An Afternoon Recital - John Mann and Spencer Payne

Date: Friday 25 September 2009

We have been absolutely spoiled in the last week with the quality of music which audiences have been able to enjoy both in School - in the Ivy Colemen Recital Hall, and at the Gulbenkian last Tuesday. Today an audience of seventy or more, including many old faces from the recent and more distant history of St Edmund's, came to support a 'stonkingly breathtaking' (JEM!) recital in aid of the Royal Marsden Hospital, currently treating Jacob Barnes for his leukaemia.

Jacob and his family were among those who revelled in the brilliance of John Mann and Spencer Payne. We tend to see Spencer only in the guise of accompanist for pupil soloists, but here he was able to take the limelight and show that, had he not been grabbed by teaching profession, he must surely have made the grade as a concert pianist. He gave us one movement from Beethoven's 'Waldstein' Sonata, and three fiendishly difficult Chopin Etudes - from memory! - and earned a rapturous ovation.

John Mann, about to return to Oxford, showed how much he has matured as a violinist since the halcyon days of his Music Scholarship to St Ed's. He was always a phenomenal musician, but his Schubert 'Sonatina', the evergreen and ever popular 'Meditation' from Massenet's 'Thais', and the Kreisler showcase finale, won an equally rapturous response from masses, for the combination of musicianship, technique, confidence, and poise which John exuded.

The duo ended the recital with an encore dedicated to Dr Richard Braddy - Elgar's 'Salut d'Amour' - before the audience made their way home, surely exhilarated by the experience of an hour of sheer beauty, in a very good cause. With a bit of luck, a recording of the concert will be making its way to the Marsden for use on the hospital radio - perhaps it should go to Classic FM as well?

The concert, of course, was designed to raise funds for the Royal Marsden Hospital. The two performers are thrilled by the response to this request, and report that a final figure of £650 from the concert alone will be forwarded to the hospital. Incidentally, a JS Cake Sale last Friday was also in aid of the same cause; the final figure for that event has still to be totalled up. Many trhanks indeed to the generosity of all those who supported one, or other, or both fundraisers. Fantastic!