Merlin Music Society Review September 2008

This review was written by Annaliza Dowding, a sixth form student at Haberdashers Monmouth School for Girls.  She plays the violin and piano.

 On Thursday September 18th the Merlin Music Society presented a concert of piano music by Leos Janacek (1854-1928).  The pianist William Howard played the groups of pieces "In the Mists" and "On the Overgrown Path", pieces written by Janacek which are often expressive of sadness and cynicism when his life was not going well, and descriptive of different incidents. Shorter pieces, often sounding improvisatory, were based on Moravian folksongs.

The speaker John Tyrell read many extracts from the diary of words and musical phrases that Janacek kept during the composition of the album for Kamilla.  Although I thought William Howard was an excellent pianist and I really enjoyed listening to the works, the diary extracts made Janacek sound like a sad old man.  He wrote wonderful operas, but I think perhaps he would have preferred his instrumental music to be listened to without the audience hearing such personal secrets.