£12 for the whole festival? 
Is there a website or something? The only thing I could find was this]http://www.malcolmarnold.co.uk/news/]this.

There will, of course, be a further opportunity to hear this at a concert in early November in the mean streets of Saaaaaaaaaf London. Further details to follow in due course </unashamed plug>

Aha! I'm back (as long as the hotel's erratic wi-fi holds out) with more musings on why everybody withing commuting distance of Northampton (that's got to be a lot of people: Birmingham is only an hour on the train and London can't be much more the other way) isn't here for this weekend.

Next event: the world's second (probably) performance of Arnold's one-act opera The Open Window, commissioned by the BBC in 1956. (Can anybody imagine the BBC commissioning an opera these days? No, thought not.)

I aproached this with trepidation, as I'm not really an opera fan, but it was really good fun. Probably the highlight of the day. Typically, if Malcolm Arnold was going to write an opera it was going to be a comedy. And it was genuinely funny: the libretto very clever, and Arnold's music a masterpiece of what I can only call "comic timing" -- sudden pauses between dead-pan punchlines, that sort of thing. One section, where the hapless male lead is reciting his catalogue of ailments, is virtually a swipe from Gilbert and Sullivan.

The staging was interesting. The cast were in costume, and acted and used props, but also sang large chunks from music stands in the centre of the stage. (When I say "stage", I must point out that this was in a small room, comfortably sized for the audience of 50-100, and there was no raised stage nor orchestra pit so the audience were virtaully on top of the actors.) The bulk of the opera is carried by two actors, the other four roles being very minor (one doubles as page-turner for the painist after her brief opening scene!). Young (I'm not sure how young, but seemed very young) soprano Charmian Bedford was absolutely outstanding. Tenor Simon Iorio has a good voice but not powerful -- at times he was swamped by the piano -- but he gets top marks for his marvellous comic acting throughout.

Well, I never expected to write so much about an opera...

Finishing the afternoon's music were Arnold's two flute sonatas and two violin sonatas. Did I ever mention how much I love violins and flutes? These four pieces are exceptional, superbly performed by the young soloists, and would have been the highlight of the day if the opera hadn't already been so good...

Finally, after the dinner break, it was a change of venue to St. Matthew's Church on the other side of town for a concert of Arnold's complete choral music. And I can't think of much to say about it, except that it was just as enjoyable as the rest of the day, and far better than I was hoping for.

And that's it so far. In a few minutes I shall be leaving for the second day of the festival...

St Matthew's Northampton had as its vicar the future Dean of Chichester, Walter Hussey, that enthusiastic patron of contemporary art.  Is there still a Henry Moore at St Matthew's?  Hussey commissioned Britten's Rejoice in the Lamb while he was at Northampton, prior to his move to Chichester, where he commissioned work from Bernstein, Chagall and Piper.

My other half claims to have had his bottom patted by Walter Hussey when young.

I see from his Wiki page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Hussey

that he also commissioned Lo the full, final sacrifice by Finzi, a work I don't know, but familiar to Choral Evensong buffs.

Ok, now I've "come down" after this evening's Mendelssohn/Sibelius concert, I'll bore you all some more with the rest of my festival review 



The second day was a bit of a mixed bag, not as consistently compelling as Saturday, but the highs being very, very high indeed.

The first item was a recording of Arnold's appearance on Desert Island Discs in 1986. Fun, but not essential listening.

Then a leisurely stroll upstairs to the main auditorium for a lunchtime concert by the Northampton County [youth] Orchestra and Northampton County [youth] Wind Band. The wind band started, with The Duke of Cambridge march (interesting but not a Great Work), The Sound Barrier concert suite (I don't find it works too well as a concert suite, though the orchestration of three piccolos can slice the top of your head off at twenty paces -- worth hearing just for that), and Peterloo. Peterloo is one of Arnold's truely outstanding works, in my humble opinion. It's the most "understandable" programmatic music I know... you can understand what everything represents, and it's a profoundly emotional piece.

After a stage rearrangement, the County Orchestra played Tam O'Shanter, which is wonderful of course. (I don't know how hard it is to play, but it always seems like it *should* be hard, with the music always threatening to fall apart, and the young orchestra handled it perfectly. Then the English Dances, perhaps the most perfect English music... certainly Vaughan Williams never wrote anything so lyrically beautiful. (Yes, ok, I'm biased!)

Both young orchestras played admirably. And as somebody pointed out afterwards, this is only five weeks into the new school year... the orchestras are five weeks old and already playing like professionals!

After lunch was a discussion of one of Arnold's film scores. I didn't think this segment worked terribly well... there is only so much to say about a single score, and the presentation seemed unsure whether it was looking at the film as a film, or simply at the music.

Anyway, on to the next musical performance -- the complete music for guitar, by Milos Karadaglic and members of the Royal Academy of Music Orchestra. For some reason, the audience tripled in size for this performance. I'm not sure why so many extra people turned up... or rather, why they only turned up for this part.

So, I was especially looking forward to this. I love guitar music (probably not a great surprise), and of course I have recordings of Julian Bream playing Arnold's music. Well, Julian Bream was along as guest of honor, which was a nice touch. He started proceedings with a very amusing speech. Then, after his speech, he sat down in the soloist's chair and picked up a guitar. Hello, I thought, the poor chap's got a bit confused...

No... he really was playing the first item, Serenade for Guitar and Strings, having requested that he may be allowed to play it one more time!

I've seen Julian Bream playing live. Playing Malcolm Arnold. Julian Bream!

It was quite amazing. I actually had a lump in my throat.

Something I thought I would never see.

Worth the trip just for that!

The "real" soloist them completed the concert, which was Fantasy for Guitar, Fantasy for Flute and Guitar, and of course the incredible Concerto for Guitar.

The final event was a talk about the nine symphonies by Andrew Penny. This was fascinating, illustrated by excepts from Penny's recording and slides of the score -- and so clearly explained by Penny that even with no knowledge of music I could understand everything he was showing us. So this turned into a surprise highlight of the day and a fine way to end the festival.

An exceptional weekend, worth the distance and the expense. Every performer (and most of them were very young) played superbly, and the organisation of the whole package was first class. And did I mention the unbelieveable bargain price?

And the weekend wasn't over, because I still had the evening concert in the main auditorium......  but that wasn't a part of the festival, so I will stop waffling here.

...and non-British. I think his most famous commission was Bernstein's Chichester Psalms.

...but after he moved from St. Matthews to Chichester, as Don B. noted