Skip to main content

Saint-Saens Sensation - Cello Concerto Concert at King Charles the Martyr Church Falmouth 08.02.20

SAINT- SAENS SENSATION

Last night (Saturday 8th February 2020) Danielle Jones, the Cornish cellist gave a thrilling account of the Saint Saens cello concerto in a family packed concert at the church of King Charles the Martyr in Falmouth.     

The Saint-Saens 1st cello concerto was the last piece in a concert of French music presented by the Truro Sinfonia conducted  by Patrick Bailey and was undoubtedly the highlight of an entertaining evening for all the family.      And, indeed,  all the family had turned out in droves to support of the players - for the Sinfonia is a community orchestra who rehearse at Devoran Village Hall weekly for the big night, and this was the chance for family and friends to catch up with progress:  your correspondent observed  babies were being rocked in prams and arms at the the back on the church (appropriately to Ravel's  Pavane pour un Infant) or jigged a bit more vigorously to  Bizet's L'Arlesienne Suite, and young people crouched in the main  aisle to get a glimpse of the rocketry and fireworks that cellist Danny Jones gave in the closing piece.  She dazzled throughout  the exciting and catchy showpiece for cello and orchestra that Saint Saens had premiered in 1873  and captured, with the willing orchestra,   all the showiness and flourishes of Paris in La Belle Epoque.   Full marks to Patrick Bailey for a varied and sometimes challenging programme presented with panache and commitment - there was a retiring collection for Children's Hospice South West. 

Danielle  Jones comes from Cornwall and lives in Hayle and began studying cello at the age of 7 with Ray Didcock in Newlyn.   She gets about a bit - the previous evening she appeared in Truro at the Cornwall Cello Voices concert (and Octet of Cellos) - see review on this blog and you can catch her performing as soloist  in the Haydn C major Cello Concerto (also a virtuosic piece)  with Truro Symphony Orchestra on Saturday 14th March in Truro Cathedral as a prelude to Truro Choral Society's performance of Brahms's German Requiem directed by Martin Palmer.   Give me the prelude any time.... here's a fan







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cornwall Cello Voices

Friday 7th February 2020 Truro Catholic Church Cello Voices. Liz Brazier - widely regarded as the mother of cellists  in Cornwall  as Barbara Degener, the ensemble leader , called her at the close of this concert, has for some years run a cello weekend in the new year where cellists of all ages and abilities meet to work  and play together.   (she is actually the mother of Ben Hoagley one of the other performers - and celebrated a significant birthday today) Cornwall Cello Voices is a group of  eight of the rather more accomplished performers who have given concerts at the end of the weekend.   The sound of 8 cellos playing together in harmony is thrilling as recordings by the cellist of the Berlin Philharmonic in the 90s attest.  And this concert was certainly extremely well delivered with ensemble and balance between a frequent myriad of parts well judged. The cello's sonorous register makes it a favourite with many but the comparative lower register of the parts and th
Post a Comment
Read more

Jennet Campbell MBE

On Friday we celebrated the life of Jennet Campbell in Gerrans Church with a tribute led by Emma Campbell her daughter, and readings by daughter Sally and friends.  Local poet and county councillor Bert Biscoe gave the eulogy. Jennet Campbell was a critical influence on the development of many musicians in Cornwall, either directly or indirectly - through her own teaching or through the work of the  Radford Trust and the instrument provision scheme they have provided for many children coming to music for the first time. She received and MBE and was created a bard in the Kernow Gorsedd for her contribution to music in Cornwall.  She was the niece of musicians Maisie and Evelyn Radford, the two sisters who had settled St Anthony in Roseland and founded Falmouth Opera Group in the 1930s.  She inherited their studio and Coastguards in the village and it was from this Cornish centre of operations that her remarkable contribution to music at parish level (formation of St Anthony's Pl
1 comment
Read more

The Welkin - Gweek Village Hall

 The play the Welkin by Lucy Kirkwood was presented by The Gweek Players and Touch Theatre in September 2021 We are transported to rural Norfolk in mid 18th century England - where a heinous murder has taken place where a man aided and abetted by his mistress have murdered the young daughter of a local lady who had been consigned to the young woman's care.   Justice is perfunctory - the perpetrators were apprehended covered in the innocent's blood and proof seems undisputed and sufficient for the judges to convict more or less immediately and send the condemned to a spectacle at the local gibbet.    The crowd heaves outside as the condemned man is duly hung from the gibbet, meanwhile within a procedural problem arises as the young woman condemned as an accomplice is heard to claim she is "quick with child".  The law does not allow an innocent child to die in the womb and will transmute the sentence if the condemned woman is found to be pregnant, so the bailiff is inst
Post a Comment
Read more