Paul Guinery(piano) & Peter Barker (narrator)

Lunch-time Concert; Holy Trinity Church, Hastings, 24 October 2012

These two well-known names from Radio 3 gave a delightful performance of Poulenc’s musical interpretation of Jean de Brunhoff’s  childrens book (in translation by Nelly Rieu). This originally improvised music is certainly not childish and shows a wide range of influences including popular and jazz stylings. This provided a further link with the second part of the concert – five selected movements from William Walton’s musical arrangement of the poems of Edith Sitwell, Facade.

I have long been a fan of the use of the pairing of spoken word and music and it was a real joy to listen to the combination of Peter Barker’s radio-honed enunciation together with Paul Guinery’s highly accomplished piano playing.  This proved to be an uplifting, enchanting lunchtime interlude, appreciated by a large audience. SP