Butlers Marston Concert Society (BMCS), Autumn Innovations, Church of St Peter and St Paul, 27th October 2024.

Commercial world failures frequently reflect a failure to innovate ending in evaporation!  So too, the music world the needs to innovate. Butlers Marston Concert Societies’ (BMCS) concert last Sunday is a fine example of recognition of this need with  their programming of infrequently heard works by Thomas Dunhill, Dennis Alexander, Alexis Hollaender and Rebecca Clarke. Concert Society founder in 2009, Lynn Arnold (piano) hosted Shirley Turner (violin) and Peter Mallinson (viola) in this celebration of their first fifteen years.  Their skills in innovation were best demonstrated by Dunhill’s in Phantasy-Trio in E flat major Op.36, a work dedicated to William Wilson Cobbett, who in 1905, created and endowed the Cobbett Competitions for young musicians. Arnold is thrilled to announce a BMCS Young Musician competition next year.  The Cobbett Medal continues to be awarded on an annual basis; how exciting to have the award of a BMCS Medal to look forward to!

Dennis Alexander’s Soft Rains – Three Songs without Words was given its World Première earlier in the day in Cambridge – a work originally composed for viola, clarinet and piano; Turner replaced the clarinet with a thoughtful performance which carefully demonstrated the elements of hope in each ‘song’.  The twelve light-hearted variations of the French folk song, Ah! Vous dirai-je, Maman aka Twinklies, which  Mozart composed in his mid-twenties closed an enterprising first half.

Polish composer, Alexis Hollaender’s Six Character Pieces in Canon Form Op. 53  disovered by Mallinson during Covid, provided a very bright post-interval opening, followed immediately by Rebecca Clarke’s 1940 composition Dumka, based on Slovac folk songs, a work full of gorgeous harmonies – a simply delightful short work continuing the innovation spirit of the night. Hungarian folklore featured  strongly in an arrangement of Vittorio Monti Csárdás, an instantly recognised theme with Turner carefully depicting the composer’s mandolin playing from her violin.

The innovation continued ‘till the end with some fun and games in Valerie Capers’ Billie’s Song. Look out for the exciting BMCS competition next year!