Brighton Early Music Festival review - levelling up for truer degree of civilisation

Horizon Voices – Lindsay James, Freya Turton sopranos, Sophie Timms mezzo, James Rhodes tenor, Alex Pratley bass (Darkness to Light across Six Centuries)

Flutes And Frets – *Beth Stone flute, *Daniel Murphy lute, theorbo, baroque guitar (Foot-tapping airs chaconnes, reels)

Tufnell Trio – Yaoré Talibart violin, Thomas Kettle viola, *Nathan Giorgetti, cello, viola da gamba (Dialogues through time, from Purcell, Bach, Beethoven)

BREMF Medieval Ensemble – Daniel Scott recorders, *Beth Stone flute, May Robertson fiddles, *Daniel Murphy lutes (Atmospheric 15th century instrumental music)

Liturina – Gabriella Jones violin, Iain Hall recorder, *Nathan Giorgietti cello, Callum Anderson harpsichord (‘Chaconne & On & On’ – music with Baroque-style bass lines)

(* a foot in either camp!)

Latest emerging young groups on the BREMF Emerging Artists Scheme who had already appeared that same afternoon with 20-minute sets in BREMF LIVE! Showcase at St George’s Church, Kemp Town, to an audience in cabaret seating with tea and cake (I wasn’t at that concert).

. . . . .

This is arguably BREMF’s widest open door. It’s how the Festival pitches its product to ‘The Brighton man and woman off the street’. Not far from Preston Circus or The Level, in a residential area just off London Road where The Rose Hill arts pub has hosted BREMF masterclasses, or more recently this now regular key event, of a type that lifts the Festival ahead of counterparts in the area of ‘classical’ music presentation.

A clubnight of semi-classical music? Are you serious? Surely this is stepping out of your comfort zone? Not now, for BREMF – although for a chamber music organisation to do this, or a chamber choir, then Yes. BREMF follows its instincts. It took this intuitive leap some years back and it’s an entirely logical venue: it’s several baroque or medieval bands playing to the crowd instead of a rock, jazz, ska, punk, indie or whatever one.

Down centuries past, music happened in church, field, street, cafe, market square or hostelry. JS Bach and Telemann rounded up musicians to perform their latest music in German cafes. Other composers in other European towns. Daytimes, it was coffee and chaconnes, evenings it was beer and bourées. Only later did music move privately into posh palaces, salons and eventually joe public concert halls and opera theatres.

BREMF Live! turns the clock backwards – yet forwards at the same time (a fun thing to do around ahead now).

We need to sample it so here I am at The Rose Hill, it’s 8.55pm and already the place is filling up with a hubbub of anticipation. The age range is wider with the Under40s equalling the rest combined.

Horizon Voices take the little stage slightly shambolically for their set of madrigals and songs, the audience chatter and calling drops but not totally. The watchers are invited to pick up and sing an Alleluia refrain, they do and they now snap nearer into the event.

The stage faces a small rectangle, low-lit but highlighted by starry reflections moving across everything from a disco mirror ball. There’s a hotch-potch of seats, chairs, small tables. The best view is sitting on the floor by the stage, or the seats on a curious, slightly raised viewing level to one side.

Around the corner is the bar, where the performers can be heard but not seen. Here, people are more easily distracted but are listening, and also those beyond the bar just inside the outside door. So in total it’s a meandering auditorium but everyone seems bonded together.

The audience falls closer to collective silence at the frailer sound of Flute And Frets. Lute strums to an air from Niel Gow’s Scottish reels collection and the crowd sense the associated folksong feel. A theorbo is introduced, provoking an inquisitive stir, its headstock almost brushing the low ceiling, and a flurry of climactic virtuosity ends the set. The audience freely applaud and the reaction hubbub rises a notch during the changeover between acts.

Tufnell Trio, three strings, quieter still, test the listeners’ concentration further. They respond, in near-silence. The musical mood begins mournfully but cheers up and their five short items end on a longer one. I am pretty sure it’s Beethoven or one of his contemporaries. It’s in the mid-18th Century ‘Galant’ style plus some urgency and flair. It invigorates and lifts the audience. Their applause is louder and longer than their previous two receptions put together.

I can’t see anyone with a programme. Certainly no one has a set-list, me likewise. There’s no announcements microphone so only people near the front can hear the musicians declare their pieces. That hardly matters. It can’t be deemed a concert because not everyone can see the performers, nor are they compelled to.

Therefore the music creates the atmosphere along with the lighting and the refreshments. The audience are invited to hear, assess and enjoy, to make a discovery or two and remember the experience. Not to get their heads down to study and learn.

There’s now an even more animated entr’act hubbub, but now it drops to full attentive silence the moment BREMF Medieval Ensemble begin. Two stringed instruments, two wind – the fullest line-up yet. Then finally come Liturina, with the harpsichord’s keyboard sound absent from the previous ensemble line-ups. They combine with recorders, violin and cello in strong, insistent, hypnotic ground bass-dominated Baroque material.

Festival producer Cathy Boyes reckons the crowdis around 80 and its majority are at their first BREMF event of the season, many having been at this same event in previous years. The remainder are probably staunch BREMF fans completely at ease with the surroundings, happily imbibing, relaxing and chatting in more liberal Ps and Qs as the Festival nears its close.

And why ever not? They are celebrating. No elitism here. It’s a levelling up and this seems a truer degree of civilisation than ‘high art’ has tended implicitly to claim.

REVIEW BY Richard Amey.