Page 5 - Mansfield 2019/20

News in brief
London Mozart Players
When the UK went into its first ‘lockdown’ in March 2020, Mansfield
fell eerily quiet for a time. The absence of the familiar hum of student life was felt sorely throughout the College, and perhaps no more so than in Mansfield’s Library – which lost some of its magic without our students drawing inspiration from the remarkable surroundings.
We were excited therefore, to welcome the London Mozart Players to College on Tuesday 14 July to give their exceptional live-streamed performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons from this magnificent setting.
After carefully manoeuvring a harpsichord up the stairs and creeping on to the Library gallery to set the cameras rolling, the performers took up their instruments to play. It was an unusual concert: the musicians spaced along the Library’s
alcoves, the red flare of their masks hiding their faces, and their immediate audience limited to the camera crew and a couple
of overseers. Nevertheless, violin soloist Jennifer Pike played with entrancing vigour from the middle of the central aisle.
The London Mozart Players, a chamber orchestra set up in 1949, performed as
a seamless whole, this concert the third they had played since the spring lockdown began. Following performances in the Westgate Shopping Centre and St Giles Cripplegate in London, the group were well-practised at weaving around each other, and at maintaining the quality
of their music in venues with unusual acoustics (and the occasional interference of nearby building works). The Players seemed delighted to be together again,
to exercise their artistic muscles and regain a sense of unity – which can be
difficult to achieve when giving an online performance.
Following the concert, Jennifer Pike read aloud the four poems that accompany the movements of Four Seasons, and as she read from Spring, ‘The sky is covered with a black mantle,/ And thunder, and lightning, announce a storm./ When they are silent, the birds/ Return to sing their lovely song,’ these lines seemed a very apt reflection of the day itself.
Mansfield prides itself on fostering communities, and it was a pleasure to give space for the London Mozart Players to flock together in difficult times, even if only for a day.
The concert was streamed on Classic FM’s Facebook page and YouTube on 22 July and is now available to view on the Classic FM YouTube channel.
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