United Kingdom Day Five of the Presteigne Festival 2026 [5]: Church of St Mary Magdalene, Bleddfa; St Andrew’s Church, Presteigne 31.8.2026. (PC)
11.30am – ‘A Fantasy and Two Premieres’. Fenella Humphreys (violin) and Sally Pryce (harp). Church of St Mary Magdalene, Bleddfa
Pärt – Fratres; Spiegel im Spiegel
Mark O’Connor – Caprice No.1
Tayla-Leigh Payne – Narcissus and Echo (world premiere)
Saint-Saëns – Fantasie for violin and harp, Op.124
Michael Berkeley – Two Landscapes, for solo harp (world premiere)
Seonaid Aitken – Glasgow Reel Set
On the fifth, and final, day of the Presteigne Festival, contemporary music was strongly represented, with five world premieres satisfyingly programmed alongside mainstream repertoire and less frequently encountered fare. In a relaxed and intimate, late-morning recital for violin and harp held at the Church of St Mary Magdelene, Bleddfa, two new works on the programme made their concert debuts.
Narcissus and Echo, for violin and harp was a festival commission by Tayla-Leigh Payne, now in her last year on the festival’s excellent ‘Emerge’ composer development scheme. Her layered and affecting tone poem was inspired by the myth of the title, with the harp assuming the role of Echo and the violin depicting Narcissus. The material traced the outline of the story, beginning with the harp mirroring the violin’s songlike and increasingly elaborate lines. As the piece evolved, the two protagonists became more detached. The expressive violin phrases grew increasingly virtuosic and self-assured, while the harp withdrew into residual vibrations and murmurs. In the work’s final stages, the harp’s contributions were remote and distorted, as Echo becomes a vestige of her former self, before a substantial and florid violin cadenza held sway, erasing all traces of the harp’s involvement. The dramatic storytelling abilities of Fenella Humphreys and Sally Pryce, for whom the piece was written, ensured that, in this intuitively interpreted first performance of the work, the narrative was cogent and compelling.
The second piece being premiered was Michael Berkeley’s Two Landscapes, for solo harp. The first of these was a fond evocation of the Welsh Marches, while the second drew upon childhood memories of springtide at Morston in North Norfolk as the waters broke their banks. Sally Pryce savoured these richly expressive miniatures, lovingly phrasing the delicate flowing lines of the first piece and bringing poise and wistfulness to the nostalgic second piece, with its calmly persistent bass-line figure and mighty closing flourish.
Elsewhere in a colourful programme, Fenella Humphreys gave a bravura performance of Mark O’Connor’s Caprice No.1 for solo violin, making short work of its toccata-like busyness. By contrast, her realisation of the folk-like immediacy of the opening passages of Seonaid Aitken’s Glasgow Reel Set drew members of the audience in and she rewarded their rapt attention with the toe-tapping energy of its second half. A spontaneous account of the richly melodic Fantasie for violin and harp by Saint-Saëns and atmospheric readings of two of Arvo Pärt’s most popular and best known pieces rounded out an attractive recital, delivered with freshness and finesse.
2pm – ‘Femmes De Légende’: Clare Hammond (piano). St Andrew’s Church, Presteigne
Mel Bonis – Femmes de légende: Desdémona, Phoebé and Mélisande
Michael Zev Gordon – Diary Pieces 2021, Set 2 (world premiere)
Doreen Carwithen – Sonatina
Adrian Williams – Soliloquy
Emma-Ruth Richards – Three Études (world premiere)
Ravel – Sonatine
An afternoon solo piano recital at St Andrew’s, Presteigne given by Clare Hammond was elevated by this artist’s exceptional technical skill and interpretative insight. She began with three pieces from Mel Bonis’s Femmes de Légende. ‘Desdémona’ (1913) was endowed with a wistful elegance, Phoebé (1909) unfolded spaciously with a crepuscular lassitude, while ‘Mélisande’ (1898) was marked by a fragile beauty.
There followed the concert debut of Michael Zev Gordon’s Diary Pieces 2021, Set 2, a series of stylistically broad, well-crafted miniatures that often explored a single mood. Thoughtful and searching readings conveyed the essence of these vividly characterised vignettes, some of whose elegiac, leave-taking qualities left an emotional impression that resonated well beyond their brief span.
A detailed and poised interpretation of Doreen Carwithen’s Sonatina (1946) contrasted crisply rhythmic outer movements with the hushed melancholy of the lavishly ornamented central Molto adagio. The work’s parting glissando on the black notes of the keyboard was rendered with bold and thrilling assertiveness.
Premiered in 2019, Soliloquy by Adrian Williams was a rhapsodic, heterogeneous piece that unfurled an absorbing sequence of disparate and sharply defined ideas. In this meticulous, fluently poetic account, every tonal shift, from the delicacy of the opening gestures via playful and rhetorically powerful episodes to the fading sonorities of the closing bars, was ideally realised. Among many virtues, the performance gained from a precise and convincing observance of the music’s wide-ranging dynamics.
Co-commissioned by the festival and receiving their first performance, Three Études by Emma-Ruth Richards derived from the composer’s lovingly detailed observation of the flight patterns of English songbirds. Each of the three pieces, which conjured up, in turn, starling murmurations, the alternating wingbeats and silent gliding of finches and the night journeys of swifts, offered supple and buoyant emulations in sound of these birds’ ever-changing patterns. Preserving beautiful, fleeting moments, the three Études created and inhabited their own unique soundscape with the unmistakable integrity of music of immediate and lasting value. A vivid memory of the impeccable performance by Clare Hammond of these fragile, exquisite and finely drawn scores remains with me still.
Ravel’s 1905 Sonatine was blessed with a lucid, sophisticated account, ending a recital of remarkable refinement and subtlety that complemented much of the featured music’s nuanced elegance. This special event shone very brightly indeed amid a festival brimming with highlights.
7.30pm – ‘Festival Finale’: Imogen Whitehead (flugelhorn), Jâms Coleman (piano), HearAndNow Collective, Amsterdam, Presteigne Festival Orchestra, George Vass (conductor). St Andrew’s Church, Presteigne
Elgar – Introduction and Allegro, Op.47
Dorothy Howell – Nocturne for muted strings
Mathilde Wantenaar – Rhapsody for piano and strings
Gabriel Jackson – Hargove (Welsh premiere)
Bartók – Divertimento, Sz 113
Entitled ‘Festival Finale’, the evening concert of the fifth, and last, day of music-making at Presteigne was held in the town’s St. Andrew’s Church and supplied a welcome opportunity to hear again some of the outstanding soloists and musicians at this year’s event. In Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro for strings, the string quartet element of the score was provided by the HearAndNow Collection, who joined the Presteigne Festival Orchestra, conducted by George Vass, in a considered, affectionately phrased reading that pointed up the brilliance and sheer originality of the writing.
Dorothy Howell’s appealing Nocturne for muted strings (1926) was infused with nostalgia and melancholy. The music’s subtle half-lights and lyrical restraint left a quiet, lingering impression.
Jâms Coleman was the soloist in Mathilde Wantenaar’s Rhapsody for piano and strings, which was premiered in 2023. Taking its cue from Bach and a desire on the part of the composer to write something groovy and fun, this cheerfully eclectic, single-movement work was wholeheartedly performed and gained an enthusiastic reception from the festival audience.
After the interval came the Welsh premiere of a festival co-commission, Gabriel Jackson’s Hargrove, a concertante work for solo flugelhorn and an ensemble consisting of percussion, harp and strings. It was written in tribute to the jazz trumpet virtuoso Roy Hargrove, who also played the flugelhorn. A warmly inviting score with softly Arcadian paragraphs punctuated by moments of blazing intensity, Hargrove was fluently and incisively presented. Imogen Whitehead’s flexible, effortlessly commanding solo lines were stylishly accompanied by the Festival Orchestra and George Vass.
Bartók’s Divertimento was a suitably challenging and uncompromising choice of work to close the official part of the concert. The musicians contrasted the outer movements’ playfulness effectively with the central slow movement’s darker and more profound aspects. ‘The Dargason’ from Gustav Holst’s St. Paul’s Suite made an attractive, heartily played encore, rounding off playfully a festival of outstanding scope and joy.
Paul Conway