ur programme starts with four short pieces showcasing St Mary’s wonderful organ.   Yon’s swift and playful piece is subtitled Toccatina for Flute. The entire piece is

played on a single manual with a single 8-foot flute stop, and is pedalled with a 16-foot stop and the coupled manual flute. While fairly demanding for the hands, with

a constant sixteenth note broken chord pattern in both hands, the pedal notes are fairly simple, and intermittent. The constant dynamic is very soft, and a steady

tempo is indicated throughout, right up to the end. Pietro Alessandro Yon was an Italian-born organist who made his career in the United States. He served for a time

as an organist at the Vatican and at the Cappella Reale before moving to the States in 1907. He is most famous for this Humoresque.

Consolation in D-flat major is the third piece in a set of six. Originally written for piano, there are several versions for organ. With its “serene sweetness and

melancholy” many people consider it works better on organ than on piano.  Jeanne Demessieux was one of the most successful and influential French organists

of the twentieth century. Along with her contemporaries, Duruflé, Dupré and Poulenc (to name just a few) she was fascinated by Gregorian Chant. Tu es Petrus is

the Antiphon for the feast of Ss Peter and Paul: You are the rock on which I will build my church. Unlike the other composers mentioned, Demessieux is inspired by

the momentous nature of the chant, rather than quoting it directly.

John Rutter composed his Toccata in Seven in 1975. With exuberantly rhythmic textures skilfully wrought within a septuple metre, John Rutter offers a lively new

take on the toccata: one of the standard forms of composition for the organ since the seventeenth century. The music moves from a jubilant opening to a more sustained central section before the initial sprightliness returns in a final flourish.

James Davy is an engaging and dynamic musician who has spent over twenty years in Cathedral music, most recently as Organist and Master of the Choristers at

Chelmsford Cathedral where his work included daily choral services, royal visits, BBC broadcasts and two operas at the Aldeburgh Festival; previous appointments

included Portsmouth, Durham, St Albans and Blackburn Cathedrals, and Winchester College. Suffolk raised, James is now School Organist at The Royal Hospital School,

Holbrook, and Director of Music at St Mary’s Church, Woodbridge, remaining music director of the Chelmsford Singers and enjoying time as a freelance organist.

A published composer, James’s most recent projects have included a contribution to The Isolation Songbook (2020, recorded on the Delphian label)

and incidental music for a production of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia (2023). James is a keen equestrian, especially in the discipline of Eventing in which

he competes with his Irish Sport Horse, Max, and enjoys volunteering as a fence judge at one day events.

The nickname Frühlings-Sonate wasn’t Beethoven’s (the only note he added to the manuscript was a comment in red pencil that ‘The copyist who put triplets

and septuplets here is an ass’). But F major had a long history as the key of rural greenery, even before Beethoven’s own Pastoral symphony of 1808.

In any case, the blossoming, birdsong-like freshness of Beethoven’s opening melody—now the violin’s very own, with the piano supplying a gentle ‘scene by

the brook’ accompaniment—suggests its own comparisons. It’s a suitably expansive opening to Beethoven’s first violin sonata in four movements. The

motifs of the A minor sonata expanded and found fulfilment as the sonata continued; here, the opening melody is already the point to which each of the

sonata’s movements will return (in spirit, if not the precise notes). And a melody of such breadth simply demands four movements over which to work

its charms. So the serene theme that launches the three leisurely variations of the Adagio molto espressivo also begins with a sustained note and a graceful turn, over a

gently rippling accompaniment. The tiny scherzo plays a cheerful game of catch-up between piano and violin, with a whirling trio section so concise that

it’s barely more than an ornament in its own right: the smile on Beethoven’s face is plain to read. And the finale sweeps into its amiable flow episodes of

dancing glee, rustic pizzicati, and just enough of a suggestion of storm clouds to establish that this is all for real—with, just before the very end, the briefest and

most unaffected possible prayer of thanksgiving. ‘The original fiery and bold spirit of this composer … is now becoming increasingly serene’, wrote an

approving (if over-optimistic) Leipzig critic. 

Megan Hill, a native of Maldon, began playing the violin at the age of 7. A former leader of the Essex Youth Orchestra and the Essex Youth Chamber

Orchestra, Megan was educated at the Plume School in Maldon, studying violin with Emma Penfold.

She gained much performance experience during these years as a member of a variety of school and Essex Youth ensembles. On her gap year, she

played with several orchestras including the Kensington Symphony Orchestra, where she took part in a performance of ‘Tosca’ at St John’s Smith Square,

London. Megan gained her BMus (Hons) Performance degree from Birmingham Conservatoire in September 2016. Whilst in Birmingham she joined the CBSO

Youth Orchestra, and played under conductors such as Edward Gardner, Jac van Steen, Andrew Litton and Michael Seal. She was also a member of The

Orchestra of the Swan (Stratford upon Avon)and guest led the Walsall Symphony Orchestra.

Finzi’s, Let us garlands bring, Op 18, comprises settings of five Shakespearean songs and bears the inscription ‘For Ralph Vaughan Williams on his birthday

Oct. 12th 1942’. Feste’s second song in Twelfth Night, Come away, come away death, is a powerful lament where Finzi’s attention to salient words—the falling seventh to

‘death’, and the tantalizingly protracted melisma on ‘weep’ are but two fine examples—is exemplary, as is the freedom of the phraseology. There is also a

lugubrious intensity in Finzi’s choice deployment of ‘jarring’ dissonance which is skilfully integrated with melodious, yet at times angular vocal lines.

Who is Silvia?, from Two Gentlemen of Verona, is a charming ditty in ternary form. For the first three lines of each verse Finzi opts for transparent

simplicity in his use of periodic (two-bar) phrases, but in the last two lines (which are effectively fused) this regularity is deftly subverted.

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, from Cymbeline, a meditation on the passing of time, on growing old and the dissipation of life’s fears in death, the

great leveller, inspired Finzi to one of his most profound creations. The song, a sophisticated and controlled essay in sustained vocal writing, using the simplest

of rhythmic and harmonic means, has a pathos (notably in the final, ethereal stanza) which rivals Dies natalis and the best of his Hardy songs.

The remaining two songs of the collection, O Mistress Mine (Twelfth Night) and It was a lover and his lass (As you like it) provide lighter relief. The

‘troubadourish’ (to use Finzi’s own description) O Mistress Mine has a poise made all the more enchanting by the distinctive ‘thrummed’ guitar-like

accompaniment and two-part quasi-Baroque dialogue of the upper strings (derived from the same texture in ‘The Rapture’ of Dies natalis).

It was a lover and his lass is characterized by a syncopated accompaniment pattern (so much beloved of the composer) which lends the

song an invigorating sense of well-being and happiness. Only briefly does a grey cloud appear in the third verse, when, for a moment only, there is a sense of

regret (‘How that life was but a flower in springtime’). But this is soon dispelled by the jubilation of the last verse replete with ecstatic coda.

Colin Baldy comes from Lewes, Sussex. His career encompasses performing, teaching, directing (both musical direction and stage direction) and writing. As

a singer, he is known principally as a character baritone, having worked for many years with companies such as Garsington Opera, Opera Restor’d, The

London Savoyards, The New Savoyards, Opera Interludes, Country Opera and Hand Made Opera. He has an international reputation as a voice teacher;

working throughout the UK, Europe and the USA. Colin founded the Maldon Festival with his late partner, Kieran Sampson, in 2008. He was Director of Music at St Mary’s Church from December 2007 until July 2022. He now lives and works in the beautiful Umbrian village of Scheggino in Italy.

Beethoven’s 32 Variations on an Original Theme in C minor, WoO 80 (1806), is a tribute to the Baroque chaconne, a ceremonial dance over a repeating bass

line. The theme’s stern eight bars, with emphasis on the second beat, are paired with a chromatically descending bass. This set of variations is full of the expected Beethovenian virtuosity, but allows for a few introspective moments to pass through. Central variations, Nos. 12-16, bring a shift to major keys until it is quietly drawn back to the minor in variation 17.

Beethoven was thought to not be a large fan of these variations, despite their success when they were first premiered, never giving the work an Opus

Number. It is said that later in his life he heard a friend practising it. After listening for some time he said “Whose is that?” “Yours”, was the answer. “Mine?

That piece of folly mine?” Beethoven replied; “Oh, Beethoven, what an ass you were in those days! James Housego, from Maldon, is a pianist currently reading for his

undergraduate degree in Piano Performance at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama (GSMD), studying with Caroline Palmer. He has performed across

London and Essex as a soloist and as a Chamber Musician. In September 2025, He will begin his Master’s Degree in Collaborative Piano at GSMD

He is an experienced accompanist, having previously been organ scholar for St. Mary’s Maldon from the ages of 14 to 18, and works regularly with other

instrumentalists and singers. He is also a highly capable soloist and tries to bring attention to composers of more obscure name. The iconic figure of the urbane Noël Coward clad in a silk dressing gown holding a cigarette holder in one hand and a cocktail in the other will always be with us – and was an image he actively courted – despite the fact that it belied the true nature of this committed writer and entertainer whose ‘louche’ disguise hid the hours spent with pen-in-hand and face-to-face with his typewriter. His mind always working on ideas and complexities for dramas, tunes and songs. You do not produce some 50 plays and musicals and over 400 songs and lyrics from stylish reclining on a chaise longue! Noël Coward knew that the mythology of his persona was just a pleasant and necessary adjunct to his real skill as a craftsman of words and music – it is after all the image that most of us recall when his name is mentioned. We finish our eclectic programme this evening with three of Coward’s most well-known, and loved, songs.