RAMSBOTTOM RECORDED MUSIC SOCIETY
AT the last society meeting of our 2015-2016 season, our good friend and member Gillian Hoar presented a programme entitled All of a Flutter.
The significance of this title soon becoming apparent when the evening began with The flight of the Bumble Bee by Rimsky-Korsakov followed by Mercury – the winged messenger, the third movement of the ever popular Planets suite by Gustav Holst.
When Gillian played her next piece of music, Autumn from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, we were asked to picture the falling leaves of autumn fluttering gently to the ground to make a carpet of vivid hues.
Continuing with the theme of all things fluttering, next came fairies with attitude, the entrance of the fairies from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe.
Gillian told us that the next piece set her heart ‘all of a flutter’, Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No 2 from which we heard the first movement.
The bird theme and the duck were next from Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf and then we were treated to Kiri de Kanawa singing One Fine Day from Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly.
To take us to the interval we heard the Infernal Dance from Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite, and Guy Mitchell singing Sparrow in the Treetops, which Gillian told us she had performed a tap duet to as a five-year-old on a wet and windy summer’s afternoon to an audience of two – her dad and brother.
The rousing Ride of the Valkyries by Wagner opened the second half and this was followed by the more serene Dance of the Swans from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.
An extract from Schumann’s Papillon suite was next, performed by Claudio Arrau.
We then heard Julie Andrews sing Feed the Birds from the multi award winning film Mary Poppins.
Debussy’s The Snow is Dancing followed and a very entertaining and enjoyable evening ended with vocalist Ray Eberle and the Glenn Miller Orchestra in a performance of A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.
The society will hold its AGM on Thursday, August 4 and the first musical evening of the new season will be on Thursday, August 18.
New members are very welcome and if you want any further details please contact Richard Hall on 01706 823490.