Michael Reckord, Contributor

Rosina Moder. - file

The Christmassy-cool temperatures, strong winds and an uncertain power supply in parts of the city apparently had no effect on either the musicians or audience at a classical music concert at the University Chapel, Mona.

The musicians from the Edna Manley College Recorder Quarter Guest Ensemble and Musica Xaymaca (the Jamaica Chamber Music Group) were in excellent form, and the audience, which half-filled the chapel, was appreciative. Members of the recorder quartet were Tamikia Allen (soprano recorder); Kyran O'Connor (alto recorder); André Adman (tenor recorder) and Rosina Christiana Moder (bass recorder).

Entitled 'Celebration of Musical Anniversaries and their Caribbean Contemporaries', the concert was presented jointly by the German and French embassies, and featured the music of four European composers, as well as Samuel Felsted of Jamaica, Esteban Salas of Cuba and the Guadeloupe-born Joseph Boulogne.

To increase knowledge

As narrator, Elaine Wint introduced and linked the musical pieces, observing in her introduction that the concert represented "an important milestone in the writing of Jamaican music". It offered, she said, the music of the first three documented Caribbean classical music composers, musicians about whom there was too little knowledge by the Jamaican public. The hope of the organisers of the concert was that it would increase that knowledge.

The short, slow, soothing Canon in D, arranged for cello and organ, by Johann Pachelbel of Germany (1653-1706), was the first item presented. It was followed by an aria, Lord I Obey, from the oratorio Jonah by Felsted (1743-1802).

The singer, Felicia Morrison, proved a hit at the concert. She has a beautiful, pure, flexible voice and was a pleasure to listen to in all the pieces she performed.

Conversation in song

Item number three was a "haunting choral work," as Wint termed it, by "an unsung hero of music," Johann Michael Haydn, younger brother of the more popular Franz Joseph Haydn. His Tristis Est Anima Mea (based on Jesus' words in the Garden of Gethsemane) was played by the recorder quarter as a meditative, though not sorrowful, conversation.

Next up was Concertino in E Flat Major for clarinet and piano by Carl Maria von Weber, a pupil of Michael Haydn. A beautifully played piece with alternating light and solemn sections, it got very strong applause from the audience.

Salas, who Wint assured the audience was "a household name in Cuba", with "more than one hundred compositions" archived, was the next musician featured. Morrison returned to sing again beautifully, Tu Mi Dios Entre Pajas, from a Christmas cantata.

If, as the printed programme indicated, Boulogne was being performed in Jamaica for the first time, his Sonata for Violin and Fortepiano in A Major could hardly be bettered as an introduction. As a work, it is sublime and it was superbly performed by Ashbourne and Ruiz.

Tribute to late teacher

The music of the genius among the lot, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), served as the climax of the concert. We are coming to the end of International Mozart Year, celebrating the 250th anniversary of his birth, and it is fitting that the concert should include and end with his music.

He contributed two items, Sonata in B Flat Major for Piano Duet (played by Williams and Ruiz) and the well-known Alleluia, sung by Morrison.

To end the concert, she performed an unprogrammed song, a 'brawta', Wint called it, in tribute to the late music teacher Fay Ennevor, Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again. Her rendition was sincere and dramatic and doubtless helped to lift the audience into the standing ovation it gave the musicians.