On a beautiful spring day – which happened to coincide with Early Music Day, March 21st – we welcomed Alyson Lewin for our Visiting Conductor playing day. 25 players from as far afield as Cardigan Bay and Bridgend gathered in Trecastle, with instruments including our new Subgreatbass, 2 contrabasses and several great basses.
Alyson started us off gently with her arrangement of a traditional Welsh melody, ‘The Wild White Rose’. Although the score includes dynamics, Alyson explained that we individually only need to use very subtle changes as the dynamics of the piece are built into the scoring. The arrangement originally included a section with the option of singing whilst playing, which some people tried, but the jury was out on whether we liked it better with or without.
Our next piece was by the Renaissance composer Osbert Parsley. ‘Parsley’s Clock’ (or ‘Ut re mi fa sol la upon the dial’) features a simple tenor line with the melody – an ascending scale of 6 long notes, followed by descending notes back to the tonic. Alyson pictured for us a clock face with the hour hand starting at 6, rising to 12 and descending back to 6.
Lunch time gave us the opportunity of enjoying the sun, or browsing the many boxes of music which Alyson had brought.
Refreshed, we tackled some unbarred music under Alyson’s expert guidance, with a couple of simple pieces followed by Byrd’s ‘Ave Verum Corpus’. We learnt the value of reading the words alongside playing the notes, to give insight into the phrasing and hence where to breath. It made a huge difference to the feel of the pieces when we all did this.
Finally we split into 2 ‘choirs’ for Gabrieli’s ’Canzon Septimi Toni’, the most challenging piece of the day with some tricky time changes that Alyson made look so simple!
A thoroughly enjoyable day. Huge thanks to Alyson, and to those members who provided homemade biscuits, cake and bara brith!

We got off to a slow start as everyone was catching up after our 2 month break, and welcoming 2 new players Judith and Rachel. Eventually Caroline called us to order and we started with Marg Hall's Caprice, which we'd tried at our last meeting in November. The descant part in particular proved tricky, with a lot of high notes. The piece is in 3 movements and great fun to play, though the jury (Caroline) is out about whether we can get it up to speed to play for an audience!
Those who wished took parts home to practice.
After a coffee break, Caroline continued with the Sinfonia 'La Bergamasca' by Ludovico Grossi da Viadana. This is a 2-choir dance piece, and we needed to keep the articulation light and bouncy ('chiffy'). After a bit of practice, the 2 choirs stood at opposite ends of the room with Caroline conducting from the middle - quite a challenge!
After a lunch break, Caroline continued with Palestrina's 'Tu es Petrus: Prima pars' which improved greatly when 2 players moved from higher to lower instruments and boosted the bass. I must admit, I really enjoyed being in the bass team.
We had a quick coffee and then Mirjam took over the conducting. She has been working on recorder arrangements of some of James MacMillan's pieces from The Strathclyde Motets (choral music from the 20th century), and wanted to try them out. We started with 'Benedicimus Deum Caeli' which sounded beautiful (nice work Mirjam). We then made a start on 'Lux Aeterna', but the more complicated rhythms (descants playing minim triplets in 4/4 time) proved a step too far for this time of day. It was suggested we start with this another time.
Anyway it was 4.25, so time to be packing up - and the next group to use the hall needed to set up for their Eisteddfod - so we said our goodbyes.
Thanks to Caroline and Mirjam for conducting the day - and welcome to our new players. we hope to see you again.

11 of us started the day gently with the usual cuppa and chat. Then Caroline took charge and split us into 2 for our first piece - 'Nu Komm der Heyden Heyland', by Samuel Scheidt. This is a 2-choir piece in 4/2 time so challenged some of us right from the beginning, playing (and counting) one to a part.

(Mirjam translated this as: ​

This was followed by a coffee break and the Branch AGM (for which minutes will circulated to members in due course).
The AGM finished around 12.10 leaving just enough time to tackle our next piece before lunch, an arrangement by Mirjam of Peter Maxwell-Davies' 'Farewell to Stromness'. Some tricky rhythms in the bass part, for which Mirjam rightly blamed the original composer. It was a lovely piece, and nicely arranged :)
After lunch, Caroline handed out a double-sided sheet of music, with the Kyrie Eleison from Bach's B minor mass on one side, and an unbarred piece by Palestrina on the other. Bettina liked the look of the Palestrina but was outvoted (though we did have a chaotic attempt at the Palestrina later on). The Bach was beautiful however, and we managed a fairly good rendition after a bit of practice.
After a short coffee break, we ended with the 'Caprice' for Recorder Orchestra by Marg Hall - a lively first movement, and beautiful slow second.

Thanks to Caroline for conducting the whole day. We need that conducting workshop to recruit some new volunteers!

We started the new SRP year year with a relatively quiet meeting, around a dozen players. In this 500th anniversary year of the birth of Palestrina, Delyth started us off with a couple of pieces by that composer, ‘Tu es Petrus’ arranged for 6 parts by Alex Ayre, and ‘Sicut cervus’. Trina followed with a set of pieces by Walter Bergmann, ‘Accent on Rhythm’ in which the rhythms gradually became more complex as we progressed through the set. We did reach the final one, with a lot of tips from Trina!
After lunch Delyth took us back to the Renaissance with a piece by William Byrd, ‘Fantazia a 4’. We ended with piece by a composer who died 400 years ago this year, Orlando Gibbons: another arrangement by Alex Ayre of ‘What is our life?’

After a short break, Mirjam continued with another 2 movements from the Corelli Concerto Grosso we started last month.
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When we stopped for lunch, Lesley re-organised our seating, so that the basses sat in the middle next to the descants, with altos at one end and tenors the other. She explained that this was her preferred format, so that we could all hear the basses - and altos and tenors face each other so can also hear each other. Everyone can hear the descants of course!
After an enjoyable al fresco lunch, she led us expertly through the following pieces: 

Everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy the whole day. Thanks as usual to all our conductors, and a special thanks to Lesley for coming over to Wales; we hope you will come again!

On Saturday 22nd February we welcomed Tabea Debus as our visiting conductor for an exciting playing day. We had been offered the use of Clarence Hall in Crickhowell for the day and for an early evening concert, when Tabea was joined by lutenist Toby Carr.

Our branch normally meets monthly in the village hall in Trecastle and averages about 25 players. We had publicised this special event quite widely and attracted visitors from Cheltenham and Gloucester, as well as more local people who do not play with us regularly, and had more than 40 keen players. Tabea began with some great warm-up exercises, which eased the nerves, and then progressed from seemingly simple to increasingly difficult pieces. She is a quite brilliant teacher, getting the best from us in a friendly and encouraging manner. The final challenge was a set of Divisions on the familiar Greensleeves theme, increasing in its complexity of timing and sheer number of notes!

This piece also appeared in the concert programme in an arrangement by Tabea for recorder and theorbo. The crowds flocked in for the concert and we were treated to a magical mix of Renaissance, Baroque and Modern pieces. Some solos for recorder or for lute, theorbo or Baroque guitar, but most for duet. We revelled in music by Dowland, J.S.Bach, Ortiz and the great Anon as well as Alex Nante (b.1992) and Gareth Moorcraft (b.1990) . This concert has been named Ohrwurm (Earworm) by Tabea and certainly left us with a buzz.
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We are very grateful to the Trustees of Clarence Hall, who have supported us in this venture. Our thanks must also go to Caroline Jones, our Musical Director, for organizing such an inspiring day. Over and above that, we need to thank Tabea.

​Helen Fletcher, February 2025