LEICESTER MERCURY, APRIL 1973

Part of the pleasure of today's trip to the Isle of Man by the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra lies in the knowledge that since their last visit two years ago the Leicestershire lead has been followed and that there now exists a Manx youth orchestra. Members of the Leicestershire party, in fact, will be able to hear the new orchestra during their visit to the island.

The L.S.S.O. travelled to the Isle of Man at the invitation of Lady Mary Stallard, wife of Sir Peter Stallard, Lieutenant Governor of the Island, and during their stay they will give three concerts, the principal one being on Easter Sunday when Havelock Nelson will conduct a performance of Haydn's "Creation".

The orchestra will be joined by the Manx Festival Chorus and the Ulster Singers. The proceeds of all the concerts will be given to the Manx Youth Orchestra.

The L.S.S.O. will return on Easter Monday in time to complete rehearsals for an important engagement at Leicester's De Montfort Hall - the presentation of Verdi’s Requiem on April 30.

LEICESTER MERCURY, DECEMBER 1973

LEICESTER MERCURY, DECEMBER 1973

It is quite an accolade to get into the Best Records of the Year, a list published annually by E.M.G. in its monthly letter, so there is a look of the cat licking the cream on the faces of the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra. Their record is of Brian's Symphonies Nos. 10 and 21 and is one of the 60 selected out of thousands produced during the year 1973.

In case you may never have heard of the composer Brian the Briton, you need feel no shame for he has been woefully neglected and this is the first recording of any music by one of this country's most remarkable composers.

Havergal Brian died last year at the fine old age of 96. He wrote 32 symphonies and five operas. The review of the record says: "Brian's music is among the most original to have been written in this century and it is doubly exciting and satisfying to hear the verve with which this remarkable youth orchestra attacks the formidable task set by these two difficult but very rewarding scores."

Symphony No. 21 was composed when Brian was 87 and was one of 22 symphonies he wrote after the age of 80. Late flowering if you like! And pleasant to record that in this triumph of youth and age, Leicestershire has played a significant part.

LEICESTER MERCURY, JANUARY 1973

The internationally famous young Korean-born violinist Kung-Wha Chung was the soloist and Uri Segal the conductor in an invitation concert at Loughborough last night with the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra. The event was significant not merely because of the eminence of the two visiting musicians (Segal's reputation is rising rapidly and soon he is to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic), but because the circumstances of their visit to Leicestershire have

pointed a new direction in which the Schools Orchestra can widen its educational experience and, at the same time, provide an invaluable service to the professional concert world.

The initiative began with Miss Chung who, having decided to take Bartok’s second violin concerto into her repertoire, asked about the possibility of rehearsing it extensively with an orchestra. She likes, in preparing concertos, to become as closely aquainted with the orchestral part as with the solo part -especially so in the case of Bartok 2 with its tightly integrated construction.

Her London agent, having heard the L.S.S.O., approached Eric Pinkett (county music adviser and the orchestra's regular conductor) and received an enthusiastic yes. Rehearsals were fixed for the first three days of the New Year with a concert to finish.

Thus last night the audience at the great Hall of Radmoor in Loughborough College of Art and Design heard Miss Chung's first public performance of Bartok 2 which, incidentally, Uri Segal conducted for the first time.

After her first rehearsal session with the orchestra, Miss Chung was clearly delighted with their playing. "Uri, they play marvellously," she said to Segal, "and they work really hard."

The remarkable thing was that the orchestra had learned their part of the concerto in just a fortnight, and thoroughly enough to ensure that rehearsals with their distinguished guests could concentrate on balance and interpretation rather than on correcting basic errors. The experience was such a success from the orchestra's point of view that every attempt will be made to repeat it with visits from other young and celebrated musicians. Miss Chung herself hopes to be back for a similar working session at Birstall one day.

Her last night's reading of the Bartok showed a sensitive and imaginative regard for its fine qualities, especially so in her subtle handling of its quicksilver

changes of mood and its finely poised contrasts between rhythmic toughness and wistful lyricism. Segal’s handling of the orchestra enhanced the solo line with carefully judged weighting and balancing of the work's precisely wrought textures. In their response, the orchestra achieved a standard of playing that was truly amazing for its maturity and professionalism. Under Segal, too, they gave vital performances of the Roman Carnival overture by Berlioz and Kodaly's richly colourful "Peacock" variations. R.A.P.

LEICESTER MERCURY, MAY 1973

Young musicians from the Leicester area have a busy and distinguished schedule ahead of them in the coming months. Next month the 110 members of the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra go to London to record an Omnibus television programme with conductor Andre Previn entitled "The Other L.S.O." In July they go to the Festival Estival de Paris - a French equal of the London Proms - as the invited orchestra in the main concert hall there. Afterwards they go to Autun to play in the Europa Cantant Five. This is a very distinctive honour for the youngsters as it is the first time that a schools' orchestra has been invited to the event. It is held every three years and 3,000 choristers from all over the Continent take part. The orchestra then performs at the Festival Hall in September. "We have been told that we are the best schools' orchestra in Europe," said Mr. Eric Pinkett, county music adviser.

"I'm very proud. "

LEICESTER MERCURY, MAY 1973

By Ralph Pugsley

The latest record to be made by the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra is certainly their most important and it is also, I think, their best. It has just been issued by Unicorn and it is a landmark because it makes available on a commercial disc for the very first time the music of Havergal Brian who died last year at the age of 96. One is conscious, indeed, of the element of tragedy in the fact that Brian, who composed music for so long without encouragement or recognition, never lived to hear this pioneer disc made by musicians young enough to be his great-great-grandchildren.

The chosen works are the 10th Symphony (1954) and the 21st (1963), the conducting being shared by James Loughran and Eric Pinkett, respectively, and I can think of no higher compliment to the L.S.S.O. than to say that, listening to their playing, one accepts it on the same standard as that of a professional orchestra. And what of the music? I can only say that I am amazed that these symphonies have not been heard before and grateful to the efforts of Dr. Robert Simpson whose tireless advocacy of Brian helped to make the record possible.

The Composer's style as shown in these two works is highly individual and always fascinating. Things tend to happen suddenly and with swift sharp contrasts in a Havergal Brian score like the storm which whips up with impressive fury in the single spanned 10th Symphony and then as quickly subsides. One notices, too, the progress of the music through brief and seemingly unrelated sound shapes - snippets, even, and juxtaposing full-blooded orchestral colours with the thin textures of one or two solo instruments. Yet even on first listening I found the onward progress of the music never in doubt. With real ingenuity Brian sees to it that the ear is sufficiently stocked with relevant information to apprehend new twists and turns - new shocks and digressions – in the forward journey. Listening for the third and fourth time one begins to glimpse the deeper meaning of the notes - especially in the magnificence of the 10th symphony - and marvel at the optimism which, at the age of 87, Brian poured into the four-movement 21st Symphony which expostulates so buoyantly in its grandly conceived final movement. I recommend this disc to those who seek an original musical mind working through self-assured unorthodox procedures and skilful and intriguing handling of the orchestra to express a worthwhile philosophy. The lucid conducting of Loughran and Pinkett helps in reaping this pleasure.

LEICESTER MERCURY, MAY 1973

Strings excel in jubilee performance

The significant and encouraging feature of last night's silver jubilee concert at Loughborough by the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra was the high standard of string playing, especially in the Elegy and Waltz from Tchaikovsky's Serenade, finely conducted by Eric Pinkett. Wind players get results relatively quickly; the development of string players, however, is a longer process. But the County School of Music's string nursery is clearly beginning to pay off.

The senior orchestra is benefitting from players who have been caught young and graduating upwards via the junior and intermediate ensembles, arrive with valuable experience behind them.

On last night's evidence in the University's Edward Herbert building one can confidently report the existence of a Birstall string tradition with a recognisably individualistic style. Smetana's overture to The Bartered Bride was an exuberant beginning, the pace fast and staggered entries putting sectional competence and confidence on open display. The orchestra's expressive power was manifest in a meritable performance of Dvorak's tone poem, The Noon Witch, whose final lamentatory episode bore a true sense of atmosphere. And I must return to the Tchaikovsky string music to recount the depth of feeling Eric Pinkett drew from the Elegy, some of whose writing, as he showed is surprisingly modern in its psychological thinking.

The concert’s soloist was Marlene Fleet (now living in Leicestershire) who joined the orchestra in Cesar Franck's Symphonic Variations. Her reading, I thought, expressed beautifully and elegantly the music's romantic charm and I particularly admired the lyrical cantabile which graced its opening theme.

The piu lento section was subtly and delicately accentuated and the final allegro had the lightness and sprightliness of rhythm that it needs. An impressive debut from this pianist in her new home county but the orchestral playing here could have been a little more positive.

The programme, which ended with Wolf-Ferrari's Jewels of the Madonna suite, included Incantation and Dance, which is one of those pieces for wind band which the Americans do so well. The composer, Chance, uses six percussion in this work whose opportunities for exhilarating sounds were well exploited. Clifford Hutt was its conductor. R A P

LEICESTER MERCURY, MAY 1973

The Leicestershire County School of Music began its existence in May a quarter of a century ago and so now enters its silver jubilee year. Congratulatory messages have been received from the school’s patron, Sir Michael Tippett and from such distinguished names as Sir Arthur Bliss, Andre Previn, Richard Rodney Bennett, Malcolm Arnold and Kyung-Wha Chung.

Their good wishes were reproduced in facsimile in the programme for last night's De Montfort Hall concert when, to mark the jubilee occasion, a massed schools choir and the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra joined with professional soloists in a performance of Verdi's Requiem under Laszlo Heltay's direction. And what a fine, stimulating performance it was with a quite astonishingly mature realisation of Verdi's wonderful orchestral score. There were occasional awkward moments in exposed and taxing passages (such as at the opening of the Offertorio) but they were few, they were understandable and they served indeed to demonstrate the powers of recovery that these musicians possess - their refusal to be inhibited by difficulties.

Heltay clearly had abounding confidence in his young singers and players. One sensed that his careful shaping of the work went strictly according to a well laid plan and that his notably good control of dynamics reflected keen and sympathetic vocal and instrumental response. The opening was beautifully managed. Its nuances subtly and accurately moulded and the balance of the Kyrie typical of the clean, vivid sound that Heltay achieved even in the thickest of textures. The Dies Irae, which can sound merely loud and turgid across in brilliant sharp-edged colours. The key to the Sanctus's' very beautiful and moving realisation was again Heltay's imaginative blending of voices and instruments. The soloists were Pitricia Garnham (soprano), Helen Attfield (contralto, a former member of the County School of Music), Paul Taylor (tenor) and Michael Rippon (bass). R.A.P.

LEICESTER MERCURY, SEPTEMBER 1973

A week after being the subject of a 55 minute BBC television feature with

Andre Previn, Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra proved their worth yesterday with a memorable concert at the Royal Festival Hall, London, with John Ogden as soloist. The concert was a principal event in the silver jubilee year of the County School of Music and the conducting was shared by Laszlo Heltay and Eric Pinkett, the orchestra's regular conductor, who was responsible 25 years ago for the creation of Leicestershire's remarkable and famous musical enterprise. The LSSO has achieved so much with records and recording and with concert giving in this country and abroad that one wonders what further attainments lie open to them. I can only suggest that their combination of youthful vitality and technical excellence would be extremely popular with a BBC Prom audience. The orchestra would be equal to the occasion.

There were many professional musicians in yesterday's audience who were amazed at the playing standard especially in view of the fact that the LSSO is a genuine schools orchestra whose average age stays permanently around about 16. The programme was well chosen to demonstrate their departmental strengths and particularly the ability of each member to think orchestrally

and to be aware of what is going on around him (or her).

This latter virtue was evident in the performance of Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances which, as well as the Paganini Rhapsody, were played to mark the centenary of the composer's birth. The dances form a work of considerable length and complexity but, as we heard, provide great rewards to the listener with an ear for beauty of orchestral colouring and texture. Eric Pinkett, who had opened the concert with a sparkling account of Glinka's Russlan and Ludmilla overture, directed the Symphonic Dancers with rhythmic flexibility and yet skilfully sustaining the flow of the discursive central movement. His players cooperated intelligently and with mature musical sympathy. The string sound towards the close of the opening dance was typical or the fine quality that the LSSO produces and one admired the nerve and the thrilling articulation of brass and woodwind in the Finale where Rachmaninov works the fragmented Dies Irae to such powerful effect. Orchestral sensibility was notable in the well judged accompaniment to the Paganini Rhapsody's solo part which John Ogden played beautifully with reciprocal regard for its setting and yielding such delights as a magical transition from the delightful 17^th variation to the popular 18^th.

Heltay conducting with romantic grace yet with a precise sense of balance, followed with a superb reading of Kodaly's marvellous "Peacock" Variations.

Heltay, a Hungarian, was himself a pupil of Kodaly so the authentic feel of this performance was not surprising. The playing throughout was outstanding and one felt that the whole orchestra were equipped not merely to convey the brilliant and extrovert facets of the music, but also (as in the 11th, 12th and 13th variations) the sombre political message (still relevant) of the folk song that inspired the work. R.A.P.

THE OBSERVER, SEPTEMBER 1973

Tonight on BBC's 'Omnibus' programme you can see Andre Previn conducting the LSO. Not the London Symphony Orchestra, but the Leicestershire Schools Orchestra. What was it like being conducted by Previn, I asked Andrew Klee, 18-year-old violinist, who joined the junior orchestra of the Leicestershire County School of Music eight years ago. 'It was first-class,' he replied. 'He was so professional. He stood on the rostrum, announced the programme, turned round and we were off.' The school was founded 25 years ago this year, hence tonight's celebratory programme. It is an unusual school - the children attend only on Saturday mornings. The rest of the time they do ordinary lessons at their own schools. But on Saturdays the school's five orchestras meet to rehearse and practise. And at holiday times, the young musicians go off on courses or on tours abroad. Eric Pinkett, County Music Adviser for Leicestershire, founded the school. It was the first of its kind in the country. 'All the young musicians in the county get together and the great thing is the challenge they meet,' he says.

'They play pretty well, so wherever they play they are rather feted.'

But there are responsibilities, as well as glamour in belonging to an orchestra. 'The orchestra has to be bound by discipline, particularly self-discipline.'

Children usually learn to play an instrument at their own school and then join the junior orchestra if they are good enough. The final accolade is to become a member of the senior orchestra - the LSO.

Corinne Bradly is another member of the senior orchestra who plays under Andre Previn in tonight's 'Omnibus' programme. She plays percussion. This is unusual for a girl - she says it is difficult for a woman to get a job playing percussion with a professional orchestra. She began the flute at school and was still playing in the junior orchestra at the school, 'but when I moved up into the intermediate orchestra there were absolutely loads of flautists there.'

'So,' she went on, 'I decided I'd like to have a go at something else. A friend of mine was playing percussion on his own, so I asked if I could join him.' What she likes about percussion is 'sitting up there on a high stool, and sometimes you feel you've got control over the whole orchestra.'

Corinne and Andrew have left school now and so can no longer be members of 'the other LSO'. They regret it, but see the necessity for new players coming up. 'You've got to keep the ball rolling,' says Andrew.