Cerne Abbas Music Festival

19/07/2023

STARTS THIS THURSDAY 20th

https://cerneabbasmusicfestival.org.uk/

Tickets can be purchased at the door, prior to each performance, payable by cash or cheque.

12/05/2022

A phased availability. Go online to find out more:
https://cerneabbasmusicfestival.org.uk/booking/

04/05/2022

For the first time, Bookings can now be made entirely online from 12th May!
https://cerneabbasmusicfestival.org.uk/booking/

09/04/2022

Cerne Abbas Music Festival will announce easy Online Ticketing in mid May 2022

24/06/2021

2021 Covid - Venue change

2021 Covid – Venue change Jun 24, 2021 | News It is regretted that it has become necessary to change the venue for the concerts planned for St Mary’s Church in Cerne Abbas this year. An alternative venue is under urgent investigation for the same week and Festival members will be notified of the...

18/06/2021

It's confirmed at last!

24/07/2019

Music in St Peter’s Church Stourton Caundle
Saturday 28th September 2019 7.30pm
Connaught Brass
A brass quintet from The Royal Academy of Music
A wonderful opportunity to hear an award-winning ensemble of Britain’s most talented young instrumentalists
Tickets @ £18 each (to include refreshments in the interval)
Reservations and enquiries to:
Tim/Maureen Villiers 01963 364384, or [email protected]
Proceeds to St Peter’s Church

09/07/2019

The stage is up in St Mary’s church and the musicians are arriving in the village.
Not long now!

04/07/2019

Are you coming to our Sunday afternoon concert on 14th July at 12 noon?
Devienne: Quartet for Bassoon and Strings Op 73 No 2
Schubert: Quintet in A Major, “The Trout” for Piano and Strings D667. One of the most loved of all chamber music.

04/07/2019

Our coffee concerts have been very popular in recent years. Musicians bring some lighter works to the table and introduce their performances. This year the concert includes one of Haydn’s most beautiful string quartets and the witty and lively wind quartet by Jean Françaix. This hour long concert is a wonderful introduction to chamber music as well as being highly enjoyable for our more regular supporters.
Saturday July 13th at 11.30am

02/07/2019

Late concerts in the church always have an especially intimate feel and this year we are exploring a rich vein of Hungarian composers

02/07/2019

Cerne Abbas Music Festival is particularly excited about our late night concert this year. Friday 12th July at 10.00pm
Music from Hungary, including Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances, Kodály, Veress, and Kurtág’s Játékok for solo piano.

23/05/2019

This year’s programmes span three centuries, returning to the Baroque era for the first concert and welcoming back the wonderful harpsichord player, Margaret Cole.

09/05/2019

We are delighted to present the 29th Cerne Abbas Music Festival, a major event in the South West musical calendar with musicians from across Europe giving amazing concerts in a relaxed and informal setting.
We open on Thursday 11th July with a festival talk at 4.30pm. “The Great Company of Composers” by the eminent musicologist and broadcaster Robert Philip, examining the links and inspirations between composers from Bach and Handel to Brahms and Bartók

08/03/2019

Wonderful news! Richard Hosford was made a Fellow of The Royal College of Music by Prince Charles at a ceremony on 6th March.
Congratulations Richard. We are so proud to have you at the centre of our Music Festival. Indeed without you there would be no Cerne Abbas Music Festival.

24/02/2019

A Stage-Hand Writes…… (Part 2)

There is often music left out on the stands when musicians have left the stage, but you have to be careful about this. A complete set of parts may have been borrowed from the Royal College of Music, or hired from a music library, and need to be kept together. On the other hand, these valuable sheets may be the individual’s own property, complete with personal markings, and must be returned to their owner.
Some musicians playing in both halves of a concert might like to take all their music on in one go, at the very start, and will walk on after the interval confidently expecting to find their music where they left it. It’s no good if some over-zealous amateur stage-hand has swept it all up after the first half and tossed it into a box-file backstage. The rule must be: check that you are only taking off music that has already been played.
Orchestral players of sparingly-used instruments, such as a bass trombone, perhaps, have been known to smuggle a bit of light reading on-stage, inside their music, to while away the time when they have nothing to play. It is said that well-thumbed copies of ‘The Racing Post’ have sometimes been found when the brass section music-stands come to be folded away. It doesn’t happen in Cerne Abbas, though, I’m sure.

Thank you for this Guy.

14/02/2019

A Stage-Hand Writes……………. (Part 1)

You might be surprised at some of the things that have been left behind on stage after concerts or rehearsals, apart from the chairs and music-stands set out a little while earlier. These have included: cushions, scarves and stoles; tissues, throat pastilles and lip-salve; rubber feet off the legs of chairs and wedges of folded cardboard to restore the stability of said chairs; a box of oboe reeds; pencils (often), spectacles and sun-glasses (sometimes), wrist-watches (occasionally), even a wedding-ring (once); and a small traffic cone. (What?) No, sorry, that turned out to be the horn-player’s mute.

Another of Guy’s lovely pieces musing on our music festival.

27/01/2019

We've turned the church round. Chairs, unnumbered, face
The east again. The staging's packed away;
Hymn-books are out, and leaflets on display;
The heavy lectern's sternly back in place.
This year, once more, the players came, rehearsed
As if empowered by a single brain,
Gave concerts, master-classes; dodged the rain.
Today they've gone, their harmonies dispersed
To other ears in Holland, Salzburg, Spain ......
So now the setting sun, for me alone,
Paints stained-glass colours on the patient stone.
The church is silent, but I hear again
The perfect balance of a string quintet;
That rampant horn; that swirling clarinet.

A.G.Mawer (2013)

11/11/2018

02/11/2018

Richard Hosford in 'Dorset Island Discs'

Richard Hosford in ‘Dorset Island Discs’ Nov 2, 2018 | News Dorset Island Discs! Richard Hall talks to CAMF’s Richard Hosford Sunday 25th Nov Cerne Village Hall Tickets £12.50 incl wine and canapés at the door or from DRMS THe Close, Blandford, DT11 7HA, 01258 452511

27/09/2018

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)

The Gaudier Ensemble can usually be relied on to come up with something new or unusual for the Festival. The unfamiliar piece which caught my attention this year was the delightful Fantaisie for violin and harp by Saint-Saëns.
Even those who love his music may not appreciate that Saint-Saëns was one of the greatest musical prodigies of all time. His youthful accomplishments were just as remarkable as those of Mozart, Mendelssohn or Korngold, whose names might first come to mind. He began composing when very young and by the age of ten he could play all thirty-two of Beethoven’s piano sonatas from memory! His reputation as a pianist, conductor and composer grew rapidly, and he wrote in a wide range of genres, from piano salon pieces to grand opera. He is credited with composing the first music written specifically to accompany moving pictures: the very first film score.
The music of Saint-Saëns is characterised by elegance, clarity of form, superb craftsmanship and a good deal of wit. To the end of his long life, he continued to compose in a tonal, conservative idiom long after the likes of Debussy, Stravinsky and Schoenberg had moved music a long way from traditional and conventional paths.
He championed the music of Wagner and Liszt, who rated him the best organist in the world, but relationships with his compatriots were often far from cordial. He was fiercely critical of Debussy’s innovative harmonies, disliked the music of Franck and d’Indy, and fell out with Massenet, the most popular operatic composer of the age. Massenet enjoyed a string of successes and made a lot of money, whereas of the thirteen operas composed by Saint-Saëns, only one, Samson et Dalila gained a place in the repertoire.
If you like the sound of Saint-Saëns, and have heard the “Organ” Symphony and some of the concertos, look out for the Septet for the unusual combination of piano, trumpet and strings, and also the short piece for piano and orchestra entitled “Africa”. There is a lot more to Saint-Saëns than “Carnival of the Animals”, splendid though that is.

23/09/2018

Rhapsody, Rapsodie or Rhapsodie?

Richard Hosford’s choices of music for the Festival are always eagerly awaited by the organizers so that we can get on with preparing the booking-form. However, his musical shorthand, perfectly intelligible to fellow-members of the Gaudier Ensemble, may need some fleshing-out for the benefit of potential concert-goers. Where possible, we like to include the full title of a piece, together with the instrumentation.
Consider the work initially billed for the 2018 Festival as “Debussy: Rhapsody”. Did he write more than one? If so, which is this? What instruments are involved? Is there an opus number? Should the title be in French or English? It is soon established that the piece is what Debussy called his First Rhapsody for solo clarinet, flute, harp, string quartet and double bass. (This is slightly confusing in itself, because he never got round to writing a Second Rhapsody.) Deciding to list this in French, as is usual, and getting the accent right in ‘Première’, we then come to the French for ‘Rhapsody’. Unfortunately, CD notes, guides to recordings and musical dictionaries seem unable to decide between ‘Rapsodie’ and ‘Rhapsodie’. Hedging our bets, perhaps, we put the former in the booking-form and the latter in the brochure. Did anybody notice?
In the end, Richard played the piece, in French, WITH the ‘h’, as very attentive listeners will have appreciated. Who would have thought that just the title of one work in the Festival programme would need so much time spent on it?

Another gem - Thank you Guy.

21/09/2018

Susan Tomes has played the piano for every festival for 25 years now. It is always a delight to hear her play. She keeps a regular blog of all her writings and concerts.
Here is an extract from her entry on Cerne Abbas Music Festival 2018.
“This year, rehearsal time was intense, because we played seven concerts over four days, not repeating a single item. We had to work very fast and economically. Keeping standards high can only be done if everyone is well prepared and has practised their part to concert standard, for there is no time to start from scratch. It’s as if everyone arrives with the juggling balls already in the air and immediately starts tossing the balls to one another. Each year it amazes me that such an amount of complex repertoire can be put together in such a short time, but of course it only works because the level of musicianship is so high.”
Do go and read more from Sue at
http://www.susantomes.com/gaudier-ensemble-cerne-abbas-2018-music-festival/

I’m just back from a week at the Gaudier Ensemble’s annual Cerne Abbas Music Festival in Dorset – my 25th year at the festival, I think. Some of the core players have been doing it for 28 years! But there are always new players and guest players, and this year we had the fabulous wind …

09/09/2018

Pencils
Every rehearsal is punctuated at some point by the clatter of a pencil falling off a music-stand. Some musicians never have them, and need to borrow from colleagues, but most players bring one, to amend dynamics and mark fingerings, perhaps, or to cross out a repeat.
A soft pencil is best, because markings from a previous performance, or made by someone else, may need to be quickly rubbed out. The popular choice is for a pencil with its own eraser on the end. As a separate item, the eraser is just another thing to drop. String players are particularly conscientious about pencils because they are constantly trying to synchronize bowings. (Keen-eyed visitors to the 2018 Festival may have noticed a down-bow marked on the front cover of the brochure.)
Sadly, pencils are often lost. A conversation overheard in rehearsal between two violinists, both distinguished orchestral leaders, ran as follows:
Marieke (in exasperation):
“Oh, I had a lovely long pencil here this morning, and now it’s gone!”
Lesley (lending her one):
“I know. I keep a collection of pencil stubs, just about usable, especially for conductors. They never bring one themselves, and I never get them back.”
(Thanks Guy for this gem)

07/09/2018

2): VERKLÄRTE NACHT (Arnold Schoenburg) Friday late evening concert

I found this performance intensely moving, both aesthetically and emotionally. The atmosphere which built up as we listened in the still, dimmed church developed into something mysterious and magical – poignant yet uplifting. My synaesthetic inner eye saw the densely knotted chords as skeins of mixed colour – greens, browns and blues shot with silver - the shades of the woodland in the moonlight of Dehmal’s poem. It was an inspirational and enthralling performance. And as I left the church into the thickening night, the sky was irradiated with the unearthly serenity of the blood moon. I returned home spellbound.

©EM 2018

05/09/2018

I was enchanted by the stunning performance of the guest harpist from the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Lucy Wakeford, this year. I was treated to a jaw dropping technical and interpretive performance. I had a good seat...I was able to watch her hands on the strings and her feet on the pedals. It was a magical performance. She was able to get sounds and shapes in the music that thrilled, from bright, zingy, nail-biting trills to a kind of rounded, percussive sound reminiscent of a mysterious marimba. It was an enchanting and skilful performance.

Andrew Popkin

04/09/2018

The Incredible Shrinking (and Expanding) Ensemble

The remarkable flexibility and versatility of the Gaudier Ensemble was never better demonstrated than in the 2018 Festival. There were pieces requiring every number of players from one to eight, using different combinations of piano, winds and strings. The largest ensemble, for Debussy’s Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, involved no fewer than eleven players, who only just managed to fit onto the stage. After the first rehearsal, which was very cramped, the musicians changed the layout of the group to reduce the risk of jabbing one another with bows or elbows. We even moved the flowers temporarily from the front of the stage, in case the cloven hoof of a clumsy faun might kick them over.
At the other extreme, Juliette Bausor played Debussy’s Syrinx, for solo flute, standing in the pulpit of St. Mary’s. Faced with an empty stage, some members of the audience craned over their shoulders to see where these ethereal sounds were coming from. In the hushed church, we could hear a strong breeze rustling the leaves of nearby trees. Not quite the reed-beds of classical myth, but close enough. The combination of ambient sounds and beautiful playing made a magical effect.

Guy Mawer