CLOSE-UP: MUSIC FOR CURIOUS YOUNG MINDS

Ensemble 360 & Aga Serugo-Lugo

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield
Saturday 24 May 2025, 11.00am

Tickets:
£12 
£7 UC, DLA & PIP 
£5 Under 16s 

Past Event
Musicians from Ensemble 360
Home› What's on› CLOSE-UP: MUSIC FOR CURIOUS YOUNG MINDS

Become musical detectives in the wondrous world of chamber music!

This specially created concert for young audiences combines some of the most well-known music ever written, alongside playful storytelling in Berio’s entertaining Opus Number Zoo.

With thrilling musical adventures told through music, cheeky characters and epic heroes, this concert of marvellous musical games is perfect for children aged 7 – 11.  

Programme includes excerpts from:

ASTOR PIAZZOLLA – Libertango (2’30)
SCOTT JOPLIN – New Rag for Wind Quintet (3’30)
ALEXANDER VON ZEMLINSKY – Humoresque (3’30)
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN – Bagatelle Op. 119 No. 3 (2’)
PER NØRGÅRD – Whirl’s World (2’)
ANTON REICHA – Wind Quintet in D (3’30)
CARL NIELSEN – Wind Quintet (3’)
EMILY DOOLITTLE – ‘Bobolink’ from Woodwings (4’)
AUGUST KLUGHARDT – Wind Quintet Op. 79 (2’30)
LUCIANO BERIO – Opus Number Zoo (3’)

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PIAZZOLLA Astor, Libertango (extract for Close Up)

Let’s get our concert off to a dancing start! Libertango is a fun mix of tango and jazz, full of energy and rhythm. Close your eyes and imagine dancers moving quickly—sometimes fast, sometimes slow, but always exciting! It was written by Astor Piazzolla, a musical rule-breaker from Argentina in South America, who loved to take the traditional dance music of the tango and twist it into something new and thrilling

JOPLIN Scott, New Rag arr. for Wind Quintet (extract for Close Up)

A happy, bouncy ragtime tune that makes you want to tap your feet! It’s like a musical puzzle full of repeating patterns. American composer Scott Joplin, is sometimes called ‘the King of Ragtime’. He mostly wrote dancing piano music which you may have heard without knowing it: his music was used in Tom and Jerry cartoons and also in The Lego Movie.

ZEMLINSKY Alexander Von, Humoresque (extract for Close Up)

A musical joke full of skips and hops! Alexander Zemlinsky was an Austrian composer who loved drama and fairy tales, and this piece is like a mischievous character darting around, surprising us with funny twists.  Who might they be? How are they moving? What do they look like and what, most importantly, are they up to?

BEETHOVEN Ludwig Van, Bagatelle Op.119 No.3 (extract for Close Up)

Short but sweet and sounding like a musical smile: this cheerful piece was written by Ludwig van Beethoven, a German composer who changed music forever, writing huge symphonies for massive orchestras and tiny musical gems like this one.  Like the Scott Joplin piece, this was first written for a piano (which you can hear in the clip on this page) but takes on its own character when played by five wind musicians. How does changing the instruments but playing the same notes change this lovely piece?

NØRGÅRD Per, Whirl’s World (extract for Close Up)

Sometimes, like a thrilling story or film, what makes music exciting, also makes it strange and scary… This piece is like being inside a spinning top! Full of fast, twirling sounds, it’s magical whirlwind of strange, darkness. Like a real-life tornado is starts slowly, becomes furiously fast, and collapses back into silence. Per Nørgård is a Danish musical explorer, who loves creating music that feel like galaxies, storms, or even buzzing insects. This piece, he has described as “a water-world of ripples and bubbles”. Can you hear what he means?

REICHA Antón, Wind Quintet in D Op.91 (extract for Close Up)

This piece is like a musical chase! The flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon take turns playing fast, playful tunes, as if they’re chatting like musical friends. The composer, Antón Reicha, loved puzzles and games—and you can hear it in how the instruments weave together in clever ways.

NIELSEN Carl, Wind Quintet (extract for Close Up)

A musical conversation where each instrument has its own personality! Sometimes they agree, sometimes they argue—but it’s always fun. This section is a type of composition called a ‘theme and variations’ in which the Danish composer Carl Nielsen took a beautiful hymn tune he knew from church and used his imagination to change it a bit more each time we hear it, making something new out of something he found. It’s like musical recycling!

DOOLITTLE Emily, Bobolink (extract for Close Up)

A bubbly, chirpy piece that sounds like a bird singing in a meadow! Emily Doolittle is a modern composer writing music today who loves nature, and her music often brings the outdoors to life.  Lots of composers have been inspired by birds: some have created musical pictures of them flying or getting up to adventues, others have tried to write down their beautiful song as if it were human music and get the instruments to do their best bird impressions. What sort of bird music do you think Emily Doolittle is writing here?

KLUGHARDT August, Wind Quintet Op.79 (extract for Close Up)

Bright and lively, this music is like a game of tag between the instruments! August Klughardt was a Romantic composer who turned music into storytelling—full of excitement and emotion.  Sometimes his work told stories using actors, singers and huge orchestras, sometimes it was inspired by myths and legends. This piece treats our wind players like five characters. What sort of story are they telling?

BERIO Luciano, Opus Number Zoo (extract for Close Up)

Luciano Berio was a musical inventor who loved turning everyday sounds into music. This is the last part of his ‘musical zoo’ where each section is a different animal! In this piece, our wind players have to use different sorts of musical voices: speaking as well as playing.  It’s like a musical cartoon of a pair of Tom Cats. How do they instruments bring the fighting cats to life?And what do you think happens in the end?

About the Artists

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

Ensemble 360 has gained an enviable reputation across the UK for the quality and integrity of their performances. Formed in 2005, eleven musicians of international standing came together to take up residency in South Yorkshire with Music in the Round, establishing a versatile group comprising five string players, five wind players and a pianist.  Get a glimpse of them in performance here.

The Ensemble 360 musicians share a passion for the music which radiates through each performance. Their enthusiasm, drive and musicality captivate audiences both through the quality of their playing and their engaging spoken introductions. Due to the flexible nature of the group’s line-up the repertoire possibilities are enormous; anything from baroque duos, through classical quartets to new commissions for all eleven players. 

 

Aga Serugo-Lugo

As a clarinettist, saxophonist and singer, Aga has had the opportunity to explore many different styles including: classical, jazz, soul, soul and funk. Aga also has a keen interest in theatre, especially music theatre, writing and producing his own musical ‘Celebrity’. Professionally, his style of choice has been jazz, which Aga has played across London with an eclectic mix of groups; this accompanies his private tuition and workshop leading. Improvisation and composition play a major part in his music making and workshops. Aga has done much work with Sing-up, the national singing strategy, allowing him to work with a variety of age groups and diverse levels of ability.

GOLDBERG: PIANO AT DAWN

Ensemble 360

Samuel Worth Chapel, Sheffield
Saturday 24 May 2025, 5.00am

Tickets: 
£17
£10 UC, PIP & DLA
£5 Students & Under 35s 

Past Event
Pianist Tim Horton
Home› What's on› GOLDBERG: PIANO AT DAWN

BACH Goldberg Variations (70′)  

Tim Horton performs his own spellbinding early morning concert, returning the Goldberg Variations to their original keyboard form. Once again ringing out among the dawn chorus, in the atmospheric hidden gem of Samuel Worth Chapel, the magnificent intricacy of these 32 variations will set the tone for the final day of the Festival. In the hands of Tim Horton, and in the intimacy of this very special venue, this promises to breathe new life into what is rightly one of the best-loved works of the solo piano repertoire. 

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BACH J.S., Goldberg Variations

The fourth part of Bach’s elaborate Clavierübung, better known as the Goldberg Variations (1741), is, as many of Bach’s larger works, well appreciated by both music lovers and academic music researchers. Bach had the special talent of being able to employ mathematical and structural means for an emotional plea, a skill he shares with very little composers in the history of music. The emotional plea is here however not filled with high-flown drama; rather, it is a game on the human perception of music. The Goldberg Variations form a collection of 32 pieces, founded on a 32-bar bass line which is used in all variations. The different parts vary in character: short and passionate, short and light-footed, long and melancholy etc, but the whole set does radiate a sense of light joy and playfulness. The piece ends in the way it began: with the aria.

The present popularity of the Goldberg Variations can possibly be explained by the fact that this piece does not make use of variations on a theme, which is common, but of variations on a bass line. This can be compared with the variation tradition in pop and jazz music. There is in fact question of a range of pieces based on a chord scheme. Bach himself found the variation form in general (and therefore the theme & variations too) unsatisfactory and unrewarding. For that reason, he never got beyond one variation piece – but a piece that three centuries later still proudly embodies the perfect example of variation technique. What should further be mentioned about the form, is that the middle of the piece is marked by an overture in the French style and that each segment of three variations ends in a canon (with a literal repetition of the melody, as in Brother John), of which the second voice starts one tone higher each time. In the first canon, this voice therefore starts on the same tone as the first voice; in the second canon it starts a tone higher, in the third canon two tones higher, et cetera. Where one expects the final canon (variation 30), Bach places, as if to stress the light-footedness of the whole, the famous Quodlibet, a potpourri of then well-known folksongs (comparable to our Itsy Bitsy Spider and Candle in the Wind), which must surely have curled the lips of the listeners into a smile.

 

There have been a lot of speculations on the lightness of the Goldberg Variations. Bach had (according to his sons Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach) written the piece for Count von

Kayserlinck’s personal harpsichordist, a young man named Johann Gottlieb Goldberg (1727-1756). For a short period of time, Bach was the teacher of this Mr Goldberg, who regularly stayed in Bach’s place of residence, Leipzig, together with Von Kayserlinck’s household. The count suffered from several diseases and was an insomniac. He sought relief during the nights by asking Goldberg to play the harpsichord in the adjoining room. The story goes that Von Kayserlinck assigned Bach to compose pain relieving and calming music for these specific, but very frequent occasions. Whether Bach’s Variations actually had the relieving effect on the pains of the grateful count (he later continuously referred to the variations as “my variations”) can only be guessed, but certainly not all of them are calming. On the contrary: the virtuosity of some of the variations is so far beyond the technical achievements of those days, that many have wondered whether a boy of no more than fourteen years of age could, even under the supervision of a mentor such as Bach, have been able to play even part of the variations. It is however possible that the more virtuoso parts still had a calming effect – due to Goldberg’s playing.

 

Raaf Hekkema 2011

About the Artists

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

Ensemble 360 has gained an enviable reputation across the UK for the quality and integrity of their performances. Formed in 2005, eleven musicians of international standing came together to take up residency in South Yorkshire with Music in the Round, establishing a versatile group comprising five string players, five wind players and a pianist.  Get a glimpse of them in performance here.

The Ensemble 360 musicians share a passion for the music which radiates through each performance. Their enthusiasm, drive and musicality captivate audiences both through the quality of their playing and their engaging spoken introductions. Due to the flexible nature of the group’s line-up the repertoire possibilities are enormous; anything from baroque duos, through classical quartets to new commissions for all eleven players. 

 

SINFONIETTA: BRITTEN, VAUGHAN WILLIAMS & MORE

Ensemble 360

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield
Friday 23 May 2025, 7.00pm

Tickets: 
£22
£14 UC, PIP & DLA
£5 Students & Under 35s 

Past Event
Ensemble 360 musicians
Home› What's on› SINFONIETTA: BRITTEN, VAUGHAN WILLIAMS & MORE

KNUSSEN Cantata for Oboe and String Trio (11′) 
RAVEL Piano Trio in A Minor (28′)  
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Piano Quintet in C minor (40′)
BRITTEN Sinfonietta (15′) 

This sumptuous exploration of an intricate musical family tree unpacks the influence of some of the 20th century’s greatest composers upon one another. The shimmering colours of Ravel’s exquisite Piano Trio, which drew on eclectic sources including Basque folk dance and Malaysian verse-forms, was highly influential in helping that most English of composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams, to find his own musical voice. While Benjamin Britten, whose student Oliver Knussen opens this concert, wrestled with and resisted the legacy of Vaughan Williams throughout his life, his echoes can be heard, not least in this early taut and twitchy work that brings this programme to a swaggering conclusion. 

 

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KNUSSEN Oliver, Cantata for oboe and string trio Op.15

Oliver Kunssen started work on Cantata at Tanglewood in 1975 and finished it over two years later in London. Knussen described this period as one of ‘considerable frustration and little completed work’, but three pieces were finished: Autumnal for violin and piano, Sonya’s Lullaby for piano and Cantata. Together they form trilogy, of which Cantata is the third and final part. Knussen’s aim was to write something ‘consciously more relaxed and lyrical’ in Cantata than in its companion pieces, while also aiming for a compact structure. After a slow introduction, the music moves towards a frenetic section in which the solo oboe plays an extravagantly ornamented melodic line over string parts which Knussen himself described as ‘manic’. In the coda, a varied version of the oboe theme returns from the opening, now supported by gentle string figurations before evaporating into silence. Knussen wrote that ‘Although essentially abstract, the work is certainly subjective, which fact may encourage the listener to let the music evoke whatever personal imagery it may contain.’

Nigel Simeone 2025

RAVEL Maurice, Piano Trio

Modéré
Pantoum. Assez vif
Passacaille. Très large
Final. Animé

Ravel spent the summer of 1914 hard at work on the Piano Trio in the French Basque village of Saint-Jean-de-Luz. The outbreak of World War I in August spurred him on to finish, and by September he was able to tell Stravinsky that ‘my Trio is finished’. It is one of the great works of the early twentieth-century chamber music repertoire. In his study of the genre, Basil Smallman writes that Ravel’s Trio ‘combines the brilliant string techniques of his early string quartet – double octave spacing, harmonics, tremolandi, and extended pizzicato passages and trills – with the powerful and evocative piano writing developed in Miroirs (1904 and Gaspard de la nuit in order to achieve some entirely new effects of colour and expression in trio-writing.’

The opening movement is based on a gently lopsided rhythm (two groups of three beats alternating with one group of two beats) derived from Basque folk music. The main idea is a wistful, modal theme (originally composed for a Basque-inspired piano concerto that Ravel sketched in 1912) that is twice whipped up into an exciting climax. The second movement is called ‘Pantoum’, a poetic form that takes its name from Malaysia but was made famous by French poets of the nineteenth century: Victor Hugo, Leconte de Lisle, Paul Verlaine and Charles Baudelaire (whose ‘Harmonie du soir’ is probably the most famous example of a pantoum, though he doesn’t quite stick to the rules). Brian Newbould has demonstrated that Ravel did more than use the name: he followed the model of a poetic pantoum, finding a musical equivalent. Newbould quotes from a definition of a pantoum: ‘the poem treats two themes of which the one serves as accompaniment to the other’ before showing that Ravel pulled off a remarkable trick here: ‘If all or most features of the pantoum are to be translated into a musical equivalent, then the undertaking must by its very nature present a special challenge to the composer’s powers of integration. Two themes are to be developed alternately, in a coherent fashion, but in such a way that the two strands of development may be extricated and reassembled as separate, intelligible entities. Ravel does in fact attempt this, and succeeds well enough to have left most listeners and commentators oblivious of his feat. [The first idea] is staccato, brittle, percussive in its cross-rhythms: [the second idea] is legato, surging and falling in short breaths.’ This dazzling movement has at its centre a contrasting section in a quite different time signature (four slow beats in a bar as opposed to three quick ones), but at the point where the opening music returns, Ravel combines it with the slow melody in a way that sounds effortless but is both rhythmically complex and brilliantly conceived. The slow movement is a Baroque form: a Passacaglia in which the music is founded on a repeating sequence of notes in the bass. Brahms used this form for the finale of his Fourth Symphony, and Ravel adapts it as an eight-bar repeating phrase, developed with obsessive tenacity, reaching a climax and then fading away. The Finale follows without a break. Ravel’s fabulously inventive use of instrumental colour is immediately apparent with shimmering arpeggios and tremolos on harmonics in the violin and cello, as the piano introduces the asymmetrical main theme, in 5/4 time, later interspersing bars in 7/4 time that extend the same musical idea. The movement ends in a pyrotechnic display of trills and arpeggios.

Nigel Simeone © 2010

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Ralph, Quintet in C minor for violin, viola, cello, double bass and piano

Allegro con fuoco
Andante
Fantasia, quasi variazioni

This Quintet in C minor, scored for the same instrumentation as Schubert’s Trout, was composed in 1903 and revised twice before the first performance at the Aeolian Hall on 14 December 1905, but after a performance in 1918 it was withdrawn by Vaughan Williams. It was finally published in an edition by Bernard Benoliel a century after its composition. Vaughan Williams’s friend and biographer Michael Kennedy speaks of ‘the shadow of Brahms looming over’ the work, and this seems especially true of the expansive first movement. The expressive, romantic melody of the Andante second movement is more characteristic of its composer at this stage in his career, and it has some similarity to the song Silent Noon, composed the same year. The finale is a set of five variations, ending with a beautiful bell-like coda.

As Michael Kennedy observes, what matters with an early work such as this is not whether it anticipates Vaughan Williams’s later masterpieces (for the most part, it doesn’t), but that it is impressive in its own right. He does, however, make an intriguing observation: ‘Vaughan Williams may have withdrawn the Quintet but he did not forget it, for in 1954 he used the theme of the finale, slightly expanded, for the variations in the finale of his Violin Sonata.’

© Nigel Simeone

BRITTEN Benjamin, Sinfonietta Op.1

1. Poco presto ed agitato
2. Variations: Andante lento
3. Tarantella: Presto vivace

Britten was already a very prolific composer by the time he gave this work its designation as his official Opus One. Dedicated to his teacher, Frank Bridge, it was written when Britten was 18 years old, and it already demonstrates his extraordinary imagination. The influence of Schoenberg’s First Chamber Symphony is apparent in places, and the instrumental writing in all three movements has a fluency and flamboyance that quickly became hallmarks of the young Britten’s music. The first public performance was given on 31 January 1933 at the Mercury Theatre, London, in one of the Macnaghten-Lemare concerts played by the English Wind Players and the Macnaghten String Quartet, conducted by Iris Lemare. Britten’s music has always been more enthusiastically received abroad, and on 7 August 1933, the Sinfonietta was broadcast on Radio Strasbourg, conducted by the great Hermann Scherchen. The first British broadcast was a month later, by members of the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Edward Clark.

© Nigel Simeone 2013

About the Artists

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

Ensemble 360 has gained an enviable reputation across the UK for the quality and integrity of their performances. Formed in 2005, eleven musicians of international standing came together to take up residency in South Yorkshire with Music in the Round, establishing a versatile group comprising five string players, five wind players and a pianist.  Get a glimpse of them in performance here.

The Ensemble 360 musicians share a passion for the music which radiates through each performance. Their enthusiasm, drive and musicality captivate audiences both through the quality of their playing and their engaging spoken introductions. Due to the flexible nature of the group’s line-up the repertoire possibilities are enormous; anything from baroque duos, through classical quartets to new commissions for all eleven players. 

 

CELEBRATING AVRIL COLERIDGE-TAYLOR

Ensemble 360 & Dr Leah Broad

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield
Friday 23 May 2025, 2.00pm

Tickets: 
£17
£10 UC, PIP & DLA
£5 Students & Under 35s 

Past Event
Home› What's on› CELEBRATING AVRIL COLERIDGE-TAYLOR

A COLERIDGE-TAYLOR Can Sorrow Find Me? (4′)  
S COLERIDGE-TAYLOR Clarinet Quintet (I. Allegro energico) (10′) 
ELGAR Chanson de Matin (4′)  
A COLERIDGE-TAYLOR Romance (6′)  
SMYTH Piano Trio (III. Scherzo) (5′) 
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Romance (7′) 
A COLERIDGE-TAYLOR Idylle (5′)  
 

Presented by RPS award-winning writer Leah Broad, whose group biography of female composers Quartet (2023) won plaudits around the globe, this concert with conversation introduces us to the ground-breaking Avril Coleridge-Taylor and her world. Setting this too-often overlooked composer, conductor and pianist in the context of the musicians who championed, supported and inspired her, Leah introduces rarely heard works, performed by Ensemble 360. Music by Coleridge-Taylor herself will be presented alongside her father Samuel’s crowning achievement in chamber music, Vaughan Williams’s soulful romance and Elgar’s charming, celebrated song to the morning. 

 

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CELEBRATING AVRIL COLERIDGE-TAYLOR

When penning a memoir in her later years, Avril Coleridge-Taylor advised her readers to ‘never be discouraged by criticism even if it means waiting years to gain real recognition.’ She had her fair share of both criticism and waiting, and is only now moving into the limelight, three decades after her death. In her lifetime she was overshadowed by the better-known composers whose music is on this programme — her father, Samuel, and her contemporaries and inspirations Smyth, Elgar, and Vaughan Williams.

The Idylle for flute and piano is the earliest of Coleridge-Taylor’s works on today’s programme. She wrote it in 1920 for herself and the flautist Joseph Slater, to whom she was engaged. It is an unabashedly romantic work, written by a woman in love. By the time she composed Can Sorrow Find Me? in 1938, she was quite a different composer and woman, in the midst of a divorce from the man she eventually married, Harold Dashwood. This piece was originally a song. It has a melancholic, wistful tone, and a decidedly ambiguous conclusion. After appearing to end triumphantly on the text ‘Today I will be young and glad again’, Coleridge-Taylor brings back an altered version of the introduction and opening lines so the piece stops but does not end, closing with a question. The 1945 Romance is dedicated to a Dr. F. Bachner — perhaps the doctor who at the time was successfully treating her for an infected wound, almost certainly saving her life.

Avril adored her father, who was one of the most famous composers in Britain at the time of his death, when Avril was just nine. She remained forever devoted to his memory. ‘I write down…my own thoughts, and those which I believe are sent me by father’, she admitted in an early interview. His lyrical style, so apparent in this Quintet, is a clear influence behind Avril’s work. Besides Samuel, Elgar was the most significant musical figure in Avril’s life. She dedicated the second movement of her Piano Concerto to him. The Chanson de Matin is one of Elgar’s early works, in the tradition of “light music” that was hugely popular in England, and that Avril particularly enjoyed. Vaughan Williams, too, was a prominent presence — Coleridge-Taylor’s more romantic moments are in dialogue with his muted textures and constantly shifting harmonic language.

As for Smyth, Coleridge-Taylor felt that she was not just a musical inspiration, but an important personal role model, as a pioneering woman composer and conductor. ‘I felt as a woman composer I had a definite mission to accomplish in this world’, Coleridge-Taylor wrote, ‘so that her name, the first among our famous women musicians, should not be forgotten nor her work have been in vain.’ This energetic Piano Trio is an early work, dating from 1880. The ‘Scherzo’ contains Smyth’s characteristic quicksilver changes of mood, moving quickly between passages fraught with tension and joyful, expansive exclamations.

Leah Broad

About the Artists

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

Ensemble 360 has gained an enviable reputation across the UK for the quality and integrity of their performances. Formed in 2005, eleven musicians of international standing came together to take up residency in South Yorkshire with Music in the Round, establishing a versatile group comprising five string players, five wind players and a pianist.  Get a glimpse of them in performance here.

The Ensemble 360 musicians share a passion for the music which radiates through each performance. Their enthusiasm, drive and musicality captivate audiences both through the quality of their playing and their engaging spoken introductions. Due to the flexible nature of the group’s line-up the repertoire possibilities are enormous; anything from baroque duos, through classical quartets to new commissions for all eleven players. 

 

Dr Leah Broad

Dr Leah Broad

Dr Leah Broad is a multi-award-winning writer, historian, and public speaker. Her work focuses on twentieth-century cultural history, especially women in the arts. Leah’s first book, Quartet, is a group biography of four women composers: Ethel Smyth, Rebecca Clarke, Dorothy Howell and Doreen Carwithen. Read more.

BRAHMS STRING SEXTET

Ensemble 360 & Members of the Elias Quartet

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield
Thursday 22 May 2025, 7.00pm

Tickets: 
£22
£14 UC, PIP & DLA
£5 Students & Under 35s 

Past Event
Musicians from the Elias String Quartet
Home› What's on› BRAHMS STRING SEXTET

BRAHMS String Sextet in G (40′) 
ENESCU String Octet in C (40′)  

 In a final chance to catch the members of the Elias Quartet in collaboration with Ensemble 360, this celebration of music for strings centres on Brahms’s spectacular Sextet. Marked by heartbreak and romance, the piece sweeps from the wistful longing of the early movements to the warm and tender triumph of the dazzling fourth movement. Paired with Enescu’s prodigious and intricately structured epic, this luscious evening of string writing showcases the technical brilliance and big-hearted musicianship that has grown across two decades of collaboration among these very special players. 

 

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BRAHMS Johannes, String Sextet in G Op.36

1. Allegro non troppo
2. Scherzo: Allegro non troppo
3. Poco adagio
4. Poco allegro

Brahms’s G major Sextet was written at Lichtental, near Baden-Baden and finished in 1865. Richly scored for two violins, two violas and two cellos, this intensely lyrical work opens with a soaring, yearning theme, but in the second subject Brahms reveals part of the work’s inspiration: his engagement to Agathe von Siebold which had ended badly (for both of them) rather than in marriage, as had been intended. In one phrase, often repeated, the notes A-G-A-H-E (with ‘H’ the German musical spelling for ‘B’) are used to spell out Agathe’s name. Brahms wrote of this passage: ‘Here I tore myself away from my last love.’ The Scherzo is reflective rather than playful, while the slow movement opens with chromatic lines which dominate much of the movement either side of a more animated central section. The finale, though playing with contrasts of major and minor – giving it a slightly ambiguous flavour – ends in sonorous rapture.

Nigel Simeone 2014

ENESCU George, Octet in C Op.7

Très modéré –

Très fougueux –

Lentement –

Animé – Mouvement de valse bien rythmé

Born in Romania, Enescu was a child prodigy, writing his first compositions at the age of five, and a brilliant violinist. By the time he went to Paris in 1895, he was already an immensely accomplished musician having studied violin and composition at the Vienna Conservatoire. In Paris, he studied composition with Fauré and harmony with André Gedalge (who were also Ravel’s two most important teachers). The Octet was completed in 1900, when Enesco was just nineteen years old, and a year before he wrote the popular Romanian Rhapsody No.1 for orchestra. The composer’s Preface to the score of the Octet explains something of its unusual form:

This Octet, cyclic in form, presents the following characteristics: it is divided into four distinct movements in the classic manner, each movement linked to the other to form a single symphonic movement where the sections, on an enlarged scale, follow one another according to the rules of construction for the first movement of a symphony.

Scored for two string quartets, this splendid and grandly-conceived work had to wait nearly a decade for its premiere, given in Paris on 18 December 1909. Since Enesco was already a sought-after soloist in 1900, he composed the Octet in between performances of concertos by Beethoven, Saint-Saëns and Bach. From the start of the first section (presenting a theme that somewhat resembles the main theme of Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge), Enesco’s skill at writing for his unusual forces is apparent, generating a great sense of power and momentum. The second section – “very impetuous” – is angular and jagged, and this is followed by a rather unsettled slow movement. The finale is dominated by a spiky waltz, full of wide leaps, but ending with a bold close – D flat then C in powerful octaves.

Nigel Simeone © 2012

About the Artists

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

Ensemble 360 has gained an enviable reputation across the UK for the quality and integrity of their performances. Formed in 2005, eleven musicians of international standing came together to take up residency in South Yorkshire with Music in the Round, establishing a versatile group comprising five string players, five wind players and a pianist.  Get a glimpse of them in performance here.

The Ensemble 360 musicians share a passion for the music which radiates through each performance. Their enthusiasm, drive and musicality captivate audiences both through the quality of their playing and their engaging spoken introductions. Due to the flexible nature of the group’s line-up the repertoire possibilities are enormous; anything from baroque duos, through classical quartets to new commissions for all eleven players. 

 

Musicians from the Elias String Quartet

Members of the Elias Quartet

Donald Grant violin, Simone van de Giessen viola & Marie Bitloch cello

The Elias String Quartet take their name from Mendelssohn’s oratorio, Elijah, of which Elias is its German form, and have quickly established themselves as one of the most intense and vibrant quartets of their generation. The Quartet was formed in 1998 at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester where they worked closely with the late Dr. Christopher Rowland. They also spent a year studying at the Hochschule in Cologne with the Alban Berg quartet. Between 2005 and 2009 they were resident String Quartet at Music in the Round as part of Ensemble 360, taking over from the Lindsay Quartet. They are now ensemble in residence at the RNCM and regularly go back there to teach and perform. Read more.

SHOSTAKOVICH, MOZART & MORE

Ensemble 360 & Members of the Elias Quartet

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield
Thursday 22 May 2025, 2.00pm

Tickets: 
£22
£14 UC, PIP & DLA
£5 Students & Under 35s 

Past Event
Ensemble 360 musicians
Home› What's on› SHOSTAKOVICH, MOZART & MORE

SHOSTAKOVICH Two Pieces for String Octet (10′)  
MOZART Quintet for Piano and Wind in E flat K452 (20′)  
POULENC Oboe Sonata (13’)  
SCHOENBERG Verklärte Nacht (30′)  

With Ensemble 360 once again joined by members of the Elias String Quartet, this is an expansive programme of some of the most exciting writing for strings from the 20th century, interspersed with two very different, but equally glorious, works for piano and wind.  

Mozart’s majestic Quintet was, according to a letter he wrote to his father shortly after its first performance, a piece he considered one of the finest he had ever written. Poulenc’s profound and stylish late Oboe Sonata is an elegy both to its dedicatee Prokofiev and a farewell to life itself, being the composer’s final work. Early pieces shot through with spirituality and revolution (by Shostakovich and Schoenberg, both of whom celebrate anniversaries in 2025) bookend this concert.  

 

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SHOSTAKOVICH Dmitri, Two pieces for string octet, Op.11

1. Prelude: Adagio
2. Scherzo: Allegro molto

This early work was completed in July 1925, just after Shostakovich had finished his First Symphony. It was dedicated to the memory of his poet friend Volodya Kurchavov and first performed at the Stanislavsky Theatre in Moscow on 9 January 1927. Originally Shostakovich envisaged a suite (in five movements), but he abandoned that scheme, settling on the present two-movement structure: an eloquent slow movement followed by a Scherzo which is full of forward momentum one moment, and quiet reflection the next. The driving energy soon wins out, and the music hurtles towards a frenetic close. At the time, Shostakovich expressed the view that the Scherzo was ‘the very best thing I have written’.

Nigel Simeone 2024

MOZART Wolfgang Amadeus, Quintet for Piano and Wind in E flat K452

Largo – Allegro moderato
Larghetto
Allegretto

In a letter to his father on 10 April 1784, Mozart described his new Quintet for Piano and Wind as ‘the best piece I have ever written’. Completed on 30 March 1784 it was given its première just two days later on 1 April, at a ‘grand musical concert’ for the benefit of the National Court Theatre in Vienna. The extraordinary programme consisted of two Mozart Symphonies (almost certainly the ‘Haffner’ and the ‘Linz’), an ‘entirely new concerto’ played by Mozart (either K450 or K451, both recently finished), a solo improvisation, three opera arias and the first performance of an ‘entirely new grand quintet’. It was probably the presence of wind players for the symphonies that prompted Mozart to write one of his most original chamber works for this occasion.

While the first movement is designed on almost symphonic lines (complete with substantial slow introduction), it has a gentler sensibility and textures that recall the kind of dialogue between piano and wind that are such a feature of Mozart’s mature piano concertos. After a slow movement that makes the most of the song-like expressiveness of wind instruments, the finale is a sonata rondo – in essence a theme that returns repeatedly within a developing context – that was also much favoured in the piano concertos. The Quintet is highly original in terms of how it is put together, and the daring with which Mozart explores unusual sonorities.

Nigel Simeone © 2011

POULENC Francis, Oboe sonata

Élégie. Paisiblement sans presser
Scherzo. Très animé
Déploration. Très calme

Poulenc described the elements of the Oboe Sonata – his last major work – as follows: ‘The first movement is elegiac, the second scherzando, and the last a sort of liturgical chant.’ The form of the Sonata is slow–fast–slow with its most original feature being the finale, a deeply-felt ‘Déploration’. This eloquent tribute was dedicated to the memory of Serge Prokofiev, but it was first performed at the Strasbourg Festival on 8 June 1963 by Pierre Pierlot and Jacques Février as a memorial to Poulenc himself who had died earlier in the year.

© Nigel Simeone 2015

SCHOENBERG Arnold, Verklärte Nacht Op.4 for string sextet

Verklärte Nacht, composed in 1899, is one of Schoenberg’s earliest masterpieces, written in a language that owes much to both Wagner and Brahms, two of the predecessors he most admired. In this ravishingly beautiful sxtet (which Schoenberg later arranged for string orchestra), he uses Wagnerian leitmotifs, and he was clearly influenced by the sound world of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. But when it comes the work’s formal construction, Brahms is the dominant influence. Themes are developed by variation, by combining with other themes, and by fragmenting or dissolving them. This is a process that Schoenberg himself admired so much in the music of Brahms – a techinque he called ‘developing variation’. So while the use of leitmotifs suggests a Wagnerian kind of musical narrative – aptly so for a work that tells a story without words – we hear Brahms in the approach to development, tonality and form that Schoenberg uses to create a single movement lasting half an hour.

The work is programmatic, taking its title from a poem by the Symbolist writer Richard Dehmel (1863–1920), a kind of German Aubrey Beardsley. When Dehmel’s collection Weib und Welt (which includes the poem Verklärte Nacht ) was published, it caused a scandal, and Dehmel was tried for obscenity and blasphemy. Though he was acquitted, the court demanded that all copies of the book should be burned.

In Dehmel’s Verklärte Nacht, a man and a woman pass through a moonlit landscape. She confesses to carrying a child that is not his; bathed in light, he tells her that she must have the child, and bear it as their own. At the end of the poem, ‘He clasps her round her strong hips. Their kisses mingle in the night air.’ This erotic text was not only Schoenberg’s inspiration, but also guided the structure of the work which is thus a kind of tone poem for string sextet. The first performance took place on 18 March 1902 in the Vienna Musikverein when it was played by the Rosé Quartet with Franz Jelinek and Franz Schmidt – the latter a cellist as well as a distinguished composer.

Nigel Simeone, 2014

About the Artists

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

Ensemble 360 has gained an enviable reputation across the UK for the quality and integrity of their performances. Formed in 2005, eleven musicians of international standing came together to take up residency in South Yorkshire with Music in the Round, establishing a versatile group comprising five string players, five wind players and a pianist.  Get a glimpse of them in performance here.

The Ensemble 360 musicians share a passion for the music which radiates through each performance. Their enthusiasm, drive and musicality captivate audiences both through the quality of their playing and their engaging spoken introductions. Due to the flexible nature of the group’s line-up the repertoire possibilities are enormous; anything from baroque duos, through classical quartets to new commissions for all eleven players. 

 

Musicians from the Elias String Quartet

Members of the Elias Quartet

Donald Grant violin, Simone van de Giessen viola & Marie Bitloch cello

The Elias String Quartet take their name from Mendelssohn’s oratorio, Elijah, of which Elias is its German form, and have quickly established themselves as one of the most intense and vibrant quartets of their generation. The Quartet was formed in 1998 at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester where they worked closely with the late Dr. Christopher Rowland. They also spent a year studying at the Hochschule in Cologne with the Alban Berg quartet. Between 2005 and 2009 they were resident String Quartet at Music in the Round as part of Ensemble 360, taking over from the Lindsay Quartet. They are now ensemble in residence at the RNCM and regularly go back there to teach and perform. Read more.

CYCLES & CIRCLES

Jasdeep Singh Degun & Ensemble 360

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield
Wednesday 21 May 2025, 7.00pm

Tickets:
£22
£14 UC, PIP & DLA
£5 Students & Under 35s 

Past Event
Home› What's on› CYCLES & CIRCLES

Programme includes:
DEGUN Alaap + Veer for sitar, tabla and string quintet (9′)
DEGUN Abbhā  for sitar, tabla and string quintet (5′)
STRAVINSKY II. Excentrique from ‘Three Pieces for String Quartet’ (2′)
DVORAK (arr. Nabarro) Indian Lament for string quintet (4′)
DEGUN Rageshri for sitar, tabla and string quintet (11′)
STRAVINSKY I. Danse from ‘Three Pieces for String Quartet’ (1′)
DEGUN Arya MII for sitar, tabla and string quintet (13′)
STRAVINSKY III. Cantique from ‘Three Pieces for String Quartet’ (4′)
DEGUN Lament for sitar, tabla and string quintet (7′)

Jasdeep Singh Degun is one of the finest exponents of the sitar and one of the most exciting musicians working today. His many collaborations with players from both Indian and western classical traditions have earned him broad audiences and many prizes, including two prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society awards in 2024. Following his sold-out Playhouse debut with tabla player Harkiret Singh Bahra in spring 2024, he returns for a new collaboration with the string players of Ensemble 360 to mark their 20th birthday. 

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About the Artists

Jasdeep Singh Degun

Breaking down cultural boundaries with his extraordinary artistry and new approach to composition, virtuoso sitarist, Jasdeep Singh Degun, brings a new energy and vision to both Indian classical and contemporary music. He’s redefining genres and passionate about exposing music from his heritage to audiences across the globe. Learning under the careful guidance of Ustad Dharambir Singh MBE, Jasdeep has performed all over the world in many high profile productions and prestigious venues, including Buckingham Palace, the Amphitheatre in Doha, and Westminster Abbey at the Royal Commonwealth Service 2022 in the presence of the British Royal Family and Prime Minister.

Signed to the prestigious Real World Records, Jasdeep released his much anticipated debut album titled ‘Anomaly‘, working under the guidance of celebrated musician and producer Nitin Sawhney. Jasdeep was announced as Artist-in-Residence at Opera North, and in 2022 he was composer, co-music director and soloist in Opera North and South Asian Arts-uk’s acclaimed opera Orpheus. This production garnered five-star reviews and earned Jasdeep a 2022 Critics’ Circle Music Award for “Outstanding Achievement in Opera”.

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

Ensemble 360 has gained an enviable reputation across the UK for the quality and integrity of their performances. Formed in 2005, eleven musicians of international standing came together to take up residency in South Yorkshire with Music in the Round, establishing a versatile group comprising five string players, five wind players and a pianist.  Get a glimpse of them in performance here.

The Ensemble 360 musicians share a passion for the music which radiates through each performance. Their enthusiasm, drive and musicality captivate audiences both through the quality of their playing and their engaging spoken introductions. Due to the flexible nature of the group’s line-up the repertoire possibilities are enormous; anything from baroque duos, through classical quartets to new commissions for all eleven players. 

 

THE NIGHT OVERTOOK US: An evening of Scottish folk music

Donald Grant & Friends

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield
Tuesday 20 May 2025, 9.15pm

Tickets:
£17
£10 UC, PIP & DLA
£5 Students & Under 35s 

Past Event
Fiddle player Donald Grant
Home› What's on› THE NIGHT OVERTOOK US: An evening of Scottish folk music

Donald Grant, Elias Quartet violinist, is also a master of the folk fiddle. Raised in the Highlands, Donald was immersed in Gaelic song and Scottish music from an early age. His folk projects are infused with his life-long passion for this music tradition and inflected, through his many collaborations, with the spirit of jazz and the musical rigour of his classical work. He brings his band of exceptional musicians from Glasgow to collaborate with Ensemble 360 to perform excerpts from his new piece Thuit an Oidhche Oirnm (The Night Overtook Us) as well as classic tunes from his album ‘The Way Home’.  

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About the Artists

APPALACHIAN SPRING

Ensemble 360 & Members of the Elias Quartet

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield
Tuesday 20 May 2025, 7.00pm

Tickets:
£22
£14 UC, PIP & DLA
£5 Students & Under 35s 

Past Event
Musicians from the Elias String Quartet
Home› What's on› APPALACHIAN SPRING

BARBER Canzonetta op.48 (8′) 
STRAUSS Metamorphosen (septet version) (25′) 
BARBER Adagio from String Quartet Op.11 (9′) 
COPLAND Appalachian Spring (30′)  

 Members of the celebrated Elias Quartet join forces with their friends and former colleagues in Ensemble 360 for this very special concert. The first half features Strauss’s beloved late work Metamorphosen in its rare string septet version; a brooding meditation on change that is deeply moving and filled with yearning. Barber’s sumptuous and iconic Adagio also features, alongside Copland’s large-scale chamber suite, Appalachian Spring. Originally a ballet score, it’s a celebration of peace and freedom, and a depiction of Appalachia that weaves together folk melodies in a joyous, life-affirming piece. 

This concert is generously sponsored by Kim Staniforth, in memory of Margaret Staniforth.

 

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BARBER Samuel, Canzonetta for Oboe & Strings Op.48

Originally composed for oboe and string orchestra, and here presented in a new chamber arrangement by Ensemble 360’s oboist, Adrian Wilson, Samuel Barber’s Canzonetta for Oboe and Strings was meant to be the slow movement of an oboe concerto commissioned by the New York Philharmonic. However, soon after starting work on the piece (in 1978) Barber was diagnosed with cancer. The other two movements of the concerto were never completed, and this was to be the composer’s final work (Barber died in 1981). The piece was orchestrated posthumously by Barber’s longtime friend and former student, Charles Turner, and was premiered on December 17th, 1981, at Avery Fisher Hall in New York, with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta. Principle oboist of the New York Philharmonic (and a former classmate of Barber’s at the Curtis Institute of Music), Harold Gomberg played the solo part. 

In many ways, the Canzonetta is typical of Barber’s style, with a tendency towards vocal lyricism and neo-romantic tonality. In this regard, Historian and Barber specialist Barbara Heyman calls the Canzonetta an “appropriate elegy to the conclusion of Barber’s career.” The work, like others in Barber’s oeuvre, combines elements of post-Straussian chromaticism with what we might think of as a typically American lyrical simplicity. A simple, meandering melodic line is at times presented in a strictly diatonic context, and at others with a highly chromatic harmonisation. Throughout, the oboe’s melody floats above the string texture, seemingly weightless with Barber showing the instrument at its best. Indeed, Turner quotes Barber (in the preface to the 1993 edition of the work for oboe and piano) as having said, “I like to give my best themes to the oboe”. 

Dr. Benjamin Tassie

STRAUSS Richard, Metamorphosen, preliminary version for string septet ed. Rudolf Leopold

In September 1944, Richard Strauss wrote to his friend Karl Böhm, telling him that he had been working on an Adagio for string instruments, which would probably become an Allegro since he couldn’t ‘remain very long at a Brucknerian snail’s pace’. Early in 1945, Strauss gave the new piece a name – Metamorphosen – and completed a version for seven string instruments, a score that was only discovered in 1990. Whether Strauss ever intended this for performance is questionable, but it serves as a fascinating comparison with the final version for 23 solo strings that was completed on 12 April 1945, just two weeks after the septet score. Metamorphosen was first performed on 25 January 1946, by the Collegium Musicum Zurich under Paul Sacher who had commissioned it. According to Michael Kennedy, Strauss conducted two of the rehearsals and he was in the audience for the premiere. Metamorophosen is an overwhelmingly powerful lament for Strauss’s native city of Munich – which had been all but destroyed by more than 70 bombing raids – especially its Opera House. The introductory chords and the falling theme heard near the opening are the most important components of a work marked by the most fluid and complex counterpuntal development. On the last page of the score, Strauss has written ‘In Memoriam!’ and the falling theme appears over a quotation in the bass from the Funeral March of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. Thus ends one of the most moving and profound of all Strauss’s works.

Nigel Simone 2014

BARBER Samuel, Adagio for Strings

It’s an amusing accident of history that Barber’s Adagio, one of the totems of American music, was composed in Austria (where Barber was spending the summer and autumn with Gian-Carlo Menotti) and first performed on 14 December 1936 at a concert in Rome (as the slow movement of the String Quartet Op.11). Barber was delighted with this movement, describing it to his friend Orlando Cole as ‘a knockout!’ While finishing the whole quartet, he arranged the Adagio as an independent movement for string orchestra and this was first performed in 1938 in a broadcast concert in New York given by the NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arturo Toscanini. Barber’s fellow composer Aaron Copland spoke about the piece in 1982 for a BBC radio programme, praising ‘the sense of continuity, the steadiness of the flow, the satisfaction of the arch … from beginning to end. It’s gratifying, satisfying, and it makes you believe in the sincerity which he obviously put into it.’

Nigel Simeone 2014

COPLAND Aaron, Appalachian Spring

It was the patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge who commissioned Aaron Copland to compose a new ballet for Martha Graham’s dance company in 1943, for performance in the Coolidge Auditorium (named after her) at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.. Copland was delighted with the idea, particularly after Graham sent him the first version of her scenario concerning a young married couple in rural Pennsylvania. The ballet went through various titles during the composition process, and Copland’s manuscript was simply headed ‘Ballet for Martha’, but Graham settled on ‘Appalachian Spring’ just before the premiere, taking the title from a poem by Hart Crane. One of the attractions for Copland was the challenge of writing for an ensemble of 12 instruments (the largest group that could fit into the very small pit in the Coolidge Auditorium), and the result was described in a review of the first performance by the ballet critic John Martin as ‘a score of fresh and singing beauty. It is, on its surface, a piece of early Americana, but in reality, it is a celebration of the human spirit.’ Copland himself was typically self-effacing, admitting that ‘people seemed to like it, so I guess it was all right.’ In 1945 he made a very successful arrangement for large orchestra, but the sound of the original has a beauty and intimacy all its own. Copland decided quite early on to use the Shaker tune ‘Simple Gifts’ (written in 1848), and this melody is woven through much of the score, notably in the set of variations. But while the score perfectly matches the ‘local’ elements of the story, it also transcends them to become a piece of universal appeal: Copland’s great achievement in Appalachian Spring is to have created a quiet and heartfelt vision of hope in troubled times.

Nigel Simeone 2024

About the Artists

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

Ensemble 360 has gained an enviable reputation across the UK for the quality and integrity of their performances. Formed in 2005, eleven musicians of international standing came together to take up residency in South Yorkshire with Music in the Round, establishing a versatile group comprising five string players, five wind players and a pianist.  Get a glimpse of them in performance here.

The Ensemble 360 musicians share a passion for the music which radiates through each performance. Their enthusiasm, drive and musicality captivate audiences both through the quality of their playing and their engaging spoken introductions. Due to the flexible nature of the group’s line-up the repertoire possibilities are enormous; anything from baroque duos, through classical quartets to new commissions for all eleven players. 

 

Musicians from the Elias String Quartet

Members of the Elias Quartet

Donald Grant violin, Simone van de Giessen viola & Marie Bitloch cello

The Elias String Quartet take their name from Mendelssohn’s oratorio, Elijah, of which Elias is its German form, and have quickly established themselves as one of the most intense and vibrant quartets of their generation. The Quartet was formed in 1998 at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester where they worked closely with the late Dr. Christopher Rowland. They also spent a year studying at the Hochschule in Cologne with the Alban Berg quartet. Between 2005 and 2009 they were resident String Quartet at Music in the Round as part of Ensemble 360, taking over from the Lindsay Quartet. They are now ensemble in residence at the RNCM and regularly go back there to teach and perform. Read more.

RELAXED CONCERT: APPALACHIAN SPRING

Ensemble 360 & Members of the Elias Quartet

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield
Tuesday 20 May 2025, 2.00pm

Tickets:
£5 / carers free

Past Event
Musicians from the Elias String Quartet
Home› What's on› RELAXED CONCERT: APPALACHIAN SPRING

BARBER Adagio from String Quartet Op.11 (9′) 
BARBER Canzonetta Op.48 (8′) 
COPLAND Appalachian Spring (30′)  

For this ‘Relaxed’ concert of American music featuring Barber’s much-loved Adagio and Copland’s joyful Appalachian Spring, doors will be left open, lights raised, a break-out space provided and there will be less emphasis on the audience being quiet during the performance. People with an Autism Spectrum, sensory or communication disorder or learning disability, those with age-related impairments and parents/carers with babies are all especially welcome. 

BARBER Samuel, Adagio for Strings

It’s an amusing accident of history that Barber’s Adagio, one of the totems of American music, was composed in Austria (where Barber was spending the summer and autumn with Gian-Carlo Menotti) and first performed on 14 December 1936 at a concert in Rome (as the slow movement of the String Quartet Op.11). Barber was delighted with this movement, describing it to his friend Orlando Cole as ‘a knockout!’ While finishing the whole quartet, he arranged the Adagio as an independent movement for string orchestra and this was first performed in 1938 in a broadcast concert in New York given by the NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arturo Toscanini. Barber’s fellow composer Aaron Copland spoke about the piece in 1982 for a BBC radio programme, praising ‘the sense of continuity, the steadiness of the flow, the satisfaction of the arch … from beginning to end. It’s gratifying, satisfying, and it makes you believe in the sincerity which he obviously put into it.’

Nigel Simeone 2014

BARBER Samuel, Canzonetta for Oboe & Strings Op.48

Originally composed for oboe and string orchestra, and here presented in a new chamber arrangement by Ensemble 360’s oboist, Adrian Wilson, Samuel Barber’s Canzonetta for Oboe and Strings was meant to be the slow movement of an oboe concerto commissioned by the New York Philharmonic. However, soon after starting work on the piece (in 1978) Barber was diagnosed with cancer. The other two movements of the concerto were never completed, and this was to be the composer’s final work (Barber died in 1981). The piece was orchestrated posthumously by Barber’s longtime friend and former student, Charles Turner, and was premiered on December 17th, 1981, at Avery Fisher Hall in New York, with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta. Principle oboist of the New York Philharmonic (and a former classmate of Barber’s at the Curtis Institute of Music), Harold Gomberg played the solo part. 

In many ways, the Canzonetta is typical of Barber’s style, with a tendency towards vocal lyricism and neo-romantic tonality. In this regard, Historian and Barber specialist Barbara Heyman calls the Canzonetta an “appropriate elegy to the conclusion of Barber’s career.” The work, like others in Barber’s oeuvre, combines elements of post-Straussian chromaticism with what we might think of as a typically American lyrical simplicity. A simple, meandering melodic line is at times presented in a strictly diatonic context, and at others with a highly chromatic harmonisation. Throughout, the oboe’s melody floats above the string texture, seemingly weightless with Barber showing the instrument at its best. Indeed, Turner quotes Barber (in the preface to the 1993 edition of the work for oboe and piano) as having said, “I like to give my best themes to the oboe”. 

Dr. Benjamin Tassie

COPLAND Aaron, Appalachian Spring

It was the patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge who commissioned Aaron Copland to compose a new ballet for Martha Graham’s dance company in 1943, for performance in the Coolidge Auditorium (named after her) at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.. Copland was delighted with the idea, particularly after Graham sent him the first version of her scenario concerning a young married couple in rural Pennsylvania. The ballet went through various titles during the composition process, and Copland’s manuscript was simply headed ‘Ballet for Martha’, but Graham settled on ‘Appalachian Spring’ just before the premiere, taking the title from a poem by Hart Crane. One of the attractions for Copland was the challenge of writing for an ensemble of 12 instruments (the largest group that could fit into the very small pit in the Coolidge Auditorium), and the result was described in a review of the first performance by the ballet critic John Martin as ‘a score of fresh and singing beauty. It is, on its surface, a piece of early Americana, but in reality, it is a celebration of the human spirit.’ Copland himself was typically self-effacing, admitting that ‘people seemed to like it, so I guess it was all right.’ In 1945 he made a very successful arrangement for large orchestra, but the sound of the original has a beauty and intimacy all its own. Copland decided quite early on to use the Shaker tune ‘Simple Gifts’ (written in 1848), and this melody is woven through much of the score, notably in the set of variations. But while the score perfectly matches the ‘local’ elements of the story, it also transcends them to become a piece of universal appeal: Copland’s great achievement in Appalachian Spring is to have created a quiet and heartfelt vision of hope in troubled times.

Nigel Simeone 2024

About the Artists

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

Ensemble 360 has gained an enviable reputation across the UK for the quality and integrity of their performances. Formed in 2005, eleven musicians of international standing came together to take up residency in South Yorkshire with Music in the Round, establishing a versatile group comprising five string players, five wind players and a pianist.  Get a glimpse of them in performance here.

The Ensemble 360 musicians share a passion for the music which radiates through each performance. Their enthusiasm, drive and musicality captivate audiences both through the quality of their playing and their engaging spoken introductions. Due to the flexible nature of the group’s line-up the repertoire possibilities are enormous; anything from baroque duos, through classical quartets to new commissions for all eleven players. 

 

Musicians from the Elias String Quartet

Members of the Elias Quartet

Donald Grant violin, Simone van de Giessen viola & Marie Bitloch cello

The Elias String Quartet take their name from Mendelssohn’s oratorio, Elijah, of which Elias is its German form, and have quickly established themselves as one of the most intense and vibrant quartets of their generation. The Quartet was formed in 1998 at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester where they worked closely with the late Dr. Christopher Rowland. They also spent a year studying at the Hochschule in Cologne with the Alban Berg quartet. Between 2005 and 2009 they were resident String Quartet at Music in the Round as part of Ensemble 360, taking over from the Lindsay Quartet. They are now ensemble in residence at the RNCM and regularly go back there to teach and perform. Read more.

BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN

Ensemble 360

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield
Monday 19 May 2025, 7.00pm

Tickets:
£17
£10 UC, PIP & DLA
£5 Students & Under 35s 

Past Event
Ensemble 360 in concert with film
Home› What's on› BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN

MEISEL (arr. Morton) Battleship Potemkin (74’) 

Legendary Soviet film director Sergei Eisenstein’s silent masterpiece tells the heroic story of the 1905 rebellion of the crew of the Potemkin. The film is most famous for its iconic fourth act, a dramatic montage of visceral images of the crushing of the uprising in Odessa and the citizenry’s last stand on the stark stone steps.  

A technical masterpiece, and Soviet cinema at its finest, we are screening this influential and visionary piece of cinema with the original soundtrack performed live by Ensemble 360 to mark the film’s centenary year. 

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MEISEL Edmund (Arr. George Morton), Battleship Potemkin

Edmund Meisel was born in Vienna but moved to Berlin as a child. Little is known about his musical education, but he was working as a violinst in Berlin orchestras while still in his teens. The vibrant theatrical life of Berlin in the Weimar years provided his first work as a composer, writing incidental music for the agitprop stage productions by Erwin Piscator and including at least one project with Bertolt Brecht (a radio adaptation of Mann ist Mann). It was thanks to his association with Piscator that Meisel became involved with composing the score for the silent film Battleship Potemkin. In 1925, the Soviet Central Committee asked Mosfilm to make a new film to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the first Russian Revolution in 1905. Directed by Sergei Eisenstein, the film is based on a real historical event. It is set in 1905 aboard the Imperial Navy battleship Potemkin in the Black Sea port of Odessa. Sailing out of port with the red Socialist flag, the other Imperialist ships refuse to open fire and cheer the defiant sailors of the Potemkin. On its release, Battleship Potemkin was a great success in the Soviet Union and it was quickly distributed to other European countries. In Britain its central themes of promoting revolution and social change worried the film censors, but in Germany it was a huge success, distributed by Prometheus Films.

Prometheus decided that for the film to make its fullest impact, it needed a musical score to accompany the silent images. Meisel was asked to compose the score and was given less than two weeks to write it, as the German release date was already announced. Eisenstein was enthusiastic about the idea of adding music, and even made specific suggestions to Meisel, asking for the inclusion of some revolutionary songs (from Russia, France and elsewhere) and also to produce music of ‘deafening fury and stark rhythms’ for moments of the greatest dramatic power.

So it was that a Viennese-born Berliner composed the score for Eisenstein’s Russian classic. He did so without any of the synchronisation tools used by more recent film composers, and a tight budget meant that as well as time pressure, he was also limited to an orchestra of 16 players. Meisel’s remarkable achievement in Battleship Potemkin has been well summarised by the film music critic Craig Lysy: ‘In every way [Meisel] succeeded in empowering Eisenstein’s narrative with inspired music which helped earn the film the accolade as one of the greatest films in cinematic history.’

Meisel’s pioneering score started a trend for new large-scale film scores in the final years of the silent era. In 1927, Eisenstein asked Meisel to provide a score for his film October: Ten Days that Shook the World, and Gottfried Huppertz composed his score for Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Major figures in European symphonic music also became involved in writing for epic film dramas: Arthur Honegger composed a score for Abel Gance’s Napoléon (1927) and Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his music for New Babylon, a Soviet film set at the time of the 1871 Paris Commune.

In other words, Meisel should be considered one of the great innovators in film music history, producing a specially-composed score for a full-length film in which images and sound were integrated to create – together – a vastly richer dramatic effect. Previous scores had usually been pot-pourris of existing music, strung together to be an approximate match for the on-screen action. Meisel broke with that tradition, creating a score whose architecture (and detail) matched Eisenstein’s montage-like construction. In 1934, the commentator Ernest Borneman wrote about Meisel’s technique in an article for Sight and Sound: ‘Meisel analysed the montage of some famous silent films in regard to rhythm, emphasis, emotional climax and mood. To each separate shot he assigned a certain musical theme. Then he directly combined the separate themes, using the rhythms, emphasis and climaxes of the visual montage for the organisation of his music. He wished to prove by this experiment that the montage of a good film is based on the same rules and develops in the same way as music … By far the best result was from Eisenstein’s Potemkin.’ Meisel’s own career as a ground-breaking composer of film music lasted barely five years: he died in 1930 at the age of 36.

About the Artists

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

Ensemble 360 has gained an enviable reputation across the UK for the quality and integrity of their performances. Formed in 2005, eleven musicians of international standing came together to take up residency in South Yorkshire with Music in the Round, establishing a versatile group comprising five string players, five wind players and a pianist.  Get a glimpse of them in performance here.

The Ensemble 360 musicians share a passion for the music which radiates through each performance. Their enthusiasm, drive and musicality captivate audiences both through the quality of their playing and their engaging spoken introductions. Due to the flexible nature of the group’s line-up the repertoire possibilities are enormous; anything from baroque duos, through classical quartets to new commissions for all eleven players. 

 

SCHUMANN & RAVEL: MOTHER GOOSE

Ensemble 360

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield
Monday 19 May 2025, 2.00pm

Tickets:
£22
£14 UC, PIP & DLA
£5 Students & Under 35s 

Past Event
Ensemble 360 musicians
Home› What's on› SCHUMANN & RAVEL: MOTHER GOOSE

RAVEL (arr. Farrington) Mother Goose Suite (20′)
FARRENC Sextet (20′)
DURUFLÉ Prélude, récitatif et variations (12′) 
SCHUMANN Piano Quintet in E flat Op.44 (28′)  

This afternoon concert begins with the ‘Mother Goose’ Suite. Ravel’s delightful, whimsical work sets fairytales to music, performed here in a chamber arrangement. Starting life as a composition for piano four hands, and best known in an orchestral version, this chamber arrangement has been a favourite of players and audiences alike over the decades. Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E flat, widely considered to be his greatest chamber work, is an epic piano concerto in quintet form: serene, reflective and ultimately exultant. 

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RAVEL Maurice (Arr. Walter for wind quintet), Ma Mere l’Oye (Mother Goose)

Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant
Petit Poucet
Laideronnette, impératrice des pagodes
Les entretiens de la belle et de la bête
Le jardin féerique

 

Originally composed as ‘five children’s pieces’ in 1910, Ravel’s Mother Goose was orchestrated by the composer the following year, and expanded into a ballet (with the addition of a prelude and a dance). The pieces are mostly based on familiar fairy tales: Sleeping Beauty, Tom Thumb, The Green Serpent (in which Laidronette is one of the princesses), and Beauty and the Beast. The final ‘Enchanted Garden’ doesn’t appear to be based on a traditional tale. Ravel is at his most colourful and inventive in these exquisite miniatures which lend themselves to imaginative arrangement.

 

© Nigel Simeone 2015

FARRENC Louise, Sextet in C minor Op.40

Allegro
Andante sostenuto
Allegro vivace

The composer of three symphonies and an impressive body of chamber music as well as an extensive catalogue of works for piano (her own instrument), Louise Farrenc has thankfully been rediscovered after a century of neglect. Born Jeanne-Louise Dumont, she came from an artistic family and was encouraged to develop her gifts as a pianist and composer. She studied the piano with Moscheles and Hummel, and her composition teacher was Anton Reicha. In 1821 she married the flautist Aristide Farrenc who subsequently established a publishing business. After a successful career as a travelling virtuoso, Louise Farrenc was appointed professor of piano at the Paris Conservatoire in 1842, a post she held for thirty years. The Sextet for piano and wind quintet was written in 1851–2, immediately after the successful premiere of her Nonet for strings and wind (in which Joseph Joachim was one of the performers).

The first movement – the longest of the three – opens with a dramatic theme, decorated by elaborate piano writing, while the second theme is more lyrical. Broadly-conceived, this movement ends in grand style. The main theme of the slow movement is introduced by the wind alone before the being taken up by the piano, then by the whole ensemble with several short wind solos. The finale begins with an urgent and uneasy theme on the piano which gives way to a delicate second idea. But dramatic intensity is maintained throughout the movement, right up to the turbulent ending.

© Nigel Simeone

DURUFLÉ Maurice, Prélude, Récitatif et Variations, Op.3

Duruflé was an exceptionally self-critical composer, leaving a very small output. He was even disparaging about the music allowed to be published, including pieces that enjoyed considerable success. He is best remembered for his organ music, and for choral works such as the Requiem and the Four Motets based on Gregorian chants. There are two purely instrumental pieces: the Trois Danses for orchestra (which Duruflé also arranged for two pianos and for solo piano), and the present Prélude, Récitatif et Variations, written in 1928 and dedicated to the memory of the great Parisian music publisher, Jacques Durand (1865–1928) who had published most of the major works of Debussy and Ravel as well as Saint-Saëns, Roussel and others. Scored for the unusual ensemble of flute, viola and piano, Duruflé’s ‘Prélude’ opens with a brooding piano introduction (notable for some beautiful harmonies) over which the viola introduces a song-like theme. The flute enters with a tender, plaintive melody as the texture becomes lighter and the tempo starts to ease forwards, soon engaging in a duet with the viola over an increasingly animated piano accompaniment. The music reaches an imposing climax before subsiding into the ‘Récitatif’, marked ‘Lent et triste’. An unaccompanied viola recitative leads to the final Variations. These begin with the theme played by the flute, followed by a rhapsodic set of variations full of imaginative instrumental colours and ending with a sense of joyous abandon. 

Nigel Simeone 2024

SCHUMANN Robert, Piano Quintet Op.44

1. Allegro brillante
2. In modo d’una Marcia
3. Scherzo: Molto vivace
4. Allegro ma non troppo

 

Immediately after finishing his three string quartets, Schumann turned to a genre that was much rarer at the time: a quintet for piano and strings. His first sketch, dated 23–28 September 1842, is an outline of the complete work, and it has several surprises. Two are particularly startling. The first is that Schumann originally intended the quintet to be in five movements – with an Adagio between that March and the Scherzo. The second is that there is no hint of the fugal coda using themes from the first and last movements that crowns the finale. (Less important but no less surprising is the location of this manuscript. It was given by Schumann to his French friend Jean-Joseph Bonaventure Laurens and for more than a century it has been one of the treasures of the Municipal Library at Carpentras in the South of France). By 12 October 1842, Schumann had completed the work in its final four-movement form, and dedicated it to his wife Clara. Despite the apparent speed, the work cost Schumann a great deal of effort and left him exhausted – he wrote in his diary that ‘I spent most of the month pretty much without sleep. The music had kept me overly agitated.’

 

The first performance was given privately at Schumann’s house a few weeks later, on 29 November – by which time Schumann had not only recovered his strength but had found the time to compose a companion masterpiece: the Piano Quartet Op. 47 (dated 26 November 1842). A second private performance was scheduled in December, but Clara fell ill. Mendelssohn stepped in and the story goes that he sight-read the piano part. He also made a few suggestions about revisions, which Schumann duly made in time for the first public performance, on 8 January 1843, with Clara at the piano. One early enthusiast was Wagner, who wrote to Schumann in February 1843: he ‘liked the Quintet very much: I asked your lovely wife to play it twice. I still vividly recall the first two movements in particular … I see where you are headed and assure you that I want to head there too – it is our only salvation: Beauty!’

 

An extraordinary anecdote about Schumann’s Piano Quintet involves several giants of nineteenth-century musical life in June 1848. Liszt was passing through Dresden and announced that he would like to pay a surprise visit to the Schumanns and to hear the Piano Quintet. At very short notice, Clara rounded up four string players for the evening and all was ready at 7 p.m. Liszt eventually showed up two hours late, with Wagner in tow. Liszt’s biographer Alan Walker has described what followed as ‘a dreadful scene’: Liszt dismissed the quintet: ‘No, no, my dear Schumann. This is not the real thing at all; it’s just provincial music.’ During the dinner that followed, the atmosphere worsened still further when Liszt made some disparaging remarks about Mendelssohn (who had died the previous November). Schumann exploded and stormed out of the room. Liszt made his apologies and left, and Clara wrote in her diary that ‘I have done with him forever’. Liszt’s recollection tallies with Clara’s: he remembered ‘a very agitated evening’. The dedication of Liszt’s Sonata in B minor to Schumann in 1854 is usually thought to be a reciprocal gesture for Schumann’s dedication of the Fantasy Op. 17 in 1836, but perhaps it was also a peace offering to a musician he always held in high regard. If that was the intention, it didn’t work: by the time the first edition of the Sonata appeared in July 1854, Schumann himself was in a lunatic asylum, and Clara resented having the thank Liszt for a work she thought ‘dreadful’. There’s a bittersweet irony to this story: in 1839, a composer friend urged Schumann to try his hand at ‘some chamber music: trios, quintets or septets’. That friend was Franz Liszt.

 

Nigel Simeone 2010

About the Artists

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

Ensemble 360 has gained an enviable reputation across the UK for the quality and integrity of their performances. Formed in 2005, eleven musicians of international standing came together to take up residency in South Yorkshire with Music in the Round, establishing a versatile group comprising five string players, five wind players and a pianist.  Get a glimpse of them in performance here.

The Ensemble 360 musicians share a passion for the music which radiates through each performance. Their enthusiasm, drive and musicality captivate audiences both through the quality of their playing and their engaging spoken introductions. Due to the flexible nature of the group’s line-up the repertoire possibilities are enormous; anything from baroque duos, through classical quartets to new commissions for all eleven players.