My first trip to Auckland Castle this summer and the music matched the end of a sunny day. When I saw the listing for a harp quartet, I immediately made a note to go. I've previously seen and heard harp quartets in Ottawa (the Four Seasons Harp Quartet at Music and Beyond, if I recall correctly) and enjoyed the sound.
4 Girls 4 Harps are: Eleanor Turner, Harriet Adie, Keziah Thomas and Elizabeth Scorer. They celebrate their 15th anniversary this year. The organisers at Bishop Auckland Music Society had arranged for this concert to be in St Peter's Chapel rather than the Throne Room; the acoustics in the chapel supported the harps really well, creating a wash of sound.
The concert tonight was a super-duper programme of new arrangements, new works and a few favourites. Whilst I enjoyed the favourites (arrangements by Harriet Adie of the 18th Variation from Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini - Rachmaninov - and Waltz 2 from Suite for Variety Orchestra - Shostakovich), the standout parts of the concert were the new works. After Eleanor Turner's arrangement of La Chasse (Sophia Giustina Corri), the birthday piece was revealed for its second performance. Their 15th anniversary commission, entitled Tetra, features 4 movements by 4 female composers, inspired by 4 great women, and all quoting from Henriette Renié's Légende, as follows (as much as my hasty notes will confirm):
Meditation 1 - by Ayanna Witter-Johnson - inspired by Mother Theresa
Tree of Hope - by Alissa Firsova - inspired by Frida Kahlo
Fantasy - Nicola LeFanu - inspired by (I think?) Amelia Fawcett DBE
Lady in the Shadows - Savourna Stevenson - inspired by Josephine Baker
Meditation 1 was a super shimmery piece with vocal overlays; it and Tree of Hope also featured lots of harp drumming. Tree of Hope was explosive, plaintive, angry, and calm in short succession. Fantasy had a weaving, murmuring quality to it; and Lady in the Shadows was very much a slow, bluesy number. Following on from Tetra, we heard the original Renié Légende.
The concert closed with another Adie arrangement, of Tarrega's guitar work Recuerdos de la Alhambra (really lovely piece); and finally an Adie original, Elemental. Elemental's 4 movements were Earth, Air, Water and Fire - very different atmospheres throughout and each based on a theme introduced by Adie (gnomes, caves, ponds, wind and woodland all featured). Mixtures of textures, jazzy elements, polyrhythms - an excellent work.
Each quartet member had a piece, or pieces, to introduce, adding background stories and extra information, all with a good dash of humour. This continued into the encore, a witty arrangement of the Clog Dance from La fille mal gardée. The current concert schedule for 4 Girls 4 Harps continues throughout the year and is available on their website. They are definitely worth seeing!
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