Hayes and Corelli Ensemble are a great pair

by Roger Jones, Gloucester Citizen 10.8.10

The Three Choirs' Festival is doing local composers proud this year - and just the famous ones like Elgar, Holst and Vaughan Williams.

William Hayes, who loomed large in the Corelli's concert, is largely forgotten these days.  But in the 18th century, this Gloucester lad was rated highly as a composer and became Professor of Music at Oxford where he established the famous Holywell Music Room.

Soprano Evelyn Tubb gave a pleasing account of his cantata Winter Scene At Ross, in which the music neatly matched the descriptive passages, ending with a suggested remedy for the winter of one's life.

Hayes Ode to Echo is a longer, more ambitious work with echo effects provided by the flute and plenty of other orchestral colour. Its more varied nature afforded Miss Tubb plenty of scope to display in turn both her dramatic and her lyrical potential as well as her sense of humour.

She ended the concert with a work by Hayes' contemporary Thomas Arne, born exactly 300 years ago and best know as the composer of Rule Britania.

In his Morning Cantata, his talent for melody shone through and Jonathan Morgan's tiny sopranino recorder cleverly imitated the song of the lark.

This was a polished performance that conveyed a general feeling of wellbeing.

The Corelli Ensemble were on top form in the purely instrumental pieces - trio sonatas by Handel and Arne and concertos by Handel and Hayes. Of these the Hayes' Concerto Grosso in D seemed to make the most impact - possibly because of the fuller sound provided by an additional baroque instrument.

Or perhaps it was a cunning ploy by the Correlli Ensemble's eminent conductor and continuo player Warwick Cole to persuade concertgoers to purchase his newly-released CD of Hayes' music!