Friday 15 July 2011 | By SCS The new issue of The Score, our society’s newsletter, is now available to download.
It includes highlights of recent concerts, background on our recent change of rehearsal venue, as well as some limericks from our members.
Thursday 10 March 2011 | By SCS The latest edition of the society’s magazine, The Score, is now available. Download it now ⇒
It includes contributions from members of the society, insights into the lives of some of our members, as well as puzzles and a diary of our activities. We hope you enjoy reading it!
For past versions of The Score, visit our archive.
Tuesday 23 November 2010 | By SCS We’re pleased to announce our 2011 concert programme. Highlights include An Evening with Dame Emma Kirkby on 12 November, with Bach’s St Matthew Passion and Mozart’s Requiem also being featured.
Visit our concerts page or download the programme for more information.
Monday 7 June 2010 | By SCS This article by David Pearce first appeared in The Score in May 2010:
I am sure that most of you will know of the Hungarian composer Bela Bartok. He was born into the pre-First World War era of 1881 and watched, “as his native Hungary shrank like a puddle in the July sun”, as one commentator put it some years ago. (His actual birth-place is now in Romania.) After the Treaty of Trianon of 1920, when the country was partitioned, he even had difficulty visiting his mother, who continued to live in the re-named town of Bratislava (formerly Pozsony). By this time, he could not even visit the remoter parts of pre-war Hungary where he had made his now famous folk song collection. And what the First World War had begun, the Second continued. It was inevitable that like so many others in troubled central Europe, he would make his way to the USA, which he did in October 1940, never to return – or did he?
So, do we see a troubled soul? A private man never quite at home in the USA and whose music took some time to be fully accepted in that country. Unlike Erich Korngold, the Austrian ‘wunderkind’ escaping from the Nazi occupation, who made a fortune from film music in Hollywood, Bartok did not make much money and continuing poor health finally took its toll in New York on 26 September 1945, where he died. His last wish was to be buried in his native Hungarian soil and in 1988 that wish was addressed. The body was exhumed, placed in a coffin and loaded onto the QE2, which then set sail for Southampton. There is then an air of mystery about what happened next, but it does involve the Turner Sims Concert Hall.