AT PITTVILLE PUMP ROOM
CHELTENHAM SPA
2 DECEMBER
2025
Merry Christmas Everybody
Today’s Performers
Ottilie Wallace is a violinist, composer and singer-songwriter. Now 15, she asked for a violin for her fifth birthday and was awarded a place at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester at nine, becoming the only composition student below the sixth form. As well as violin, she studies piano, singing and jazz improvisation. Her compositions have brought her numerous prizes and she has had a piece performed by Worcestershire Symphony Orchestra. In December 2024, she wrote, performed and produced an album of original songs and has amassed 50,000 followers on Instagram. Here’s her YouTube channel.
Winnie Chan graduated from Hong Kong Baptist University with a degree in piano performance and teaching, before joining the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Art. She has gained numerous prizes and diplomas. As a soloist, she has performed with Hong Kong Baptist University Symphony Orchestra and the Collegium Musicum Hong Kong at the opening ceremony of the Hong Kong International Festival. Winnie is an enthusiastic accompanist and chamber musician and plays with the Cheltenham Symphony Orchestra and Cheltenham Philharmonic Orchestra. She also gives lessons to local students and is a teacher and examiner for Yamaha pianos.
Today’s Music
J. Brahms Hungarian Dance No. 5
J.S. Bach 'Allemande' from Partita No. 2
E. Elgar 'Salut D'Amour'
'Allegro' from Sonata in E minor
F. Schubert 'Die Biene'
B. Bartók Romanian Folk Dances Nos. 1–6
J. Massenet 'Meditation' from Thaïs
V. Monti 'Czardas'
S. Selby 'Poppies'
D. Kabalevsky Violin Concerto, 1st Movement
J. Kosma 'Autumn Leaves'
Notes on the music
Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) met the Hungarian violinist Ede Reményi in 1850. Their collaboration led to his smash-hit Hungarian Dances, published in 1869 and 1880. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) wrote his Partita No. 2 between 1717 and 1720, based on dance forms. Edward Elgar (1857–1934) wrote ‘Salut D’Amour’ in 1888 as an engagement present for Caroline Alice Roberts. His Violin Sonata in E minor was written in 1918. François Schubert (1808–1878) is largely famous for his bagatelle, ‘Die Biene’, which means ‘the bee’. It is often misattributed to his near-namesake, Frantz, which must sting. Bela Bartók (1881–1945) wrote his Romanian Folk Dances in 1915, based on tunes he had heard in Transylvania. He specified that they should take 4′ 3″ to perform (not 4′ 33″). Jules Massenet (1842–1912) wrote more than 30 operas. Thaïs (1894), about an Egyptian courtesan, is one of the few still performed. There was a scandal on the first night when Sybil Sanderson, the American soprano playing Thaïs, suffered a wardrobe malfunction. After singing this ‘Meditation’, she converts to Christianity and her clothes stay on. Vittorio Monti (1868–1922), born in Naples, wrote his ‘Czardas’ in 1904, based on a Hungarian dance form. Stephen Selby is today’s living – and local – composer. He’s probably here and, unlike the others, can speak for himself. Dmitry Kabalevsky (1904–1987) was born in Saint Petersburg and prospered during the Soviet period, especially in chldren’s music. He set up a system of free music academies based on music appreciation. They have not survived. His Violin Concerto was written in 1948. Josma Kosma (1905–1969) was a Hungarian composer living in Paris when he set a poem called ‘Les Feuilles mortes’ by Jacques Prévert (one of those names that keeps typesetters awake). Anglicised as ‘Autumn Leaves’ by Johnny Mercer in 1950, it became a ‘standard’, apparently recorded 1400 times just by jazzbos. Nice…
‘Christmas Reversed’ is a typically peculiar Victorian Christmas card by Joseph Mansell & Co of Red Lion Square, London. The traditional elements of the Christmas dinner enjoy dancing to a tune provided by a fiddle-playing rabbit. You don’t have one? I’m sure there’s one on Ebay.
CHELTENHAM MUSIC FESTIVAL SOCIETY
Since 2017, Cheltenham Music Festival Society has presented more than 200 Young Musician Concerts, at 13:00 on Tuesdays, giving musicians at the start of their journeys the chance to perform solo or in school groups. The concerts are free and funded entirely by the voluntary collection at the end. We pay the Cheltenham Trust for the use of the venue. What is left in the bucket pays the travel expenses of the performers. For more information, contact Andrew Auster: a.auster30@gmail.com.
Cheltenham Music Festival Society is the main sponsor of the annual July Festival. If you wish to join, please contact the Membership Secretary: cmfsmembership@outlook.com.
In the New Year, the concerts will be in the Drawing Room at the Town Hall on the following dates.
13 January: Pate’s Grammar School
20 January: Dean Close School
10 February: Rupert Egerton-Smith (piano)
24 February: Vitaly Pisarenko (piano)
17 March: Nina Savicevic (piano)
24 March: Balcarras School
Our cover picture
Our main picture at the top is a detail from the cover of the 11th Giles Annual (1957), featuring Carl Giles‘s Daily Express and Sunday Express cartoons from 1956 and 1957. It could be Cheltenham, couldn’t it?
Ronald ‘Carl’ Giles (1916–1995) started as an animator in advertising before becoming a newspaper cartoonist, first with Reynolds News and then for the Express group from 1943 to 1991. His cartoons featured an extended family of grotesques, notably Grandma, and were much loved. In 2000, visitors to the Cartoon Museum in London declared him their favourite cartoonist of the 20th century. A poll of cartoonists placed him second, after Ronald Searle, who created St Trinian’s and Molesworth. Giles did not share the politics of the Express but he was not averse to securing the full fruits of his labours, describing himself as a ‘Bentley-driving socialist’. He died in August 1995, leaving a number of secrets subsequently unearthed by biographers.
Here’s another Giles Christmas cartoon, from the Sunday Express, December 23, 1956.
Other credits
‘Elvis London’ font used in artist pictures, courtesy Giuliano Cossu (giulianocossu.it).
Programme by John Morrish (b. 1957) who also took the snap of the Morrish TV Christmas breakdown van, c.1979. Sales and Service, including Christmas Day.
Contact me at mail@johnmorrish.com.
