The revival of English folk music around the beginning of the 20th century was led by a number of figures, prominent among them Cecil Sharp and the composers Ralph Vaughan Williams, George Butterworth and Percy Grainger. In its wake, both before and after the First World War, came an outpouring of English art song by a diverse but enormously gifted group of composers – a small selection would include Vaughan Williams, Ivor Gurney, Rebecca Clarke, Peter Warlock, George Butterworth, Roger Quilter, Frank Bridge, Armstrong Gibbs, Gerald Finzi, John Ireland and Benjamin Britten, but there are many others.

This recital by the rising young tenor Ben Hancox-Lachman and his father, pianist William Hancox includes works by many of these composers, with well-known songs alongside lesser-known gems and spoken introductions to help place the songs in context.

The setting for the concert is Hellingly Church, a beautiful, atmospheric building, parts of which date back to the 12th century or earlier.

Piano trios in the 18th century were often intended for amateur performance, but Haydn’s Piano Trio in C major, written in 1797, while Haydn was in London, is clearly aimed at professional players. It’s dedicated to the eminent pianist Therèse Jansen Bartolozzi, a student of Clementi, which no doubt accounts for its demanding piano part. The last movement, in a mixture of sonata and rondo form, was described by the great pianist and musicologist Charles Rosen as the most humorous in all of Haydn’s music.

Rebecca Clarke was a viola virtuoso and one of the most significant and influential female British composers of the 20th century. As a violist, she toured internationally, playing with many of the greatest musicians of the time and pioneering all-female chamber groups. As a composer, she received very little encouragement, and was a victim of persistent prejudice, which is perhaps why her output was relatively small. She wrote nothing in the last 35 years of her life, and died in New York in 1979, at the age of 93.

The Piano Trio is one of a handful of major chamber works, and was runner-up in a competition in 1921, submitted, on the advice of her publisher, under the male pseudonym ‘Anthony Trent’. Indeed, works by ‘Anthony Trent’ were generally received much more favourably by the critics than those by Rebecca Clarke, even when they appeared in the same programme! The trio is in three movements, linked by a motif which is heard at the opening and repeated in varied forms throughout the work.

The Piano Trio in B major by Brahms has been described as both his first and his last trio – written in 1853, at the age of 21 it was substantially revised 36 years later, making it, according to Brahms ‘not as dreary as before’. It is this revised version which will be performed by the Wealden Trio. This four movement work has everything – warmth and lyricism, muscularity, vitality and mystical beauty.

Three Sussex musicians come together to form The Wealden Trio, pianist William Hancox, violinist Jonathan Truscott and cellist Rachel Firmager.

This concert is simply not to be missed. 2024 saw the beginning of a flamboyant new collaboration between Baroque violinist Julia Bishop and acclaimed lutenist Paula Chateauneuf. We are delighted that they are coming to play for Music Box Wealden.

Their programme will include works – which Julia describes as ‘wonderful and wacky’ – by Biber, Schmelzer, Corelli and others.

Julia Bishop lives locally and has extensive experience as soloist and leader with all the period instrument orchestras of the UK. She is co-founder of the ensemble Red Priest – described as ‘in an exhilarating class of its own’ by BBC Music Magazine.

Lutenist Paula Chateauneuf, soloist, accompanist, teacher and linchpin of numerous ensembles, has earned a reputation as one of the most respected and admired musicians in the early music world. ‘One of the most exciting things on the pre-classical concert circuit’.

Both artists are widely recorded.