Reinterred: A Cambridge Walk and a Lunchtime Concert

Today we had a gentle meander through Cambridge and a delightful lunchtime concert at Newnham College.

It was another day for umbrellas but we had only a couple of showers where we needed them.

This was the invite from Joyce.

"Wednesday November 1st. Cambridge for a recital at Newnham College. A firm favourite. I will be parking at Fen Ditton Church this time CB5 8SU for 10am. We can collect you near Stanley Road at 10.30am. After a stroll along the river, we will pause for quick drinks and then make our way to Newnham for lunch before the recital. It is always a lovely day out. Mileage is 9 or 13 miles - your choice."

Dawn and I decided to go for the Stanley Rd option and, arriving a little early, headed to meet Joyce, Roland and Sue. We then found Steve, Val and Caroline back at Stanley Rd. (Welcome Caroline for your first walk with the group).We set off along the river and stopped, as usual, at Michaelhouse café for coffee before visiting Pembroke College. We then headed to Newnham College and had our lunch there before the lunchtime concert. The it was back via Castle Hill to see the view.

This was our route.

Here are a few photos (and videos).

We are seeing a lot more autumn colour now.

The river was quite high, but not flooding.

There were a few out on the river, but not many.

I pointed out this Dinky Door to Dawn. She wasn't on our trail when we went finding them.

Not many takers for the punts by Magdalen bridge today, but we would see some later.

More autumn colour opposite the entrance to Trinity College.

We managed to find a table for the 8 of us at the café.

Then it was on to Pembroke College.

We admired the trumpet flowers here.

We needed to take shelter for a few minutes here.

Can you see the rain hitting the pond?

We crossed the river south of Silver Street bridge.

Now for lunch at the Iris Café.

Spinach and Broccoli soup all round.

Through the gardens to the Old Labs for the concert hosted by the Newnham Raleigh Society.

The performers were all freshers, although a couple are postgraduates.

Ellie Tang, a first year music student, was first on the programme.

She started with a virtuoso piece, 'Toccata' by the French composer Pierre Sancan. I'd not heard of him before, but he isn't well known outside France except for a couple of pieces - this one included.

A stunning piece of playing! Here is a video of Zlata Chochieva playing the same piece...

You can download the music here. What a lot of notes... here is an excerpt.

It's the sort of piece you have to memorise rather than perform from the music.

Ellie followed this up with 'Nocturne' by Samuel Barber, and interesting synthesis of the 19th Century style of Nocturne such as those by John Field (to whom the piece is dedicated) and the serial composition techniques of the 20th Century. Here it is played by Nate Koch.

I wondered if it was part of Ellie's study as part of her Music degree course as it is quite an interesting piece. Read an analysis of it here.

Ellie was followed by something completely different - a couple of unaccompanied Ukrainian Folksongs sung by Tetiana Soproniuk, a visiting Postgraduate Student with the Department of Slavonic Studies. She has quite a powerful voice which was well-suited to the distinctively Eastern European style of singing and sonorities, using the traditional "White voice" technique.

As this article says, "Ukraine found itself at the crossroads of Asia and Europe and this is reflected within the music in a perplexing mix of exotic melismatic singing with chordal harmony which does not always easily fit the rules of traditional Western European harmony. The most striking general characteristic of authentic ethnic Ukrainian folk music is the wide use of minor modes or keys which incorporate augmented 2nd intervals. This is an indication that the major-minor system developed in Western European music did not become as entrenched in Ukraine. " This short clip illustrates the singing style.

And here is the Ukranian Eurovision entry from Go_A for Eurovision 2020 which uses the singing style.

Next up was Binjie Chen, also a postgraduate student, studying for an MPhil in Advanced Computer Science.

She played the more populist piano piece 'Croatian Rhapsody' by Maksim Mrvica, played here my Javier Gonzalez..

Then it was back in time to the 18th Century and the 3rd movement of Telemann's Viola Concerto, played by Alice Appleton, a first-year music student, with Ellie providing the accompaniment.

You can read about the piece here, and hear it played by Berkay Olgun here (Click the video at 6:30 for the 3rd movement).

The concert ended with a delightful rendition of 'Mister Snow' from Carousel by Rodgers and Hammerstein sung by Ava Fitzhugh, accompanied once more by Ellie.