Presteigne Festival St Andrew’s Church, Presteigne by David Hart
George Vass, long-standing artistic director and conductor of the Presteigne festival (August 24 and 28), has developed a dependably winning approach to programme planning. Take a main theme (Baltic music this year), add a composer-in-residence (Martin Butler), mark significant birthdays of others (here, David Matthews’ 75th and Michael Berkeley’s 70th), then compare and contrast. These factors were all present in the opening and closing orchestral concerts. Friday’s started with Arvo Pärt’s Cantus in memory of Benjamin Britten (waves of anguished mourning, if a bit thinly expressed by the violins): Tuesday’s began with Britten’s own Sinfonietta Op. 1 (youthful posturing and pretension in abundance, which in places Vass made sound quite joyous). Huw Watkins also explored loss and mourning in Remember which, although a song cycle, sounded more like a voice-led tone poem than word settings. Soprano Ruby Hughes delivered the set with such expressive intensity and vocal colour that the w