementary tickets.

The hall turned out to be just the place for this sort of light, summer concert. The hall itself quite small, rather like an upside down wooden boat (reminding us of the nautical origin of the word 'nave') and surrounded by a light, open space well suited to the provision of a light meal and the whole surrounded by park land. Light meal was very good, and good value at £10 or so each, produced by the house chef and served by very pleasant young occasionals.

The choral part of the concert was supported by an engaging accordionist, one Howard Skempton. He also wrote the music for some of the songs but nothing like the illustration is to be found at http://www.composerhome.com/Academic_files/skempton%20diss.pdf.

We were sat next to the grandson of the composer of another part of the concert, one Cyril Rootham, perhaps the Dan Rootham who looks to be responsible for http://www.rootham.org/, from which I learn that we missed a related organ recital at St George's cathedral at Southwark (see July 14th 2009 in the other place). Perhaps the grandson was there to make sure that the choir kept to the script. Not often that one sees people following the music on a score now; I am sure it was much more common when I was little. And I dare say there might be some tutting these days by those near one, distracted or irritated by the turning of the pages. Perhaps there is some flashy concert hall in California where you can have the score displayed on a little screen in the back of the seat in front of you, rather like you get maps in an aeroplane - but thinking about it, maybe the flickering screens would occasion some tutting too.

The concert closed with a piece which was not sung at all, rather chanted, a geographical fugue by Ernst Toch which reminded me of the stuff we heard at Tate Britain in January (see 25th January). Available on YouTube, but with the complicated caveat: 'Ernst Toch’s “Geographical Fugue” was conceived of as a work for technological media, designed as a recording to be performed by a gramophone set to a faster speed. Perhaps uniquely in music history, this electronic work has had an almost exclusively acoustic performance history of more than eight decades. Premiered in 1930 at a Berlin-based festival dedicated to the incorporation of technology in music, a few years later the piece was transformed into a humorous showpiece spoken live by a-cappella choirs. However, these renditions represent a substantial deviation from the composer’s intention'.