United Kingdom Day Two of the Music@Malling Festival 2026: Pilsdon Barn, West Malling and St Mary’s Church, West Malling, 19.9.2026. (PC)
1pm – ‘Ravel +’: Sacconi Quartet, Ben Goldscheider (horn). Pilsdon Barn, West Malling
Howard Skempton – Catch
Huw Watkins – Horn Quintet (world premiere)
Ravel – String Quartet
Founded in 2011 by artistic director Thomas Kemp, the annual Music@Malling Festival presents a blend of concerts, talks and exhibitions held in historic venues in and around West Malling, Kent. Two concerts given on 19 September, the second of the 2026 festival’s ten-day run, exemplified the event’s virtues of considered and imaginative programming and world-class musicianship.
An early afternoon recital by the Sacconi Quartet took place in the intimate surroundings of Pilsdon Barn, an ancient timber and stone building, now part of the Christian-based Pilsdon Community. The players began with Howard Skempton’s Catch, for string quartet (2001), bringing out the melancholic nature of this songful, single-movement piece. Relishing the rich contrapuntal dialogues afforded by the canonic material, they unfolded the work convincingly and smoothly, as if uttered in a single span, all the way up to the sudden ending.
Ben Goldscheider joined the players for the premiere of Huw Watkins’s Horn Quintet (2026). The opening Allegro began emphatically for strings, mellowing at the horn’s first contribution. Contrasting passages of elegiac calm with more vigorous episodes, the music seemed to take its cue from the brass instrument’s bright and noble musical character. The central Lento had a lilting fluency. A couple of climaxes found the horn in declamatory mood, but the overall impression left by this movement was that of a gentle lullaby. The tempestuous ‘hunting’ finale featured moments of serenity, with filigree string textures underlying expressive, flexible horn lines. This very welcome addition to the repertoire made an auspicious debut in which the Sacconis savoured the work’s ideal balance of lyricism and spirit.
Ravel’s String Quartet of 1903 obtained a gripping, sure-footed reading that benefitted enormously from the players’ superbly blended ensemble. Virtuosity was certainly in evidence, but the interpretation avoided a superficially bravura approach and felt firmly rooted. This commanding and persuasive account of one of the greatest of 20th-century chamber works ended the recital on an artistic highpoint.
7pm – ‘In England’s Green and Pleasant Land’: Chamber Domaine / Thomas Kemp (conductor). St Mary’s Church, West Malling
Purcell (arr. Britten) – Chacony
Atefeh Einali– Another Day (world premiere)
Adès – O Albion
Elgar – Serenade for Strings
Warlock – Capriol Suite
Walton – Touch Her Soft Lips and Part
Tippett – Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli
The evening concert took place in St Mary’s Church, West Malling and offered a richly satisfying repertoire of string music played by Chamber Domaine, conducted by their artistic director Thomas Kemp. A notable thread running through the programme was the influence on 20th-century British composers of music from earlier times.
Britten’s late-1940s arrangement of Purcell’s Chacony of around 1680 was graced by elegantly turned phrases and energised by well-sprung rhythms. This incisive account served notice of the ensemble’s alert and responsive approach to their repertoire.
There followed the world premiere of Another Day by Iran-born, Manchester-based composer Atefeh Einali. Written in 2026, her piece was deeply personal, drawn from her experience of living in the moment, one day at a time, as she waited for news of her family in Iran in time of war. The intensity and immediacy of this situation was keenly conveyed in the performance, which also had a strong narrative sweep. Framed by sections that required the players to blow into the sound holes and rounded sections of their instruments, the piece included the use of Iranian and Arabic melodic frameworks featuring improvisation. The material sounded spontaneous and at the same time, inexorable, an impression reinforced by the musicians’ intuitive and cogent interpretation. Raw and yet refined, Another Day left an enduring impression and was warmly received by an appreciative audience.
O Albion (2019) is an adaptation for string orchestra by Thomas Adès of a short movement from his first string quartet, Arcadiana. Performed with rapt simplicity, this idyllic piece was quietly compelling.
In Elgar’s Serenade for Strings (1892), a swift, detailed opening movement and a well-paced closing Allegretto gave much pleasure. Yet the glory of this performance was a deeply felt rendering of the expressive central Larghetto in which the music ebbed and flowed naturally.
After the interval came a characterful account of Peter Warlock’s Capriol Suite, dating from the late 1920s. A noble ‘Pavane’ and fluid ‘Pieds-en-l’air’ were captivating, but the quicker movements also made their mark, not least a splendidly purposeful ‘Basse-Danse’ and a fierce ‘Mattachins’ or sword dance, whose lively concluding dissonances were powerfully thrust home.
Walton’s Touch Her Soft Lips and Part is taken from his music for Laurence Olivier’s 1944 film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry V. It was played with warmth and opulence, the intimacy of its aching tenderness perfectly judged.
There was an almost operatic intensity in the players’ approach to the dramatic and lyrical qualities of Tippett’s Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli (1953). Both instinctive and deeply considered, their rewarding reading made a thrillingly climactic conclusion to a concert of great range and diversity, finely executed and conducted.
Paul Conway