Cd and Concert Reviews
 

CLASSICAL CD REVIEW ****
    

 

Everything's Coming Up Roses -- Masquerade String Quartet (CR3 SWAN)

 

 Forget the tired old jokes about the ineptitude of viola players. Anyone who can come up with arrangements as stylish as these deserves to be taken very seriously indeed, and Mark Chivers, violist with Orchestra of the Swan, has created marvels here.

 These jewels of easy listening, whether as background to a social event or as undemanding foreground, cover well-known numbers from stage and screen, as well as a couple of light classics. My particular favourite is the theme from “Moonraker”, one of John Barry's many masterpieces for the movies.

 Performances from the Masquerade String Quartet are given with infectious, obvious enjoyment, production by David le Page (like the Masquerade players, part of the OOTS complement) is clear and natural, and the insert-booklet is charmingly presented. Certainly a disc for all seasons.

*Available from www.masqueradestringquartet.com or www.orchestraoftheswan.org

 

 Christopher Morley, Chief Music Critic, Birmingham Post (14th August 2008).

 

 

 Stratford Town Hall, 9th January 2009

With the Vienna New Year’s Day concert still very much in the recent memory, thanks to an inspired Barenboim, it was intriguing to watch Swan Unbuttoned going Viennese in front of a full house at the Town Hall. 

 

Flushed with the success of the debut CD, “Everything’s Coming Up Roses”, the four contributors to Swan Unbuttoned, plucked from the string section of the Swan Orchestra, took every opportunity to engage their audience – led in the main by Simon Chalk (violin) - in question and answer sessions involving questions about who was the originator of pizzicato playing (Monteverdi 1638, we are told) and which Johann Strauss II waltz begins with a strong march – answer The Emperor Waltz!! 

The clever  innovative arrangements by Mark Chivers (viola) enabled the quartet to do justice to The Blue Danube Waltz, Pizzicato Polka and the instantly recognisable and Vienna favourite, The Radetzky March, plus a couple of Franz Lehar compositions including The Merry Widow Waltz.

Chalk’s confidence as raconteur increased as the evening progressed and during the second half of the programme, advertised as a ‘tantalising taste of string arrangements from stage and screen’, he paid tribute tothe enormous amount of work by colleagues and  their enthusiasm for developing the quartet’s widened repertoire.  

Chivers has been very busy with his arrangements and has created clever interpretations of Bond film scores, Matt Munro standards and works by Karl Suessdorf (Moonlight in Vermont) and Henry Mancini (It had better be Tonight), originally composed for the 1963 film, The Pink Panther. This evening was an upbeat start to the year by four outstanding representatives of the very special Orchestra of the Swan  As Nick Stringfellow (cello) described it…” we have a great passion for this orchestra and the work we do”. 

Clive Peacock (Music Critic, Leamington Courier)