Sitting in The University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, fragments of chamber music could be heard as the London Mozart Players began to warm up for the first concert in their 2007/2008 Oxford series. As the start of the concert approached, and the church filled, more instruments joined the warm up until music could be heard throughout the church and the audience took to their pews.Scott Ellaway, formerly organ scholar at Keble, returned to Oxford on Friday 12th October as both the conductor and the performer (directing Bach’s third Brandenburg Concerto and Widerstehe doch der Sün’ from the harpsichord). ‘The opportunity to perform music with other people is an amazing experience: I have wanted to be a conductor since the age of eleven’, he told me afterwards.
The concert opened with Haydn’s symphony number 83, La Poule, so called because of the ‘clucking’ of the instruments in the first movement. The work was commissioned for a larger orchestra, however the energy and enthusiasm with which it was performed here made up for any lack of numbers in the ensemble. This vigour was carried into Bach’s third Brandenburg concerto, which left the audience breathless by the interval.The highlight of the evening, however, was the performance of counter-tenor Robin Blaze.
Having read Music at Magdalen, Blaze then studied at the Royal Academy of Music, where he is now a professor of vocal studies. He grew up playing both the flute and piano as well as singing: his flute teacher, who later taught at the Royal Academy of Music, jokingly told him that he ‘was very glad he became a singer, rather than a flautist’! Blaze’s tone was beautiful, and his performance of Bach’s cantata ‘Widerstehe doch der Sünde’ was very engaging, despite perhaps the voice being slightly overpowered by the orchestra in the final aria.
The concert ended, rather fittingly, with Mozart’s Symphony number 40. This passionate finale acted as a good advertisement for the next LMP concert in Oxford, at 8p.m. on Saturday 26th January 2008 at the same venue (student tickets £20, £15 and £10, available from Tickets Oxford 01865 305305 or on the door).
By Robin Thompson
Haydn, Mozart, Bach with London Mozart Players and Robin Blaze, October 12 2007
