Songs of the Countryside, song recital by Nicola Berg, soprano, with Lynda Chang, piano, Roland Appel, violin.

12.30pm, Thursday 11th May 2017

Songs of the
Countryside

Nicola Berg
soprano
Roland Appel, violin • Lynda Chang, piano

Venue: Leatherhead Methodist Church
Parking: Swan Centre Multi-Storey or Church Street

Sponsor:

2017 Season Sponsor:
Patricia Morgan Optician

Supported by:
Leatherhead Concert &
Arts Society

Programme

Thomas Linley the elder (1733-1795)
from opera The Spanish Rivals (1784)
Still the Lark Finds Repose

Henry Purcell (1659-1695)
from the Fairy-Queen (1692)
Hark! The Echoing Air

Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
Text: Francis Quarles (1592-1644)
Like to the Damask Rose (1892)

from Three Songs, Op 16
Text: Barry Pain (1864-1928)
The Shepherd’s Song (1892)

Michael Head (1900-1976)
Text: Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
A Green Cornfield

Roger Quilter (1877-1953)
from Old English Popular Songs (1921)
Text: from Thomas Percy's collection Reliques (1795)
Over the Mountains

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
from The House of Life, 6 sonnets by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1904)
    2 Silent Noon

Piano Solo
Billy Mayerl (1902-1959)
Autumn Crocus (1932)

Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979)
from Three Irish Country Songs, for voice & violin (1926)
    1 I Know My Love
    2 I Know Where I’m Going
    3 As I was Goin’ to Ballynure

from Three Old English Songs (1924)
    1 It was a Lover and his Lass

Welsh Traditional, arr Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
from Folk Song Arrangements Vol 1 'British Isles' (1942)
     6 The Ash Grove (1941)

Ed & arr Herbert Hughes (1882-1937)
from Irish Country Songs Vol III
taken down by Patrick Weston Joyce from a ballad singer in Limerick in 1853
The Leprehaun

Free Concert, with a retiring collection to cover costs. Tea and coffee will be available after the concert.

Nicola Berg studied at the Birmingham Conservatoire where she gained BA and MA degrees. She has also been awarded the ARCM diploma from the Royal College of Music and a Diploma in Opera Performance from the University of London.

Nicola has performed at many European venues, including The Royal Festival Hall, Cheltenham Town Hall, Ripley Arts Centre, Christchurch Priory, and Beethoven Hochschule in Austria. Her repertoire ranges from Purcell to Stockhausen, the latter performed at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.

Nicola has performed many, varied recitals at venues including St Martin-in-the-Fields, a recent recital at Kew Musical Museum with string quartet, a concert tour in Norfolk, as well as an English song recital for the Bournemouth International Festival.

Oratorio performances include JS Bach's St John Passion with the Jubilate and Chandos Choirs and Lambeth orchestra, Haydn's Creation with the Grange Choral society at Christchurch Priory, Nelson Mass with the Birmingham Bach Choir, Bach's Mass in B Minor with the Wessex singers as well as Handel's Messiah at Cheltenham Town Hall. Operatic roles include Electra in Mozart's Idomeneo and First Witch in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. She has also engaged in several Musical Theatre roles, including Rapunzel in Sondheim’s Into the Woods and Hortense in The Boyfriend by Sandy Wilson.

Roland Appel, violin

Roland Appel studied violin with David Martin and Frederick Grinke at the Royal Academy of Music, whilst also pursuing his scientific research interests at University College and Imperial College London.

Roland has maintained his deep interest in music which he has continued in parallel to science. He pursues this interest through participation in chamber music and string quartets, as well as carrying out solo engagements that have recently included Vaughan Williams’ Lark Ascending at the Brighton Fringe Arts Festival, and the Beethoven Violin Concerto.

This afternoon Roland will be playing violin with Nicola in Rebecca Clarke's Three Irish Country Songs.

Lynda Chang, piano

Lynda began learning the piano at the age of 3 with a wonderful German teacher in Hong Kong, who gave Lynda an excellent grounding which eventually led to four years’ study at the Royal College of Music in London where she achieved a 1st class honours B.Mus. and was awarded the Tagore gold medal – RCM’s annual nomination for the most distinguished student of the year.

In addition to working with soloists as well as the Epsom Male Voice Choir, Lynda is a regular accompanist for the National Children’s Orchestra’s annual batch of scholarship winners. She particularly enjoys her collaborations with actress Carole Boyd (Lynda Snell from BBC Radio 4's The Archers), jointly performing programmes of words and music at corporate and theatrical events.

Concert at Home

If you cannot be with us at the lunchtime concert
you can enjoy a similar Concert at Home by clicking through the buttons below:

Nicola Berg opens her tour of the British and Irish countryside with Thomas Linley's Still the Lark finds repose. The singer here is Tracy Seconi.

Next we hear Purcell's Hark the echoing Air. Rachel Schutz and harpsichordist Kevin Devine may have set too fast a pace. If you prefer a slightly more graceful rendition, try Anna Stephens, a winner at the Brisbane Eisteddfod.

Louise-Kirkby-Lunn was a leading English contralto of the first two decades of the last century. Here is her recording of Elgar's Like to the Damask Rose.

And on the right is the text, by Francis Quarles.

Like to the damask rose you see,
Or like the blossom on a tree,
Or like the dainty flow'r of May,
Or like the morning of the day,
Or like the sun, or like the shade,
Or like the gourd which Jonas had,
Even such is man, whose thread is spun,
Drawn out, and cut, and so is done :
The rose withers, the blossom blasteth,
The flower fades, the morning hasteth,
The sun sets, the shadow flies,
The gourd consumes, the man, he dies.
Like to the grass that's newly sprung,
Or like a tale that's new begun,
Or like a bird that's here to-day,
Or like the pearled dew of May,
Or like an hour, or like a span,
Or like the singing of a swan,
Even such is man, who lives by breath,
Is here, now there, in life, and death :
The grass withers, the tale is ended,
The bird is flown, the dew's ascended,
The hour is short, the span not long,
The swan's near death, — man's life is done.

Staying with Elgar, we next hear his The Shepherd's Song,
performed here by Rachel Maura and Chan Mi Jean.

My appreciation of Kathleen Ferrier's voice began at a primary school in Clapham.
So I was pleased to find this recording of Quilter's Over the mountains:

Next we hear Vaughan Williams' lovely setting of Silent Noon. The singer in this recording from London's Wigmore Hall is mezzo-soprano Anna Huntley, with accompanist James Baillieu.

While Nicola gets her breath back, Lynda Chang offers a solo piano item, Billy Mayerl's Autumn Crocus.
The pianist in our recording here is Jonathan Newby.

Three settings now for voice and violin. We hear composer Rebecca Clarke's Three Irish Songs:
I know my Love
I know where I'm going (popularised by Kathleen Ferrier!)
As I was goin' to Ballynure
Caitlin McArville is accompanied by William Oh, in Caitlin's degree recital at
Longy School of Music of Bard College, on Harvard Square, Boston:

I did not manage to find a recording of Rebecca Clarke's It was a lover and his lass, so here instead is another old English folk song, one I remember being asked to set in my first year at college.
Clarke's is definitely a better setting!

We return to piano and voice with Britten's setting of The Ash Grove Llywn Onn.
The singer here is Ian Bostridge, with accompanist Julius Drake:

And we'll finish with another historic recording, sure we will.
Here is American soprano, radio and concert star Eileen Farrell with the setting of
The Leprehaun (without the 'c') by Herbert Hughes.
Her accompanist in this 1958 recording is George Trovillo: