A large audience came to the fine St Andrew's Church in South Church for the second concert in the 2017 season presented by Bishop Auckland Music Society. The performers were 4 Girls 4 Harps, a cheerful, smiley and attractive ensemble who were not just very proficient players individually, but also superb as a team, showing great interaction with each other.
Their introductions to the pieces were entertaining as well as instructive. In the concert they showed the wide range of sounds possible from harps: from the deep sounds of the opening of Prokofiev's "March of the Montagues and Capulets"; and gong-like effects from the bass strings in Ravel's "Mother Goose"; going up to the tinkling treble notes of Edward Longstaff's mesmerising "Saraswati".
The four girls transported us to the atmospheric sound world of "Sun, Moon and Stars -"A Middle-Eastern Sky" by Harriet Adie, one of the four; "African Reflections" by Monika Stadler; Latin American in the Piazzolla; Spanish in the Falla; the haunting theme of Shostakovitch's "Waltz 2"; as well as the very different fresh and lively baroque style of Handel.
This was a delightful evening of music.
This second concert in Bishop Auckland Music Society's 2017 series so enthralled a young concert goer that she was inspired to try playing the harp for herself, encouraged by one of the members of 4Girls 4Harps. St. Andrew's Church in South Church was the perfect setting for a sublime concert with an appreciative audience being entertained with music by Handel and Prokofiev amongst many others.
