{"id":10168,"date":"2026-01-28T14:29:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T13:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/?p=10168"},"modified":"2026-01-28T14:40:02","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T13:40:02","slug":"truscott-triumphans-on-a-poignant-evening-for-the-london-chamber-music-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2026\/01\/28\/truscott-triumphans-on-a-poignant-evening-for-the-london-chamber-music-society\/","title":{"rendered":"Truscott Triumphans on a poignant evening for the London Chamber Music Society"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Re blogged from Critics Circle<\/a><\/p>\n

Truscott Triumphans on a poignant evening for the London Chamber Music Society<\/h1>\n

by\u00a0Guy Rickards<\/a><\/span>\u00a0|\u00a0Mar 26, 2025<\/span>\u00a0|\u00a0Music<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a00 comments<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The composer Harold Truscott, c1979 (c) Margaret Truscott<\/em><\/p>\n

Rosie Cow<\/strong>, bassoon;\u00a0Rosalind Ventris<\/strong>, viola;\u00a0Laura Jellicoe\u00a0<\/strong>flute;\u00a0English Symphony Orchestra \/ Kenneth Woods<\/strong><\/p>\n

King\u2019s Place, London, March 23rd<\/sup>, 2025<\/p>\n

What prompted Harold Truscott to compose his\u00a0Elegy<\/em>, which received its long-overdue London premiere in March, is not recorded. Nor, indeed, are the reasons why he suppressed all knowledge of this highly charged and emotional symphonic adagio all his life. Composed in October 1943, just after Truscott had started attending\u2014as a distraction from wartime night-shift employment in the Post Office\u2014the Royal College of Music as a part-time, adult student, the\u00a0Elegy<\/em>\u00a0sounds less like a memorial than a love-letter, and its inspiration may lie in the break-up at around this time of his long-term engagement to a former student. This is reflected in the music\u2019s vain attempt to cadence from E flat to A flat. (The presence of the note D flat, the sub-dominant of A flat, however, undermines the home key to such an extent that when the\u00a0Elegy<\/em>\u00a0concludes, the simplest tonic chord of E flat major in root position\u2014cellos, violas, second violins\u2014is made to sound unresolved.) Object lesson in tonal handling it undoubtedly is, Kenneth Woods and the strings of the English Symphony Orchestra focussed on the passion in a reading that, with all due to respect to the shade of Gary Brain who first took it up, I suspect is the finest it has ever received.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kenneth Woods, the English Symphony Orchestra strings (c) Ben Ealovega<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The\u00a0Elegy\u00a0<\/em>was the second item on the programme, following a vibrant, delightful rendition of Elgar\u2019s\u00a0Romance in D minor\u00a0<\/em>for bassoon and strings (1909-10), composed for the LSO\u2019s principal Edwin James of a century ago and given here by the ESO\u2019s own Rosie Cow. It made a fine upbeat to the Truscott with its wistful atmosphere, inspired perhaps by the then recent deaths of Elgar\u2019s friends August Jaeger (\u2018Nimrod\u2019) and Basil Nevison, two of the characters featured in the\u00a0Enigma Variations.\u00a0<\/em>If the Elgar set the stage nicely for the Truscott, there was a danger that the\u00a0Elegy\u00a0<\/em>could have overwhelmed the first half\u2019s final piece, Peter Fribbins\u2019\u00a0Folk Songs\u00a0<\/em>for viola and chamber orchestra (2022), being given its UK premiere. Fortunately, in Rosalind Ventris\u2019 strong performance, splendidly accompanied by the ESO (just flute, bassoon and strings), it quickly created its own expressive space, as a mini-concerto in the form of a Prelude, Fugue and Fantasia as much about the nature of folk music as reworkings of the specific tunes themselves. These, drawn from Wales, Serbia\/Macedonia, and Hungary may not have had any specific connections between them, but Fribbins\u2019 sympathetic developments made a marvellous and coherent whole.<\/p>\n

Kenneth Woods has always had a genius for intelligent concert programming and proved it once more in the various strands and interconnections between the five works performed. The second half was devoted to scintillating accounts of two major works: Mieczyslaw Weinberg\u2019s First Flute Concerto\u2014spectacularly performed by Laura Jellicoe\u2014and Rudolf Barshai\u2019s searing transcription of Shostakovich\u2019s Tenth Quartet (dedicated to Weinberg), given here under the title Chamber Symphony but named \u2018Symphony for strings\u2019 by Barshai. Geographically, the concert opened in the West Country of England with Elgar and Truscott (the\u00a0Elegy\u00a0<\/em>contains a \u2018deliberate\u2019 quotation from Butterworth\u2019s\u00a0A Shropshire Lad<\/em>), before jumping from Wales to Central and South-Eastern Europe with Fribbins to Poland and (Soviet) Russia. Instrumentally, set against the string orchestral texture were the three concertante soloists rising upwards from Elgar\u2019s bassoon through Fribbins\u2019 viola to Weinberg\u2019s lustrous flute. Linking all five works was the pervading sense of poignancy in its many shades from grief and neglect to the personal-political tensions of Cold War Russia. This was simply superb, thought-provoking concert construction, excellently executed.<\/p>\n

As Artistic Director Peter Fribbins announced at the start of the concert, this was the final event (after some 400 concerts) in the London Chamber Music Society\u2019s 17-year sojourn at King\u2019s Place. From September, the Society will decamp to St John\u2019s, Waterloo. A memorable concert for oh, so many reasons.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n