Our Society

An inspired piece of programming gave us an intense and thought-provoking evening for the Tonbridge Philharmonic Society's Easter concert. Both the Nelson Mass of Haydn and the Mozart Requiem were written in 1798. Both were late works, written at a time of personal and political struggle and both begin dramatically in D minor. Haydn himself dubbed this mass 'Missa in angustiis' a 'mass for...

On a surprisingly chilly November evening, a sizeable audience assembled in the imposing setting of Tonbridge School Chapel for Tonbridge Philharmonic Society's performance of Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius. Conductor Robin Morrish eloquently dedicated the concert to Isabel Denny, a long-standing member of the choir who died earlier this year. Robin conjured a lugubrious start from the...

Joint Concert with Kantorei Heusenstamm "Music has always had the gift of bringing people together and crossing boundaries": so said the Tonbridge Philharmonic Society's Chairman, Eric Holder in his welcoming remarks in the programme for the Joint concert with Evangelische Kantorei Heusenstamm. The two choral works: Mendelssohn's Lauda Sion and Schubert's Mass in E flat had been performed and...

A rich and exciting menu of American music, including two sets of dances by 20th Century American masters. The first set of dances was a suite from the Ballet Appalachian Spring by Copland which is firmly rooted in the `folksy' style of American music, with its irregular jazzy metres, and quirky, playful rhythms (with odd beats tossed into the score). This was quite a challenge for the...

What more splendid setting could there be for a performance of J S Bach's challenging masterwork, the St Matthew Passion, than the Chapel of Tonbridge School? Seated in the sideways choir stalls, this was as much like attending the original performance in the Thomaskirche as you could get. From the opening moody chorus to the final gently sorrowing one, the Tonbridge Philharmonic held us in a...

Like many music societies, The Tonbridge Philharmonic is including works by Mendelssohn in its current programme. The season started in grand style, on Saturday 21st November in Tonbridge School Chapel, with one of Mendelssohn's last and most popular works, 'Elijah'. The choir, which maintains a large membership, was on strong form, being particularly effective and convincing in the bold chordal...

The two speakers at the start of the concert made much of the orchestra's amateur status and, with a programme of giants of classical music - of Schubert, Weber and Brahms - a slightly apologetic scene may have been set were it not for the obvious love for the humanising power of music from conductor, Robin Morrish. The 'Unfinished' Symphony started with hushed reverence in the lower strings....

This was my first Philharmonic concert and the first time I'd been inside Tonbridge School Chapel since 1971 - two memorable experiences in one evening. The chapel is kinder to quieter music: in both the choral and orchestral halves of this concert the climaxes could sound aggressive. We began with a sequence of twelve short choral pieces covering four centuries - too many pieces to make a...

Conductor Robin Morrish's speeds were spot on, exuberant and dancing in 'And the glory of the Lord' and with exactly the drive to sustain the drama in the Passion sequence choruses at the opening of Part II. Here the chorus came into its own with the tenors providing a much-needed incisiveness of tone at the great climaxes. At modern speeds articulating Handel's florid runs is seriously...

An evening of Romantic French music at St Stephen's Church delighted a large and enthusiastic audience. Under the energetic direction of guest conductor Michael Hitchcock, the orchestra gave stirring performances of works by Berlioz and Bizet. It was a veritable tour de force. In Berlioz's Overture, Les Francs-Juges, the menacing trombones together with the percussion and brass section conjured...