by Jerric Chong

As you will undoubtedly have gleaned from the grey, hulking buildings occupying the northern half of Oriel’s usually picturesque Second Quad, the Senior Library is out of commission as one of the nicest spaces to study in Oxford, instead awaiting its conversion into a temporary dining facility while the hall closes (for the second time in recent memory for some of us). One corollary of this state of affairs is that the Oriel champagne concerts, which take place twice a year in October and May, have been deprived of their usual in-college venue and Steinway baby grand, which now sojourns in the Provost’s Lodgings. These concerts, organised by a committee of musically inclined alumni, have brought musicians of note to perform to a college audience for fifteen years. Recent performers include the soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn, the pianist Simon Lepper, and our very own director of music David Maw. Happily, tickets for Oriel students are fixed at the very affordable price of £0, with a complimentary interlude of sparkling wine.

This term’s champagne concert took place at 7:15 pm on Friday, 6 October 2023, in the University Church of St Mary the Virgin – not a significant downgrade from the Senior Library, it has to be admitted. Oriel has maintained an affiliation with the University Church ever since our foundation in 1326: Adam de Brome, the first provost, was the church’s rector, and was buried in the side chapel that now bears his name. It is in fact the result of this seven-century connection that Oriel freshers have the unique privilege of taking part in the college induction ceremony in the University Church. (While it might seem like a time-honoured tradition, this year marked only the third college induction ceremony in the church: owing to a public-health crisis at the time, I took part in an equivalent, socially distanced ceremony on the day of my matriculation in 2020, and this was then converted into a college induction for subsequent years. A welcome innovation, in my traditionally minded opinion!)

I digress. The musician at the October Champagne Concert 2023 was the Russian-born British pianist Yevgeny Sudbin, who (as his concert biographies are ever wont to point out) ‘has been hailed by The Telegraph as “potentially one of the greatest pianists of the 21st century”’. An audacious claim? Fortunately, Sudbin’s performance at the concert certainly did little to disprove it.

He began with perhaps a slightly lacklustre 
start: Haydn’s Keyboard Sonata in B minor, Hob. XVI:32, which while precise in technique was a bit sedate for my liking. Thankfully, the recital went uphill from there. The Haydn 
was followed by Liszt’s Transcendental Étude 
No. 11 in D♭ major, nicknamed Harmonies du soir (‘evening harmonies’). Full of octave leaps, bombastic chords, shimmering passages, and other virtuosic aspects, Sudbin handled the piece with flair and technical bravado; I was particularly struck by his ability to bring out the varied colours in the work, doing so with effortless effervescence. The same was true of Debussy’s L’isle joyeuse: the piece’s harmonic contrasts and impressionistic moods were very much on display.

After the champagne interlude, held fittingly in the De Brome Chapel, we waited expectantly for a Sudbin specialism – the keyboard sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti. Instead of a list, the concert programme enigmatically stated, in brackets: ‘to be decided on the day – the Composer wrote some 550 sonatas for solo keyboard’. In the event, Sudbin played six of them, in varying keys and characters, and which appeared in his 2005 debut CD. With my knowledge of Scarlatti sadly insufficient to identify which sonatas were played (even with the discreet use of my phone’s Now Playing function), I defer to the more competent judgement of Ed Bence, one of Oriel’s new junior organ scholars, who has played some of the sonatas himself and agreed that Sudbin’s performance was characterfully commendable. In this he proved Andrew Clements quite right when he wrote in The Guardian: ‘His playing has a wonderful fluency and easy style; the phrasing seems utterly instinctive, and there’s not a moment when he seems to be making expressive effects for their own sake.’ Finally, the recital concluded with Scriabin’s stormily rhythmic Piano Sonata 
No. 5, Op. 53. Once again, the pianistic details were delivered crisply and skilfully, conveying the ‘Impetuoso. Con stravaganza’ of the opening bars and the ‘vertiginoso con furia’ near the end, and all Scriabin’s other meticulous score indications. The rapturous standing ovation – well deserved – was followed by the Étude in C♯ minor, Op. 2, No. 1, by the same composer. It all certainly left a profound impression on everyone: Ed, for instance, told me of his resolution to learn the sonata for himself.

In my previous review of a champagne concert at Oriel (Issue #90 – Stress, 14 May 2023), I expressed a twinge of wistfulness that the college music society, which last held a concert in February 2020 (effectively a different era), had fallen into abeyance, with at least two cohorts of music students very much unsuccessful in reviving it. Now I am certainly pleased to report that the Oriel College Music Society is veritably rediviva, under the leadership of two second-year and two third-year musicians. I particularly hear that there are rehearsals and recitals already planned for this term – so there will certainly be no shortage of musical events to attend or get involved with this term. Hence, with a college orchestra up and coming, choral services three times a week in chapel, the semi-annual champagne concerts and, yes, Oriel Fridays in the HSbaR, the musical life of the college has never seemed brighter.