Spring Concert - Saturday, 8th March 2025

Stories abound, apocryphal or not, of orchestral leaders bow strings breaking with the subsequent passage of a bow being passed forward from the ranks of violin players to ensure no interruption to the planned performance. No such equivalent occurred at the start of the programme on March 8^th when Rupert Bond found his conductor’s rostrum and stand was without a baton and the audience waited with baited breath as he left to discover the missing baton!

All was well when following the conductor’s reappearance, the sprightly themes of the Wasps Overture by Ralph Vaughan Williams heralded the start of an intriguing programme of music performed to a large and supportive audience by this remarkable amateur orchestra. Whether or not we are aware of the original impetus for composition the initial sound painting of swarming wasps by the string section was really effective, the buzzing opening theme followed by clearly articulated wind and brass passages from an orchestra luxuriating in the modal and quintessentially Englishness of the music.

If, as the programme notes suggested, we were to find a link between this work of Vaughan Williams and the first performance of Searching by Peter Aviss, the audience may well have been wanting a second opportunity to hear the work. It is quite remarkable to have an eminent composer playing a prominent role in the orchestra and to have the support both of the orchestra and the local authority to invest time and money into realising a new commission. Completed only at the end of 2024 the work required considerable effort during the last three months to realise the composer’s intention of Searching for what? For Love? For Truth? A demanding score based on a set of variations, built to a dramatic climax which as the composer suggested in his programme note left us wondering whether there were still ‘unanswered questions?’ I for one would have loved to hear a second performance in the same programme during the evening to make up my mind!

The first half of the programme ended with a performance of Mussorgsky Songs and Dances of Death orchestrated by Rupert Bond and sung by Thomas Lowen. A bold decision both to programme the work and realise it in a new orchestration when others are available (e.g. Rimsky Korsakov) demonstrating the USP of the Folkestone Symphony, prepared to engage with repertoire that challenges its players and its audience. Peter Aviss had us searching for truth and Mussorgsky wishes us to ponder on death. The challenge for the excellent bass Thomas Lowen, singing in Russian, was to match the orchestrated piano accompaniment, itself difficult but especially so in the resonant acoustic of Holy Trinity. Perhaps a chamber orchestral version would have offered a vehicle both for the realisation of these extraordinary songs (and the exciting challenge offered to the orchestrator) and the undoubted quality and musicality of the soloist.

The second half of the programme, devoted to the performance of the third symphony of Robert Schumann, allowed the orchestra to return to more familiar territory and realise glorious themes, masking the turmoil of a troubled mind and challenging domestic circumstance of the composer. There was much fine playing in all sections of the orchestra, the horns and brass especially finding the spaces of Holy Trinity a joy to fill with Schuman’s heraldic material. The five movements took us on a programmatic journey through the Rhineland of Germany, the fourth in particular evoking the splendour and beauty of Cologne cathedral matched by sound with the similar splendour of Holy Trinity.

This was a challenging and interesting programme of music presented by Folkestone Symphony, led by the remarkable Flo Peycelon, whose expertise and experience informs the orchestra, and its conductor Rupert Bond. Flo’s engagement with young string players is both vital and essential if the tradition of excellent orchestral playing in Folkestone is to continue.  Any policy FHOS can devise for engagement with young musicians should be applauded and supported. 

Grenville Hancox