DAILY MAIL, MARCH 1966

By Eric Mason

Thanks to the vigorous training scheme that Leicestershire has pioneered since 1948, this educationally go-ahead county now has a Schools' Symphony Orchestra to be proud of. In fact, there are three orchestras - Junior, Intermediate and Senior - and a travelling staff of teachers under county music adviser Eric Pinkett, working a system of individual tuition, group practices and area rehearsals, with weekly main rehearsals and longer courses during school holidays. Results speak for themselves. The 100-strong senior orchestra which I heard last night has been good enough to go abroad for the past 13 years. It went to Berlin last summer, toured Belgium in January and will visit Germany again in June. Last night's conductor was no less a musician than the composer Michael Tippett who has taken a keen practical interest in the orchestra. His rare gift for lighting a vital musical spark in children showed all through a 20th- century programme that ranged from Walton and Elgar to Gershwin. Like many of its professional confreres the orchestra is rich in woodwind talent, has good brass and percussion, but a more modest standard in the strings. The young player’s strong sense of rhythm was enjoyably evident in Tippett's intricate Fantasia on a Theme of Handel and still more so in a remarkably assured performance of Lambert's The Rio Grande. A 300-voice choir from the county's grammar schools with Helen Attfield as contralto soloist did much to evoke the haunting nostalgic atmosphere of the Lambert. Two guests from London, Frank Wibaut, 21, and Anthony Mott, 16, were brilliant piano soloists in the Lambert and Tippett respectively. The strings, which had intonation troubles in the Enigma Variations, gave a vigorous account of the Tippett and positively revelled in the Blues of Gershwin's American in Paris. Now will other counties please mark, learn and copy.

LEICESTER MERCURY, JANUARY 1966

In the early hours of Monday morning the 100 members of Leicestershire County Senior Youth Orchestra will set off on one of the most important foreign tours in its history. They have been invited by the Belgian organisation "Jeunesses Musicale" to give a series of six concerts in Belgium and their chief conductor will be Michael Tippett the composer, whose association with the orchestra and with the County School of Music began in the early part of last year, when he agreed to be the central figure of the Leicestershire Festival which was such a great success. This will be the first time that the orchestra has travelled abroad with so distinguished a musician. Among the concerts he will conduct will be that next Friday when he and his young instrumentalists will spend a day in the Brussels television centre to prepare for the scheduled evening's broadcast.

The return journey will be on Sunday week. For Mr. Tippett, this will mark the beginning of vital final rehearsals with the famous German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the B.B.C. Symphony Orchestra and chorus for the first performance of his cantata "The Vision of St. Augustine", which was commissioned by the B.B.C. and which the composer will conduct on January 19 in the Third Programme.

His fantasia for piano and orchestra on a Handel theme will be one of the items on the Belgian programmes and the solo part will be played by 17-year-old Anthony Mott, of Middlesex, who studies with Louis Kentner and whose link with the County youth orchestra's trip is that he was born in Belgium.

A young Chinese girl who will augment the orchestra, however, has no Belgian association but owes her place on the tour to the fact that the County orchestra has no harpist and that she is a competent performer and able to travel. Her name is Tay Boon Yen. Her home is in Singapore and she has been studying for three years at the Guildhall School of speech and drama.

Members of the orchestra in the outlying parts of the county will have to be in their coaches as early as three o'clock on Monday morning to rendezvous at St. Margaret's bus station, Leicester, for the 4 a.m. departure of the full party for Dover. Their concerts will be in Mons, Bruges, Blankenberge and Brussels and their programme will include, in addition to the Tippett fantasia, Alan Ridout's second symphony (written especially for the senior orchestra), Elgar's Enigma variations, Walton's Portsmouth Point overture and Britten's "Four Sea Pictures." Mr. Eric Pinkett, the County music adviser, will be the second conductor.

LEICESTER MERCURY, JANUARY 1966

Leicestershire County Youth senior orchestra re turned from a week's tour of Belgium last night with memories of some of the largest and most enthusiastic audiences in their experience. The orchestra were guests of Belgium's Jeunesses Musicale Organisation and three of their six concerts were conducted by Michael Tippett, the composer. Saturday was the occasion of their greatest success. Two concerts in the Brussels Beaux Arts drew tremendous applause for the instrumentalists, the 17-year-old Belgian-born piano soloist Anthony Mott and Mr. Tippett. Mr.Eric Pinkett (County music adviser), who conducted the other three concerts, spoke of Mr. Tippett's wholehearted approval of the venture and of his being "very moved" at the orchestra's fine playing for him of Elgar's "Enigma" variations at the final concert, which was filmed for television.

MARCH 1966

By Ronald Weitzman

Michael Tippett hardly exaggerates when he claims that the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra is as good, if not better, than the National Youth Orchestra. Leicester’s De Montfort Hall housed this enormous band of instrumentalists on Monday night under Tippett’s inspired direction. If they played as well during their recent tour of Belgium as they did here the acclaim they received there was well deserved.

What a rewarding experience it must have been for these teenagers. Elgar’s Enigma Variations, which was revealed so penetratingly to them through Tippett’s insight, contains the warmest of musical themes and the elusive designs that emerged from it. One movement passed almost imperceptibly into another; the violins tackled tough embellishments in the Dorabella variation with as much confidence as mature string players and the solo clarinet made a substantial contribution to a performance whose emotion has nothing to do with the Victorian sentiment so wrongly associated with this genius.

Tippett’s own Fantasia on a Handel theme followed this: it buzzes with ideas but they don’t have the natural effect on the senses that the music must have if intellect and spirit have an important say in the matter also. For example, near the end Tippett’s contrapuntal writing becomes too dense, with fierce yet hardly coherent string comments crowded on top of brass fanfares while the solo piano (played by Anthony Mott) adds its bizarre and verbose contribution.

The orchestra displayed splendid, if not unblemished, reactions to Tippett’s conducting of Walton’s Portsmouth Point Overture, the recently neglected Rio Grande of Constant Lambert and the contradictory mixture of jollity and bitter depression which is the essence of Gershwin’s American in Paris.

LEICESTER MERCURY, MARCH 1966

The De Montfort Hall was filled for this concert in the Sir Robert Martin memorial series last night, when the County Youth senior orchestra provided the sort of playing that astonished audiences during their Belgian visit at the beginning of the year. Opinions may vary but I think the current orchestra to be the best yet - not necessarily for its assemblage of gifted individual instrumentalists but as a closely-integrated ensemble capable of accepting an interpretation and projecting it to an audience.

The County School of Music at Birstall has planned for improvement by enlarging its supply of trained reserves. But no-one will deny, I think, that the now permanent association of Michael Tippett with the orchestra has had a significant influence on its members and has affected both the quality of their playing and their outlook on music itself. The beautiful performance of the "Enigma" variations provided ample evidence of the orchestra’s surprising maturity of feeling and their sensitive and understanding response to a revealing interpretation. Each variation had a nicely-judged individuality and although the more boisterous of them lost nothing in liveliness of attack, there was a tenderness and sincerity about the playing which went right to the heart of the music. The Popular "Nimrod", Beethoven-inspired, was free from over-emotion and "Dorabella" was played with a delightfully light touch and with excellent unanimity of nuance and phrasing. All in all, there was an evocation, here, of the fraternal philosophy of Elgar's "larger theme". Tippett's Handel variations have a sharp, pungent flavour that I found enjoyable particularly on account of some excellent keen-edged orchestral playing and the rhythmic dynamism of Anthony Mott who made an authoritative job of the exacting sold piano part. The fugato section was particularly well done and its clarity of detail was testimony to Tippett the conductor and Tippett the composer.

Constant Lambert's "Rio Grande" with the combined choirs was performed so well as to make it the more surprising that the work is so rarely heard.

The composer uses brass, strings and percussion as an accompaniment to the choir and the contralto's singing of Sacheverell Sitwell's dream-like words and through the soft luscious harmonies the solo piano cuts jazzy capers in its role as the satirical commentator. Wibaud played the part with just the right touch of rhythmic swagger and Helen Attfield's singing of the small contralto line was wholly effective. Well-poised choral singing contributed to the polished performance which Tippett secured. Lambert the critic was rather scathing about Gershwin hinting that An American in Paris was a hybrid "ashamed of its parents and boasting of its French lessons". But like the opening Walton overture the music has an agreeable air of lightheartedness about it and served to give the whole of the orchestra some satisfying work to do. Both were played with an exhilarating flourish and with a rightful Pride in virtuosity.

R.A.P.

AACHENER NACHRICHTEN, JULY 1966

The Leicestershire Schools' Symphony Orchestra concert on Thursday evening in the new Kurhaus made a deep impression. These 100 school girls and boys from this English School of Music attain a level of performance which is surprising in times when we suffer from a dearth of qualified up-and-coming players. The large number of string players is particularly astonishing (they included 10 cellists and 4 double basses), as orchestras in Germany are particularly worried about obtaining string players. However, the situation in England, where in musical education the emphasis has always been more on performance, may well be a different and happier one. The performance naturally impressed us more than the large number of players. In this Symphony Orchestra from Leicestershire we have a musical group which has all the essential characteristics of a professional orchestra. Eric Pinkett, the Conductor, has trained his youthful players to a remarkable level, astonishingly so in fact.

A number of things struck one; the subtly differentiated variations of dynamics, the sharply defined contrast between forte and pianissimo, the disciplined and firm synchronisation of bowing. Yet there was not only their perfect technique; one warmed to the magnificent obligato, the precise and elemental rhythm, the continually exciting full-blooded vitality making an unusual blend of simple direct music-making and sophistication.

All these points of excellence, combined with the programme content, directed as it was towards controversial effects, produced an overall effect which was both convincing and intensely exciting. This was true of the rendering of the modern works admittedly chosen for their middle-of-the-road appeal. But it also went for the versions given of the romantic works of Weber and Brahms. They gave an interpretation of the contemporary Ridout 2nd Symphony which brought out the essentially urbane characteristics of this witty and inventive composition. And Kelly's Cuban Suite came over in a way that brought out its exotic 'folk' character and made a fiery and glittering end to the evening. One got much enjoyment from the Enigma Variations by the English composer Elgar, the distinguishing mark of whose style is the pleasing contrast it offers between its traditionally romantic-classical derivation and an already forward-looking originality. The young visitors from England paid tribute to the great German musical tradition whose path has not infrequently crossed that of English music

to the benefit of either, by their performance of the Brahms Academic Festival

Overture, with its skilfully incorporated student songs, and with the Weber Clarinet Concertino which was performed with a most attractive playfulness. Its solo part was brilliantly rendered with a subtle feeling for romantic nuance and a sense of classical proportion.

RHEINISCHE POST, JULY 1966

An English orchestra consisting of schoolboys and girls from Leicestershire

came across convincingly to the audience in the Konigsburg as a fully-fledged symphony orchestra, both in terms of quality and of the scale of instrumentation. It was the only Symphony Orchestra to take part in the Sixth International Youth Music Festival. It was conducted by Norman Del Mar, for five years conductor of the B.B.C. Scottish Orchestra. David Pugsley was the talented clarinet soloist in Weber's exacting Concertino.

This fine orchestra, with 66 girls and 33 boys, including 40 wind players, filled the entire stage and followed their conductor with well-rehearsed discipline. They began with Brahms' Academic Festival Overture executed with brilliance and formal precision. In the Weber Concertino the orchestra showed their well-practiced skill both in accompaniment and in the tutti passages.

Just what high standards are expected of the orchestra emerged in the

tricky Second Symphony of Alan Ridout, dedicated to the composer Michael Tippett, who sometimes conducts the orchestra, for his 60th birthday, and first performed at Leicester in the De Montfort Hall. This work appeals through its rhythmic and harmonic individuality and its instrumentation. The strings were at no point overwhelmed even by some heavy brass passages and a few mighty drum rolls.

The composer of the interesting Cuban Suite, Bryan Kelly, was himself present, and the excellent performance of his work won his full approval. The first two movements are more in Central European than in Latin American style; the scherzo of the second movement introduces a fugato; the third movement and the rhythmically "taut" finale are typically Spanish.

Probably the most ambitious offering came last - Elgar's Enigma Variations.

The composer (1857-1934) characterises in each of the variations different

friends of his. They are described personally too in Elgar's own notes on the work. The melodic, harmonic and orchestral debt to Brahms is unmistakable. The difficult passages for brass, woodwind and strings were magnificently managed by the youthful orchestra. The audience - which could have been larger - paid homage to conductor, soloist and orchestra with enthusiastic applause.