RACHAEL COHEN QUARTET

Rachael Cohen, Lewis Wright, Joe Downard & Jason Brown

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield

Friday 20 October 2023, 7.30pm

Tickets:

£19
£17 Over 60, Disabled & Unemployed
£10 Students with NUS card
£5 Under 16s*

*Sheffield Jazz tickets do not qualify for any Music in the Round ticket offers or discounts

Past Event

Home› What's on› RACHAEL COHEN QUARTET

RACHAEL COHEN alto saxophone
ARTIE ZAITZ guitar
FERG IRELAND bass
WILL CLEASBY drums

Rachael Cohen is a prolific composer and one of the most creative and inventive saxophonists of her generation. Her tone and fluent, lyrical improvising style is often compared to the jazz greats of the Cool School, but also displays a harder edge when the music demands it.

Guitarist Artie Zaitz has been working and recording on the London and international scene for over a decade, regularly performing with artists such as Moses Boyd, Mark Kavuma’s Banger Factory and Camilla George.

Expect an absorbing mix of blues, ballads and bop-inspired tunes from the jazz catalogue and Rachael’s own compositions.

Please note the change to the previously advertised line-up.

“…Cohen takes a softly devious approach reminiscent of Lee Konitz – but, as with the canny Cool School veteran, the quietness is deceptive and the subtlety is in the weighting of phrases and the hipness with which she plays off the rhythm section.” John Fordham, The Guardian

“Cool-school jazz from emerging guitar talent Zaitz, whose John Scofield-ish sound takes in some loping New Orleans shuffles and moody cinematic themed originals” Time Out

“ She is a positive life-force and a truly remarkable musician”

London Jazz News

About the Artists

Rachael Cohen

Rachael Cohen, a London-based alto saxophonist and composer, is one of the brightest emerging stars of her generation. Her skills as a composer and improviser have gained her a great deal of attention in the UK and beyond. The Guardian notes:

“Cohen takes a softly devious approach reminiscent of Lee Konitz – but, as with the canny Cool School veteran, the quietness is deceptive and the subtlety is in the weighting of phrases and the hipness with which she plays off the rhythm section.”

Read her full biography here.

Lewis Wright

Joe Downard

Jason Brown

LIGETI 100: PIANO & WIND

Ensemble 360

Upper Chapel, Sheffield

Saturday 30 September 2023, 7.00pm

Tickets:
£21
£14 UC, PIP & DLA
£5 Students & Under 35s

Past Event

Home› What's on› LIGETI 100: PIANO & WIND

DORÁTI Duo Concertante (13′)
LIGETI Selection of Etudes (c.12′)
LUTOSŁAWSKI Dance Preludes for Clarinet and Piano (12′)
FARKAS Five Antique Hungarian Dances (16′)
LIGETI Ten Pieces (13′)

An evening of music for piano and wind celebrating the works of György Ligeti, one of the most innovative and influential composers of the late 20th century.

Ligeti’s celebrated Ten Pieces for Wind Quintet and a selection of his mesmerising studies for piano are among the highlights of this concert celebrating the 100th birthday of this ground-breaking composer. Other works to feature include dances by Ligeti’s teacher, Farkas, and a breathtaking duo by Doráti, who conducted several premieres of Ligeti’s most famous works.

Antal Doráti’s long and distinguished conducting career has tended to overshadow his work as a composer. As a brilliantly gifted teenager, he began his studies at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest at the age of fourteen and from the start, his musical development was in the best possible hands: his composition teachers included Zoltán Kodály and his piano teacher was Béla Bartók. After graduating from the Academy in 1924, he joined the music staff at the Budapest Opera, making his conducting debut the same year.

Notable later orchestral appointments included posts with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Stockholm Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. His numerous recordings included a pioneering set of the complete Haydn symphonies, made for Decca with the Philharmonia Hungarica.

Doráti also found time to compose a number of pieces, ranging from an opera (The Chosen) to orchestral works (including a symphony) and the present Duo concertante for oboe and piano, completed in 1984 and dedicated to the great Swiss oboist Heinz Holliger who gave the first performance in Washington, D.C. on 21 April 1984 with the pianist Karl Ritter. A modern re-interpretation of a Hungarian rhapsody, the structure draws on traditional Hungarian dance forms, opening with a slow lassú and following this with a friss – a quick movement marked molto vivace.

Ligeti composed a series of 18 études for solo piano between 1985 and 2001, published in three books. When they first became known, these pieces were hailed as instant classics of the twentieth-century piano repertoire, and also provided a remarkable climax to Ligeti’s composing career. Following in the tradition of Chopin, Liszt and Debussy, these pieces pose tremendous technical challenges while also resulting in brilliant musical miniatures, whether dazzling or poetic. Ligeti himself wrote that he imagined in the Études ‘highly emotive music of high contrapuntal and metrical complexity, with labyrinthine branches and perceptible melodic forms … not tonal, but not atonal either.’

They are dedicated to various important exponents of contemporary music, ranging from the composers Pierre Boulez and György Kurtág, to the pianists Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Volker Banfield. Described by critic Andrew Clements as ‘the most important additions to the solo-piano repertoire in the last half-century’, one remarkable feature is the way in which, as Clements put is, ‘in the Études, Ligeti effectively created a new pianistic vocabulary’. The influences described by Ligeti on these works included medieval and Renaissance music, African polyphony, Latin-American dances, Balinese gamelan, jazz pianists including Bill Evans and Thelonius Monk and the folk music of Ligeti’s native Hungary. But all of these are subsumed into a language that is entirely Ligeti’s own, with the most exhilarating results.

Allegro molto
Andantino
Allegro giocoso
Andante
Allegro molto

In 1954, Witold Lutosławski wrote his five Dance Preludes for clarinet and piano, based on folk tunes from Northern Poland, describing them as his ‘farewell to folk music’. In 1959 he recast the pieces for the Czech Nonet – comprising wind quintet, violin, viola, cello and double bass – in which he makes one significant change: no longer is the clarinet the soloist, but the thematic material is shared between the whole ensemble. Lutosławski’s biographer Charles Bodman Rae has described the way the composer transforms the folk tunes, and generates the propulsive energy in the faster movements: ‘Superimposition of different metres is the main feature of these pieces, resulting in metrical and rhythmic contradictions. This technique is most noticeable in the first, third and fifth pieces and invests them with much of their rhythmic vitality.’

This Nonet version of the Dance Preludes was first performed by the Czech Nonet at a concert in Louny, 40 miles northwest of Prague, on 10 November 1959.

Nigel Simeone 2013

Intrada
Lassú (Slow Dance)
Lapockás tánc (Shoulder Blade Dance)
Chorea hungaricae
Ugrós (Leaping Dance)

Ferenc Farkas studied with Leo Weiner at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest and later with Ottorino Respighi in Rome. On returning to Budapest in 1932, one of his first commissions was for a film score and he went on to compose extensively for film and theatre productions. At the same time, he began researching Hungarian folk music and began a distinguished teaching career: his pupils included Ligeti and Kurtág.

This work, officially titled Antique Hungarian Dances from the 17th Century, exists in versions for various solo instruments and ensembles, with the present wind quintet version dating from 1959. In a note on the work, Farkas himself wrote that ‘compared with the rich folk-song heritage of Hungary, our ancient airs and dances that have been preserved in writing have a more modest role. For this work I have been influenced by dances of the 17th century, written by unknown amateurs in a relatively simple style … My interest in this music was first captured in the 1940s. I was so fascinated that I decided to give these melodies new life. I fitted the little dances together, in rondo form, and leaning on Baroque harmony and counterpoint, I attempted a reminiscence of that atmosphere of provincial Hungarian life at the time.’

Ligeti composed his Ten Pieces between August and December 1968. He said that his first idea was ‘to compose a virtuoso work … to bring out the individual character of the five very different instruments available to me. My first idea was to write five short virtuoso pieces, but as I was working on the sketches, I began to sense that this didn’t work in formal terms … It made more sense to have ensemble pieces contrast with virtuoso pieces, in order to supply points of repose. It was thus that the final form came about: ten pieces with a regular alternation of ensemble pieces and virtuoso pieces.’

The first performance was given on 20 January 1969 in Malmö, Sweden, played by the Wind Quintet of the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. Each piece is short – the first, marked Molto sostenuto e calmo is one of the longer movements, lasting just over two minutes, while the fourth, fifth and sixth, all very fast, last less than a minute each. In his biography of Ligeti, British composer Richard Steinitz has described the Ten Pieces as ‘both accessible and delightfully characteristic of their composer … The style is intentionally kaleidoscopic’ (likened by Ligeti himself to Tom and Jerry cartoons), and ‘the music is quirky, epigrammatic and comic.’

About the Artists

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.

FOCUS ON THE CLARINET

Ensemble 360

Upper Chapel, Sheffield

Friday 6 October 2023, 1.00pm / 7.00pm

Tickets:
£16
£10 UC, PIP & DLA
£5 Students & Under 35s

Past Event

Home› What's on› FOCUS ON THE CLARINET

DEBUSSY Premiere rhapsodie (8’)
YORK BOWEN Clarinet Sonata (16’)
HARRISON Drifting Away (5’)
WEBER Grand Duo Concertant (21’)

Praised by International Record Review as “an eloquent and impassioned clarinettist [whose] playing is full-blooded and committed”, Robert Plane, the newest member of Ensemble 360, has been a remarkable addition to this highly regarded Ensemble.

Debussy’s impressionistic Premiere rhapsodie, performed by Rob and pianist Tim Horton, moves from a dreamy opening to a virtuosic conclusion. The pair will also perform Drifting Away, the work of Pamela Harrison, an often overlooked English composer who Rob has done much to champion. The concert concludes with Weber’s celebrated duo marked by soaring melodies and dazzling cadenzas.

POST-CONCERT TALK Free
Ticket holders are invited to stay for an informal talk from Rob about Pamela Harrison, who features in the concert.

The test pieces specially composed for the final exams at the Paris Conservatoire have something of a bad reputation. Many of them are routine competition showpieces but sometimes a work of much more lasting importance was written for these occasions. Such is the case with Debussy’s Première Rapsodie, completed in January 1910 for the clarinet concours at the Conservatoire that summer (Debussy also dashed off a sight-reading test for the same competition, published as his Petite pièce for clarinet and piano). Debussy himself was a member of the jury and he found most of the players unsatisfactory in the Rapsodie. However, the eventual winner, Vandercruyssen, impressed him. Debussy wrote to his friend and publisher Jacques Durand that Vandercruyssen ‘played by heart, and like a great musician’. A year later, Debussy prepared the better-known version of the piece for clarinet and orchestra, but the original with piano is superbly written for both instruments. The clarinettist David Pino has claimed, with justification, that the Première rapsodie was ‘the first major work for solo clarinet written in the twentieth century’.

It opens in a mood of stillness (marked ‘Rêveusement lent’ – ‘dreamily slow’), with the piano adding gentle momentum in the accompaniment after a few bars, and the clarinet – instructed to play pianissimo but also ‘sweetly’ and ‘penetrating’ – introducing a languorous theme that gradually becomes more animated. A sudden speeding up introduces a more capricious idea that is briefly stopped in its tracks by a series of trills and a return to earlier music. But the faster speed soon returns, starting with rumbling low notes on the piano and a series of upward flourishes on the clarinet. This gives way to a new section marked ‘Modérément animé (‘Moderately animated) and ‘playful’, a passage that quite brilliantly exploits the possibilities of the clarinet, especially its ability to play rapid figurations and lyrical lines. A return to the slower music gives way, finally, to a thrilling conclusion.

What makes this such an outstanding work is that Debussy combines extremely idiomatic writing – appropriate for a piece that was intended to demonstrate a player’s technical command – with musical ideas that have memorable substance. On 16 January 1911 the clarinettist Paul Mimart (to whom the work was dedicated) gave the first performance in a concert, at the Salle Gaveau in Paris, in one of the concerts promoted by the Société musicale indépendante. According to Debussy’s biographer Léon Valas, another performance took place at the end of 1911 in Russia, and it was greeted by the audience with confusion. A baffled Debussy wrote to a friend: ‘Surely this piece is one of the most immediately pleasing I have ever written!’

Allegro moderato
Allegretto poco scherzando
Finale. Allegro molto

York Bowen was a virtuoso pianist (in 1925 he made the first ever recording of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto) and had a parallel career as a prolific composer whose output included instrumental works written for many distinguished soloists, among them violinist Fritz Kreisler, oboist Léon Goossens, violist Lionel Tertis and horn player Denis Brain. When York Bowen heard the clarinettist Pauline Juler give the first performance of Gerald Finzi’s Five Bagatelles at one of the National Gallery Concerts in January 1943, he was immediately inspired to compose a work for her. The result was the Clarinet Sonata in F minor, given its premiere by Juler and the composer later that year.

Starting with a wide-ranging theme for the clarinet (extending over two and a half octaves), this vibrant, lyrical work explores the technical possibilities of the clarinet with consummate skill. The second theme is closely related to the first, and the movement ends with a coda based on the work’s opening. The Scherzetto is a capricious counterpart to the first movement and elements of it are also heard at the start of the finale, marked Allegro molto. This is a rondo in which music from the opening movement is also recalled before an imposing coda brings this remarkable post-romantic sonata to a powerful close.

Pamela Harrison studied at the Royal College of Music with Gordon Jacob (composition) and Arthur Benjamin (piano), and she composed several important works during the Second World War, including a String Quartet first performed in 1941 at the National Gallery Concerts. She wrote several important works for clarinet, inspired in part by a warm friendship with Jack Brymer for whom she composed a rugged and dramatic Clarinet Sonata in 1953, following this with a Clarinet Quintet in 1956. Drifting Away dates from two decades later: it was first performed by Brymer in 1975 at Sherbourne School. The title was derived from lines by W.B. Yeats:

I heard the old, old men say
All that’s beautiful drifts away
Like the waters.

Appropriately enough, this tender and evocative work, exquisitely crafted, was played by Brymer at the memorial service for Pamela Harrison in 1990.

Allegro con fuoco
Andante con moto
Rondo. Allegro

Weber’s own diaries contain a wealth of information about when he composed this work. The first movement to be written was the Rondo finale, completed in Munich on 5 July 1815 and a note from a few days later mentions sketches “for the sonata with clarinet and piano”. By 19 July Weber had also written the slow movement, describing it as an “Adagio”. It wasn’t for another year that he turned his attention to the first movement – noting in Berlin on 5 November that the “First movement of the Duo in E flat was written down”, and finally on 8 November “Allegro in E flat for the Clarinet and Piano Duo finished.” The work was published by Schlesinger in Berlin six months later, Weber noting that he received printed copies on 19 June 1817.

What is remarkable about this work, given its rather fragmented composition history, is that the finished piece has such concentration and coherence. An early review in the Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung was full of praise: “The whole piece has an original and fiery spirit as well as tender heartfelt feelings; a thorough development of ideas comes without any pedantry … The harmonic and melodic aspects of each movement are beautifully balanced against each other and both instruments are treated with a perfect knowledge of what each can do.”

The ebullient and virtuoso writing for the two instruments in is one of the glories of the Grand Duo. It was conceived as a real partnership for clarinet and piano, with neither part dominating the proceedings. The results are very rich melodically but also extremely successful in terms of Weber’s handling of large-scale forms. Though the work was called Grand Duo concertant when it was published, it’s interesting to note from Weber’s diaries that he referred to this substantial three-movement work at least once as a “Sonata”.

© Nigel Simeone

About the Artists

Ensemble 360

CLASSICAL WEEKEND: BRIDGE MUSICIANS

Ensemble 360

St Matthews Carver Street, Sheffield

Saturday 18 March 2023, 2.00pm

£5

(Special price for all as part of Classical Weekend)

Save £s when you book for 5 concerts or more at the same time

Past Event

Home› What's on› CLASSICAL WEEKEND: BRIDGE MUSICIANS

Two members of Music in the Round’s Bridge Quintet, Benjamin Garalnick (horn) and Lorraine Hart (oboe) are accompanied by Domonkos Csaby (Piano) in this afternoon of music and poetry inspired by myth and legend.

BERGE Horn-Lokk (7′)

MUSGRAVE Niobe (5′)

LIZST Au Bord d’une Source (4′)

REINECKE Trio in A minor (25′)

Pieces will be introduced by the musicians who will also read poetry connected to the works they are playing.

Classical Sheffield’s biennial celebration of live music-making continues 17 – 19 March 2023.

Sigurd Berge (1929-2002) was a Norwegian composer known for his contributions to music education and his interest in Norwegian folk music. His works span a variety of styles, from traditional tonal music to electronic music and multi-media compositions.

Berge’s Horn-lokk is an unaccompanied horn solo composed in 1972 for fellow Norwegian Frøydis Ree Wekre. It consists of four sections and incorporates melodies inspired by Norwegian folk music. The piece showcases the horn as an instrument and is challenging for the performer due to its tessitura and required techniques.

The Horn-lokk contains traits reminiscent of traditional horn calls but with more complex tonality and dissonant intervals. The piece lacks the heroic quality of popular horn call melodies and instead presents a haunting and repetitive melody that grieves, with a cathartic outburst of fury at the climax.

Niobe, written in July and November 1987, was commissioned by the Park Lane Group for Ian Hardwick. The Tape was made in the Chiens Interdits Studios in New York; recording engineer, Jonathan Mann.

In Greek mythology, Niobe was the daughter of Tantalus and wife of Amphion, King of Thebes. She unwisely boasted to Leto about her many sons and daughters. Leto, who only had two children, Apollo and Artemis, was angered.

As punishment Apollo slew all of Niobe’s sons and Artemis all her daughters.

Out of pity for Niobe’s inconsolable grief, the Gods changed her into a rock, in which form she continued to weep.

In this short work for solo oboe and Tape, the solo oboe takes the part of Niobe bitterly lamenting her murdered children. The tape with the distant high voices and the slow tolling bells, and later gong, is intended to provide an evocative and descriptive accompaniment.

Thea Musgrave ©

Au Bord d’une Source (“Beside a Spring”) is the 4th piece of the first suite of Années de Pèlerinage (“Years of Pilgrimage”) which was composed between 1835 and 1838 and published in 1842.

The music begins with a gentle, flowing melody that represents the babbling of a spring. Liszt uses arpeggios and delicate trills to create a sense of water cascading over rocks. As the piece progresses, the melody becomes more complex and the harmonies richer, perhaps reflecting the increasing depth of the spring as it flows. He uses dynamic contrast to convey the ebb and flow of the water, as well as sudden bursts of energy that suggest the rush of water over rapids.

Allegro moderato
Scherzo. Molto vivace
Adagio
Allegro ma non troppo

Carl Reinecke was born near Hamburg, in the town of Altona – which was part of Denmark until 1864. As a young man he worked as court pianist for King Christian VIII in Copenhagen, before moving to a series of jobs in Germany. In 1860 he was appointed director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and professor of composition and piano at the Leipzig Conservatoire, and he remained an important musical force in Leipzig for the next 35 years. Despite his activities as a conductor, pianist and teacher, Reinecke was a prolific composer. Many of his works from the 1880s are groups of short piano pieces and songs, but among the more substantial compositions from this time are two important chamber works: the ‘Undine’ Sonata for flute and piano, and the Trio Op.188 for oboe, horn and piano. Its very unusual scoring suggests that Reinecke wrote the Trio for two specific players in the Gewandhaus Orchestra. It was first performed in the Gewandhaus on 22 November 1886 by the oboist Gustav Hinke, horn player Friedrich Gumpert and Reinecke himself as pianist. Gustav Hinke was principal oboe of the orchestra and was the dedicatee of another trio for the same combination by Heinrich von Herzogenberg (written in 1889) as well as of Reinecke’s own Octet (1892). Friedrich Gumpert was first horn in the Gewandhaus Orchestra from 1864 until 1898. The musical language of Reinecke’s Trio suggests a composer who was a contemporary and friend of Johannes Brahms (Reinecke conducted the first complete performance of Brahms’s German Requiem) but it’s also distinctive: Reinecke writes beautifully for his unusual ensemble, and the long melodic horn line – later taken over by the oboe – in the slow movement is particularly memorable, while the major key finale includes some splendidly idiomatic writing (hunting-horn rhythms and lyrical oboe phrases) that make for a stirring conclusion.

About the Artists

Ensemble 360

BREATHTAKING SAX

Amy Dickson & Kathryn Stott

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield

Thursday 18 May 2023, 7.15pm

£21
£14 DLA, UC or PIP
£5 Under 35s & Students

Save £s when you book for 5 concerts or more at the same time

Past Event

Home› What's on› BREATHTAKING SAX

SCOTT Respectfully Yours (4’)
SCHULHOFF Hot Sonata (15’)
RODNEY BENNETT Four Country Dances (13’)
FITKIN Gate (8’)
GLASS (arr. DICKSON) Sonata for violin and piano (22’)
FRANÇAIX Cinq danses exotiques (6’)
MILHAUD Scaramouche (10’)

Czech jazz, Brazilian influences, and a thrilling and emotional sonata by a minimalist master are explored by the Australian Classical BRIT award-winning saxophonist Amy Dickson in the company of our Festival Curator, Kathryn Stott.

Amy is celebrated internationally for her “individual and unusual tone: luscious, silky smooth, sultry and voluptuous” (Gramophone Magazine), and this eclectic programme showcases the subtlety, range and beauty of her instrument.

Andy Scott is a composer and saxophonist who worked on several occasions with composer Richard Rodney Bennett, and Respectfully Yours was written in memory of Bennett, who died in December 2012. For Scott himself, ‘it was appropriate to write a piece that was melodic with jazz-influenced harmony that I think of as a simple “thank you” to Richard Rodney Bennett, for being an inspirational musician and a kind and generous person.’ Originally written for euphonium and piano, Scott subsequently arranged it for saxophone and piano. Over tender, melting piano harmonies, the saxophone weaves a lyrical melody in music that is both reflective and heartfelt.

Schulhoff composed his Hot Sonata (subtitled ‘Jazz Sonata’) in 1930, while he was working on his opera Flammen. In a series of pieces from the 1920s, he was one of the first composers to attempt a serious integration of jazz idioms into concert works, and the Hot Sonata is a particularly impressive example. It was commissioned by the German radio station Funkstunde A.G. in Berlin and the commission specified that the music should meet ‘the particular musical requirements of radio’ – in short, that it should appeal to a large audience. The first performance was given in Berlin on 10 April 1930 by the American saxophonist Billy Barton with Schulhoff himself at the piano, and the Hot Sonata was published in August 1930 by Schott in Mainz.

In an advertisement for the new work, the firm announced that ‘today’s scant number of chamber music works for saxophone is augmented by this valuable composition. The name of Schulhoff guarantees the serious, artistic form of this sonata.’ This was not just publishing hyperbole: by 1930, Schulhoff had written several outstanding chamber works – including two string quartets and two violin sonatas – as well as a ballet (Ogelala), a jazz-inspired piano concerto and a number of piano pieces. The Hot Sonata is in four movements, with only metronome marks to indicate tempo. The first is moderately fast, the saxophone underpinned by a loping piano part which also introduces the deliciously spicy harmonies and syncopated rhythms that characterise the whole work. The short second movement is fast and scherzo-like. The third movement is a kind of blues, the opening saxophone melody marked ‘lamentuoso ma molto grottesco’ and this gives way to an ebullient finale.

New Dance
Lady Day
The Mulberry Garden
Nobody’s Jig

Richard Rodney Bennett’s Four Country Dances for saxophone and piano are part of larger series of pieces inspired by tunes found in John Playford’s The English Dancing Master first published in 1651, with numerous later editions which changed the title to The Dancing Master and added new tunes. Bennett has taken these folk-like melodies and added piano accompaniments of his own to create pieces that have a very individual character. This is particularly apparent in the last dance, where the piano part is at first spiky, then enters into a dialogue with the saxophone with fragments of the melody. The results are fresh, spirited and charming.

In a brief note on this work, Graham Fitkin writes that ‘this piece started from one thing – a trill. The alternation of two adjacent notes gives rise to a simple and constant grouping of beats. Place it in different temporal contexts and the inherent quality of the trill is questioned.’ These are the essential component parts of Gate, but what makes the piece so compelling is the vitality and creative imagination with which these ostensibly simple ideas are expanded and mutated in a piece that moves forward with seemingly unstoppable impetus to a dizzying close.

Pambiche. Risoluto
Baiao. Com morbidezza
Mambo. Allegrissimo
Samba lenta. Tranquillo
Merengue. Vivo com spirito

Jean Françaix’s Cinq danses exotiques were dedicated to the great French saxophonist Marcel Mule. While the music is Françaix’s own, the characteristic rhythms of all five dances draw on traditional music from Latin America. The first, a lively ‘Pambiche’, has its origins in the island nation of Dominica, while the second, a languid ‘Baiao’ is a popular form in north-eastern Brazil. The fast ‘Mambo’ has an obsessive repeating figure in the bass which drives the music along, while the Brazilian ‘Samba lenta’ is perhaps the most expressive of the set, its music in slow, swaying 5/8 time. The Merengue is a dance from the island of Hispaniola (comprising the Dominican Republic and Haiti). Françaix’s version is quick and highly syncopated.

Vif
Modéré
Brasileira

In May 1937 Milhaud wrote the incidental music for a production of Charles Vildrac’s play Le médecin volant (after Molière’s play of the same name), which opened at the Théâtre Scaramouche. He quickly repurposed pieces from it to create part of a suite – Scaramouche – for two pianos. As for the title, Milhaud almost certainly took it from the Scaramouche theatre and it was a particularly apt choice: in the traditional commedia dell’arte, Scaramouche is the clown, and the mood of the work is decidedly jovial, particularly the riotous Brazilian-inspired finale.

Milhaud also made an arrangement of Scaramouche for saxophone (an instrument he had already used to great effect in La création du monde) which he dedicated to Marcel Mule, who first played it in public. Both versions were published by Raymond Deiss, famous for only printing pieces he liked. During the French Occupation, when Milhaud was exiled in America, Deiss used his presses to produce Resistance literature, paying for this with his life when he was executed by the Nazis in 1943.

“Dickson shows the saxophone is capable of subtlety and great beauty”

BBC Music Magazine

About the Artists

Amy Dickson

Twice nominated for a Grammy™ award, Australian-British Amy Dickson has been acknowledged by BBC Music Magazine as one of the world’s six best classical saxophonists ever. She has recorded eight solo albums for Sony Music. Recognised for her remarkable, distinctive tone and exceptional musicality, she began her musical studies at the age of two and took her first saxophone lesson in Sydney aged six. Amy made her concerto debut at 16, and on her 18th birthday made her first recording as soloist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. That year she moved to London to study at the Royal College of Music with Kyle Horch, then at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam with Arno Bornkamp. Amy made history by becoming the first saxophonist ever to win the following prizes: the James Fairfax Australian Young Artist of the Year Award (1998), the Gold Medal at the Royal Overseas League Competition (2004), the Symphony Australia Young Performer of the Year Award (2004) and the Prince’s Prize (2005). In 2013 she was awarded a Classic BRIT Award and in 2016 she was named Young Australian of the Year at Australia House, London. Read more.

Kathryn Stott

Kathryn Stott is internationally recognised as one of Britain’s most versatile and imaginative musicians and among today’s most engaging pianists. As well as appearing on major international concert platforms in recitals as a soloist, she is in demand for a wide variety of chamber music alliances, playing with some of the world’s leading instrumentalists. Kathryn has also directed several distinctive concert series and festivals and has developed an extensive and exceptionally varied catalogue of recordings. Read more.

FINALE

Kathryn Stott & Ensemble 360

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield

Saturday 20 May 2023, 7.15pm

£21
£14 DLA, UC or PIP
£5 Under 35s & Students

Save £s when you book for 5 concerts or more at the same time

Past Event

Home› What's on› FINALE

JACOBSEN & AGHAEI Ascending Bird (5’)
SCHUBERT Piano Quintet in A ‘Trout’ (40’)
SAINT-SAËNS Caprice on Danish and Russian Airs (12’)
COLERIDGE TAYLOR Nonet (25’)

Bringing Sheffield Chamber Music Festival to a fabulous conclusion, Kathryn returns to play Schubert’s enduringly joyful ‘Trout’ Quintet with Ensemble 360, a piece she last played in the Crucible with the Lindsay String Quartet at their Farewell Concert in 2005.

After a folk-inspired string quartet charting the attempts of a mythical bird to reach the sun, and Saint-Saëns’ virtuoso showcase for flute, oboe and clarinet, comes Coleridge-Taylor’s dazzling Nonet, full of swagger, rich texture and brimming with optimism.

American composer and violinist Colin Jacobsen spoke about the background to this exhilarating piece before a performance in 2011: ‘I wrote Ascending Bird with my friend Siamak Aghaei, a wonderful musician from Iran. The piece tells the story of a mythic bird that tries to reach the sun. It tries at first and falls back down. It tries again, then finally on the third time it receives the radiant embrace of the sun and loses its physical body, in a metaphor for spiritual transcendence.’ Written in 2007, the music is an arrangement of an old Persian folk tune, starting gently and working up to a thrilling close.

Allegro vivace
Andante
Scherzo: Presto
Theme and Variations: Andante
Allegro giusto

Silvester Paumgartner was a wealthy amateur cellist who lived in Steyr, Upper Austria, and an enthusiastic supporter of Schubert and his music. After playing Hummel’s Piano Quintet Paumgartner wanted a quintet for the same combination of instruments (violin, viola, cello, double bass and piano) from Schubert, who visited in the summer of 1819 (and again in 1823 and 1825). Paumgartner also wanted a work that included reference to Schubert’s song Die Forelle, The Trout, which had been composed in 1817. For Schubert, his visits to Paumgartner in the Upper Austrian countryside were a delight, a chance to make music, enjoy good company and revel in the spectacular scenery.

Willi Kahl, writing in Cobbett’s Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music wrote that ‘the fundamental tone of the piece is defined by the persistence of a major key throughout’ – underlining that this is among Schubert’s most genial chamber works. The first movement is brilliant but never flashy while the Andante is the expressive core of the work, suggesting, Kahl believed, ‘a moonlit night-song from the Styrian landscape’. The Scherzo is muscular and energetic, with a more easy-going central Trio section. In the first three variations, the theme is heard in its original form (on a different instrument each time) and remains clearly recognisable in the more freely worked fourth and fifth variations. In the last variation, Schubert brings the Quintet back to the original song as the unmistakable figurations of the song’s piano accompaniment are heard for the first time, to utterly enchanting effect. The finale is amiable and untroubled (though not without a couple of surprises), bringing this most affable of works to a properly jubilant close.

Saint-Saëns wrote this piece for a series of concerts that he gave for the Red Cross in St Petersburg in April 1887. It is dedicated to Maria Feodorovna, Empress of Russia, and the composer wrote it for himself to play on piano with three other specific players in mind: flautist Paul Taffanel, oboist Georges Gillet and clarinettist Charles Turban. For the sources of the tunes, Saint-Saëns wrote to Julien Tiersot, the leading French expert on traditional music at the time, requesting suitable Danish and Russian themes. Before leaving for Russia, the work was rehearsed in Paris, and Saint-Saëns invited the singer and composer Pauline Viardot to hear the new piece, after which he travelled to Russia with Taffanel, Gillet and Turban.

Following a flamboyant introduction, Saint-Saëns introduces a succession of traditional themes, varies and repeats them, and occasionally mixes them together, all composed with his characteristic inventiveness and skill.

Allegro energico

Andante con moto

Scherzo. Allegro

Finale. Allegro vivace

Coleridge-Taylor composed his Nonet in 1893–4, while he was a student at the Royal College of Music, and it was first performed there in July 1894. Still in his teens, Coleridge-Taylor has modestly headed the score ‘Gradus ad Parnassum’ (Steps to Parnassus), suggesting he realised that he still had plenty to learn. His teacher at the RCM was Charles Villiers Stanford, and the work reveals the clear influence of Brahms – a composer Stanford himself admired enormously.

The Nonet is conceived on quite a grand scale. The first movement immediately reveals Coleridge-Taylor’s skill in writing for nine instruments: at times the textures are almost orchestral while at others he reduces the forces to evoke the more private world of chamber music. There’s a similar kind of contrast in the main themes: the first of these, broad and expansive, is initially heard on the clarinet before being taken up by the whole ensemble. The second theme is livelier, with dotted rhythms, and it is introduced by the piano. The Andante reveals Coleridge-Taylor’s gift for song-like melodies (with some phrases suggesting the influence of Dvořák on the young composer), while the Scherzo (in duple rather than triple time) is highly animated, with a warm Trio section led by the horn. Again, the benign shadow of Dvořák seems to hover over this movement. The instrumental writing in the ebullient finale is particularly colourful, with some magical effects.

A review appeared in the August 1894 issue of Musical Times where the un-named critic commented that ‘the whole Nonet is most interesting, its themes are fresh and vigorous, and their treatment proves that the writer has learnt to compose with skill. The scherzo is unquestionably the most striking movement, and few would guess it to be the work of one still a student.’

About the Artists

Kathryn Stott

Ensemble 360

COME & SING: KATE RUSBY

Kate Shipway

Crucible Theatre, Sheffield

Saturday 13 May 2023, 1.00pm / 3.30pm

Workshop: SOLD OUT
Performance tickets: Free
Tickets for the public performance must be booked in advance through Sheffield Theatres box office here.

Sold Out

Home› What's on› COME & SING: KATE RUSBY

Workshop: 1.00pm – 3.30pm SOLD OUT (register on our waitlist via the Eventbrite Page)
Performance: 3.30pm – 4.30pm

The workshop portion of this event is now sold out. Please keep an eye on our Eventbrite page for details of any returned spaces or to join the waiting list.

Tickets for the public performance must be booked in advance through Sheffield Theatres box office here.

This workshop for singers of all ages and abilities is a chance to come together for music-making and an informal performance of brand new choral settings of songs by folk superstar Kate Rusby.

Choral leader and arranger Kate Shipway will lead a workshop on the iconic Crucible Theatre stage, featuring her own arrangements of Rusby’s much-loved songs. Either learn by ear or from provided notation. This event is for both beginners and experienced singers alike (although some experience of singing in a choir will be helpful).

About the Artists

Kate Shipway

Kate is an experienced choral director, workshop leader and vocal coach. Kate loves to enable and encourage people to sing, a vital skill for leading choirs, vocal ensembles, and singing workshops.

Kate is Creative Director of Singing In… and leads their community choirs in Grenoside and Hillsborough. She is a Vocal Music Leader at Sheffield Music Hub, and Musical Director of Romulus Singers, The Sheffield Chorale and Vocal Expressions. She sings alto in Sine Nomine and is one of the vocalists with the Northern Collective Big Band. Read more.

CLOSE UP: MUSIC FOR CURIOUS YOUNG MINDS

Ensemble 360 & Elinor Moran

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield

Saturday 20 May 2023, 11.00am

£12
£7 DLA, UC & PIP
£5 Under 16s

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Home› What's on› CLOSE UP: MUSIC FOR CURIOUS YOUNG MINDS

A tour through the wondrous world of chamber music, specially created for young audiences, combining well-known classical favourites with new works from surprising places. This concert for 7-11 year-olds includes thrilling musical adventures told through music, cheeky characters and epic heroes, mind-blowing musical games, and the chance to join in and make music together.

Ideal for 7-11 year olds.

The concert includes extracts from:

SCHUBERT String Quartet in D Minor ‘Death And The Maiden’
STRAVINSKY Three Pieces
HAYDN Op.33 No.3 ‘Russian Quartet’
MOZART String Quartet In E Flat
WEIR String Quartet
MEREDITH Short Tribute to Teenage Fanclub
Arr. BURLEIGH Oh Lord, What a Morning
SUK  Meditation on an Old Czech Chorale
BEETHOVEN String Quartet No. 16 Op.135
DVOŘÁK String Quartet No.12 ‘American Quartet’

Hey Presto! We begin with a twitchy chase from Franz Schubert, which he told the string players should be played ‘presto’ meaning ‘very quick or very fast’. How does the sound change when each musician plays on their own? How do you feel when they all play the same tune together? This tense piece kicks off an exciting hour of music…

Haydn was the composer who did most to first create a form of music for two violins, a viola and a cello: a group we know as a string quartet. This piece has the nickname ‘The Bird’ — can you hear why?

This beautiful tune is almost like a lullaby and shows how gentle the sound of the strings can be. Listen to the way the first violin plays a tune and the other three instruments rock gently back and forth underneath, creating a warm blanket of sound. This is music to wrap up warm within. How does it make you feel?

This string quartet was written by a composer who is making music today, the wonderful Judith Weir. A piece full of mysteries, inspired by a medieval Spanish tune. This quartet sounds like a strange landscape where it’s easy to get lost among these lopsided rhythms where nothing is quite as it seems…

This piece was written at the start of the first world war and is full of the drama and sadness of a scary time. But it ends full of hope with long notes seeming to climb into the air. Look and listen out for all the times the musicians play across the strings to make two or more notes sound at once — a technique called double stopping.

Anna Meredith is another musician writing music today. She makes music for her band as well as for classical musicians, often mixing up instruments usually seen in an orchestra with rock and pop instruments. This piece combines the two and is a tribute to one of her favourite bands performed by string quartet who don’t use their bows at all but pluck their instruments in a technique called ‘pizzicato’.

This beautiful quartet is known as ‘the harp’ because in the first part, all four musicians have sections where they pluck the strings their instruments rather than using the bow. Can you hear the difference?

This is a traditional song created by enslaved Africans in America. The composer and singer Harry Burleigh was the grandchild of slaves who became a famous musician and helped share music by black people with the rest of the world. This simple song looks forward to a better time when injustices like slavery and racism will end. Perhaps you can hear both the sadness and the hope in this beautiful music.

This spiky, short piece of music was created in Russia at the same time Suk wrote the piece we heard earlier. Stravinsky uses the plucking technique we heard in the Meredith and Beethoven, as well clashing notes and unexpected changes in pulse and speed. Stravinsky keeps us guessing what he’ll do next!

This piece brings our concert to a celebratory end, from Czech composer Anton Dvořák. Listen out for all the places it gets louder, or faster — or both! — or where the quartet hang back to build tension. This piece uses folk tunes from Czechoslovakia, where Dvořák was born and started writing, and includes a native American tune, and music from all the people like him who had travelled to live and work in the USA. Bringing these together, our concert ends with an explosion of joy!

About the Artists

Ensemble 360

Elinor Moran

Elinor is in demand as a vocal workshop leader and animateur. She regularly works in learning and participation teams with such companies as ROH, ETO, Opera North, Snape Maltings, Garsington Opera and as far away as The Canadian Children’s Opera Chorus in Toronto.

Elinor has just returned from singing with André Rieu and his Johann Strauss Orchestra as a soloist on a world tour. She was a soloist on a SONY BMG recording “The Best Of Gilbert And Sullivan” which reached the top of the Classical Chart and can be heard on Blossom Street’s new Naxos recording of choral music by female composers “This Day”. Her recent roles include Mimi La Boheme (in the Olivier Award winning OperaUpClose production at the Soho Theatre and Charing Cross Theatre and Tour) and she has been the recipient of a Garsington Opera Chorus Award.

Elinor studied voice at Chetham’s School Of Music and The Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In 2012 she performed a dance role in Danny Boyle’s Olympic Opening Ceremony but has since put away her hip hop shoes (until the right future opportunity…).

RACHMANINOV 150

Tim Horton & Kathryn Stott

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield

Friday 19 May 2023, 7.15pm

£21
£14 DLA, UC or PIP
£5 Under 35s & Students

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Home› What's on› RACHMANINOV 150

RACHMANINOV
Fantasia Tableaux Suite No. 1 (24’)
Vocalise for four hands (6’)
Suite No.2 (23’)
Symphonic Dances for two pianos (32’)

In a spectacular celebration of the 150th birthday of the Russian giant of twentieth century piano-writing, Kathryn Stott and Tim Horton perform a breathtaking programme of Rachmaninov on two pianos.

Rachmaninov’s writing for piano is legendary, with lush melodies sitting on glorious harmonies, and this concert has it all. Original works for two pianos nestle alongside an arrangement of his celebrated song without words for four hands.

To close, the showstopper Symphonic Dances, an epic orchestral favourite, is brought to life on two pianos – a spellbinding rare treat to end the evening!

Suite No.1: Fantaisie (Tableaux), Op.5
Vocalise, Op.34 No.14
Suite No.2, Op.17
Symphonic Dances, Op.45

When Rachmaninov was a sixteen-year-old student at the Moscow Conservatory, Tchaikovsky declared: ‘I predict a great future for him’ and he watched with interest as Rachmaninov’s career developed. At a private soirée in September 1893, Tchaikovsky heard a preview performance (on piano four-hands) of his Pathétique Symphony (a month before its premiere) and that same evening, Rachmaninov showed Tchaikovsky his new Suite for two pianos. It turned out to be their last meeting: by the time Rachmaninov and Pavel Pabst gave the public premiere of the Suite on 30 November 1893, Tchaikovsky was dead. When the work was published the following year, it was headed with a dedication ‘À Monsieur P. Tchaikowsky’. The original title was Fantaisie (Tableaux) pour deux pianos, and in the score, each movement is prefaced by a poem. While working on the piece in June 1893, Rachmaninov had written to a friend that it was ‘a fantasy representing a series of musical pictures.’ Accompanying the opening ‘Barcarolle’ (Allegretto) is a poem by Lermontov that begins: ‘At dusk the chill waves lap gently beneath the gondola’s slow oar’, and ends on a reflective note: ‘time glides over the surge of love; the water will grow smooth again and passion will rise no more.’ For ‘Night…Love’ (Adagio sostenuto), Rachmaninov turned to Byron: the poem beginning ‘It is the hour when from the boughs the nightingale’s high note is heard.’ The third movement is a lament (Largo di molto) entitled ‘Tears’, accompanied by Fyodor Tyutchev’s poem beginning ‘Tears, human tears, you flow both early and late.’ The finale is ‘Easter’ (Allegro maestoso), a musical evocation of Aleksey Khomyakov’s words: ‘Across the earth a mighty bell is ringing … exulting in that holy victory.’

The Vocalise was first written in 1915 for wordless soprano voice and piano, but Rachmaninov himself soon made orchestral arrangements (with and without voice) and others followed, including a solo piano arrangement by Alexander Siloti (1921) and several different transcriptions for piano four-hands. This short piece found Rachmaninov on inspired form, with a memorable melody unfolding over gently shifting harmonies.

The Suite No.2 was composed between December 1900 and April 1901 – written simultaneously with the Second Piano Concerto – and first performed by Rachmaninov and Alexander Siloti in Moscow on 24 November 1901. Unlike the Suite No.1, this work has no programmatic element. The first movement, headed ‘Introduction’, is marked Alla marcia, the second is a quick Waltz, the third an ardent ‘Romance’ (Andantino), and the fourth a ‘Tarantella’ (Presto) which brings the work to a dazzling close.

On one memorable occasion in 1942, Rachmaninov and Vladimir Horowitz played the Suite No.2 at a private concert for family and friends, and at another private performance the same legendary duo played the Symphonic Dances. This work was composed in 1940: the two-piano score is dated 10 August 1940, and the more familiar orchestral version was completed two months later. It turned out to be Rachmaninov’s last composition. Originally, he planned to call it Fantastic Dances and to give each movement a title (‘Noon’, ‘Twilight’ and ‘Midnight’) but settled on the more neutral ‘Symphonic Dances’ and gave the movements simple tempo indications: Non allegro, Andante con moto (Tempo di valse) and Lento assai – Allegro vivace. This work is the supreme example of Rachmaninov’s more astringent late style, though there are also nostalgic self-quotations from earlier works: at the end of the first movement, a serene recollection of the main theme from the First Symphony (1895); and in the finale the chant ‘Blessed art thou, Lord’ from the All-Night Vigil (1915). At the end of the manuscript score, Rachmaninov bade farewell to his composing career with the words: ‘I thank Thee, Lord’.

About the Artists

Tim Horton

Tim Horton is one of the UK’s leading pianists, equally at home in solo and chamber repertoire. He has appeared as soloist with major orchestras including the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and Trondheim Symphony Orchestra.

Tim gave his debut solo recital at Wigmore Hall in 2016, and appears there frequently as both soloist and collaborative artist. He is regularly invited to play at distinguished festivals and series across the UK and abroad, including Music in the Round for whom he has presented a number of solo piano cycles, alongside his work with Ensemble 360. During 2026 Tim presents the fifth and sixth instalments of his Chopin Cycle at London’s Wigmore Hall and embarks on a new Beethoven cycle for Music in the Round at the Crucible. Alongside his solo work Tim maintains a busy performing schedule with Ensemble 360 and the Leonore Piano Trio, and is a founding member of both groups. He is regularly broadcast by BBC Radio 3. Read more.

Kathryn Stott

LA MER: TWO PIANOS AND SAX

Amy Dickson, Tim Horton & Kathryn Stott

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield

Friday 19 May 2023, 1.00pm

£16
£10 DLA, UC & PIP
£5 Under 35s & Students

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Home› What's on› LA MER: TWO PIANOS AND SAX

WU TONG Rain Falling from the roof (5’)
YOSHIMATSU Fuzzy Bird Sonata (16’)
DEBUSSY (arr. CAPLET) La Mer (for two pianos) (25’)

In an arrangement for two pianos, this concert spotlights Debussy’s celebrated ‘symphonic sketches’ of the sea; an impressionistic, symbolist masterpiece, drawn from childhood memories and the composer’s abiding interest in Japanese art.

Before this, award-winning saxophonist Amy Dickson shares a thrilling and highly virtuosic sonata by Japanese composer Yoshimatsu and a piece by Chinese composer Wu Tong, which reflects on life during lockdown and was written for performance with Kathryn’s friend and frequent collaborator, cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Wu Tong is a Chinese composer and performer (primarily on the Chinese bawu and sheng) who became a founder member of the Silk Road Ensemble, led by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and has appeared as a virtuoso soloist with orchestras including the Chicago Symphony and New York Philharmonic. An extremely versatile musician, he was also the vocalist in the first rock band to broadcast on Chinese television.

Rain Falling on the Roof is a kind of song without words with flexible instrumentation. It has been played by Wu Tong himself on the sheng, and recorded by Yo-Ya Ma and Kathryn Stott in a version for cello and piano. Wu Tong himself has written that his inspiration was a very contemporary response, during the Coronavirus pandemic, to an ancient Buddhist story: ‘Upon hearing the sound of the falling raindrops, I was reminded that people depend upon peaceful coexistence with each other and with Mother Nature to live in true harmony. No one exists in isolation.’

Run, Bird
Sing, Bird
Fly, Bird

The Fuzzy Bird Sonata was composed in 1991 and dedicated to the Japanese saxophonist Nobuya Sugawa. Yoshimatsu was initially self-taught as a composer, inspired by hearing European classical composers, but his own style developed into a distinctive musical language which also draws on elements of jazz. The first movement of the Fuzzy Bird Sonata (‘Run, Bird’) is propulsive and exciting (with a moment of calm at its centre), making virtuoso demands on both players. In the second movement (‘Sing, Bird’), an expansive saxophone melody is heard over piano chords. ‘Fly, Bird’ begins hesitantly, before gradually gaining momentum, enabling the bird to take flight.

De l’aube à midi sur la mer (From dawn to midday on the sea)
Jeu de vagues (Play of the waves)
Dialogue du vent et de la mer (Dialogue of the wind and the sea)

The sea’s central importance to Debussy is well documented in his letters. In September 1903 he wrote to his close friend and fellow composer Andre ́Messager about La mer, noting the amusing irony of composing the piece in the resolutely landlocked department of the Yonne in north-west Burgundy, and describing his approach to the work with an interesting analogy to landscape painting:

‘I’m working on three symphonic sketches … the whole to be called La mer. You’re unaware, maybe, that I was intended for the noble career of a sailor and have only deviated from that path thanks to the quirks of fate. Even so, I’ve retained a sincere devotion to the sea. To which you’ll reply that the Atlantic doesn’t exactly wash the foothills of Burgundy, and that the result could be one of those hack landscapes done in the studio! But I have innumerable memories, and those, in my view, are worth more than a reality which tends to weigh too heavily on the imagination.’

In July 1904 Debussy left his first wife Lilly Texier and eloped to Jersey with the singer Emma Bardac. In an undated letter from the Grand Hotel in St Helier he wrote to his publisher Durand that ‘The sea has behaved beautifully towards me and shown me all her guises.’ He returned to the subject while staying at the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne, where he was correcting the proofs of La mer: ‘It’s a charming, peaceful spot. The sea unfurls itself with an utterly British correctness.’

The English critic Edward Lockspeiser was unhesitating in describing La mer as ‘the greatest example of an orchestral Impressionist work’ and it does not seem unduly far-fetched to see a parallel in Claude Monet’s seascapes from the 1890s. The three movements form a magnificent large-scale symphonic whole which is fully maintained in André Caplet’s brilliant arrangement for two pianos. A gifted composer in his own right and a trusted friend of Debussy’s, Caplet has transcribed the work with dazzling effectiveness, remaining entirely true to the spirit of Debussy’s orchestral original.

About the Artists

Amy Dickson

Tim Horton

Kathryn Stott

HAYDN & FISCHER: STRING QUARTETS

Pavel Fischer & Ensemble 360

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield

Thursday 18 May 2023, 1.00pm

£16
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£5 Under 35s & Students

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Home› What's on› HAYDN & FISCHER: STRING QUARTETS

HAYDN String Quartet Op.20 No.4 (25’)
TRADITIONAL (arr. FISCHER) Two Songs from the Moravian Highlands (8’)
FISCHER String Quartet No.3 ‘Mad Piper’ (17’)

Pavel Fischer, composer and former first violin of the Škampa Quartet, joins Ensemble 360’s string players Claudia Ajmone-Marsen, Rachel Roberts and Gemma Rosefield. Fischer will lead his third string quartet inspired by Moravian folk music, evoking ‘Piper Bill’, who played while under fire during the D-Day landings in Normandy.

Led by Ensemble 360’s Benjamin Nabarro, Haydn’s innovative, folk-inspired D major quartet precedes Fischer’s works, with its hymn-like opening, joyous variations and complex, chromatic conclusion.

Allegro di molto
Un poco adagio. Affetuoso
Allegretto alla zingarese
Presto scherzando

The ‘Sun’ string quartets Op.20 (so named because of the sunrise on the title page of an early edition) were composed in 1772 and the manuscript was one of the prize possessions of Johannes Brahms. The English musicologist Donald Francis Tovey wrote that ‘No document in the history of music is more important than Haydn’s Op.20, with its three fugues (which secure autonomy and equality of parts by a return to the old polyphony), its passages of turn-about solo, its experiments in rich and special effects, and, most important of all, its achievements in quite normal quartet-writing such as pervades the remaining forty-odd quartets.’ In short, with Op.20, Haydn established himself as the master of the string quartet genre. Surprisingly, it was another decade before he composed more quartets (Op.33 followed in 1781).

The String Quartet Op.20 No.4 is one of the less troubled and anguished of the set, but it is endlessly ingenious. The opening is subdued and rather chorale-like until it is interrupted by flashing violin arpeggios, and the whole movement is marked by sudden and unexpected contrasts. The slow movement is a beautiful set of variations in D minor, notable for its harmonic richness and for the distribution of the variations among all four instruments. The Minuet ‘in gypsy style’ has plenty of surprises – a dazzling display of ambiguous cross-rhythms that only settles into regular patterns of triple time in the Trio. The finale is anything but predictable with modulations to strange keys, moments of ‘exotic’ colouring, and a delectably nihilistic ending.

Mad Piper
Carpathian
Sad Piper
Ursari

Pavel Fischer was a founder member and leader of the Škampa Quartet and after an extremely successful performing career, has turned increasingly to teaching and composition. His String Quartet No.3 was written in 2011 and demonstrates his fascination with integrating elements of music from different parts of the world into his work. The ‘Mad Piper’ of the title (and the first movement), evokes the Canadian bagpiper Bill Millin who continued to play while under fire on Sword Beach during the initial stages of the D-Day Landings in 1944.

After a fast, aggressive opening (the heat of battle, perhaps?), a plaintive viola melody leads to a reprise of the initial material, followed by a serene coda. The second movement, ‘Carpathian’, is a vigorous folk dance with an unceasing, breathless drive. The slow movement, ‘Sad Piper’, was inspired by the plaintive song of a Bulgarian piper, here transformed into an eloquent viola solo, supported by quiet sustained chords. The title of the finale, ‘Ursari’ recalls the nomadic Romani bear handlers of Eastern Europe, in particular their bear dances (Bartok also composed a ‘Bear Dance’ for piano which he later orchestrated). Here the quartet takes on the role of a percussion section as well as string instruments, the music driving forwards until a brief respite for a reflective passage before the dance is taken up again with renewed energy.

About the Artists

Pavel Fischer

Pavel Fischer was born in Zlín, the Czech Republic, in 1965. He completed his studies at both the Prague Conservatoire and Prague Academy. His appointment as the first-ever resident artist at London’s Wigmore Hall led to invitations to major festivals world-wide. Pavel has also worked with outstanding musicians including the Škampa Quartet (leader and co-founder), Josef Suk, and Kathryn Stott. Since 2007 Pavel has been gaining recognition as a composer. His first string quartet “Morava” was commissioned and premiered at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 2008. In 2018 his “Temperaments” premiered in the Dvorak Hall in Prague. In the same year his “Tales from Moravia” were commissioned by and performed at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.

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SCHUBERT Franz, String Quartet in G minor, D173

JANÁČEK Leoš, String Quartet No.1 Kreutzer Sonata

BEETHOVEN Ludwig van, String Quartet in F Op.59 No.1 Razumovsky

“The Leonkoros draw on a wealth of youthful sonority, fiery vitality and rousing drive.”

Süddeutsche Zeitung

About the Artists

Leonkoro Quartet

“ She is a positive life-force and a truly remarkable musician”

London Jazz News

About the Artists

Rachael Cohen

Lewis Wright

Joe Downard

Jason Brown

DORÁTI Antal, Duo Concertante for oboe and piano

LIGETI György, Études for piano

LUTOSŁAWKSI Witold, Dance Preludes

FARKAS Ferenc, Five Antique Hungarian Dances (version for wind quintet)

LIGETI György, Ten Pieces

About the Artists

Ensemble 360

DEBUSSY Claude, Première Rapsodie for Clarinet and Piano

YORK BOWEN Edwin, Clarinet Sonata in F minor, Op.109

HARRISON Pamela, Drifting Away (for clarinet and piano)

WEBER Carl Maria Von, Grand Duo Concertant in E flat Op.48

About the Artists

Ensemble 360

BERGE Sigurd, Horn-lokk

MUSGRAVE Thea, Niobe

LISZT Franz, Au Bord d’une Source

REINECKE Carl, Trio for Oboe, Horn & Piano Op.188

About the Artists

Ensemble 360

SCOTT Andy, Respectfully Yours

SCHULHOFF Erwin, Hot Sonata

BENNETT Richard Rodney, Four Country Dances

FITKIN Graham, Gate

FRANÇAIX Jean, Cinq danses exotiques

MILHAUD Darius, Scaramouche

“Dickson shows the saxophone is capable of subtlety and great beauty”

BBC Music Magazine

About the Artists

Amy Dickson

Kathryn Stott

JACOBSEN Colin & AGHAEI Siamak, Ascending Bird

SCHUBERT Franz, Piano Quintet in A major D667, ‘The Trout’

SAINT-SAËNS Camille, Caprice sur des Airs Danois et Russes, Op.79

COLERIDGE-TAYLOR Samuel, Nonet in F minor Op.2

About the Artists

Kathryn Stott

Ensemble 360

About the Artists

Kate Shipway

SCHUBERT String Quartet in D Minor (excerpt for ‘Close Up’)

HAYDN Russian Quartet No.3 (excerpt for ‘Close Up’)

MOZART String Quartet In E Flat K428 (excerpt for ‘Close Up’)

WEIR String Quartet (excerpt for ‘Close Up’)

SUK Josef, Meditation on an Old Czech Chorale (excerpt for ‘Close Up’)

MEREDITH Anna, Short Tribute to Teenage Fanclub (excerpt for ‘Close Up’)

BEETHOVEN ‘The Harp’ Quartet (excerpt for ‘Close Up’)

BURLEIGH Henry Thacker, Oh Lord, What A Morning (excerpt for ‘Close Up’)

STRAVINSKY Igor, Three Pieces for String Quartet (excerpt for ‘Close Up’)

DVOŘÁK ‘American’ String Quartet (excerpt for ‘Close Up’)

About the Artists

Ensemble 360

Elinor Moran

RACHMANINOV Sergei, Music for Two Pianos

About the Artists

Tim Horton

Kathryn Stott

WU TONG, Rain falling from the roof

YOSHIMATSU Takashi, Fuzzy Bird Sonata

DEBUSSY Claude, La Mer arr. for two pianos by André Caplet

About the Artists

Amy Dickson

Tim Horton

Kathryn Stott

HAYDN Joseph, String Quartet in D, Op.20 No.4

FISCHER Pavel, String Quartet No.3 Mad Piper

About the Artists