BACH, BEETHOVEN AND BRAHMS

Kathryn Stott & Ensemble 360

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield
Monday 15 May 2023, 2.00pm

£21
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£5 Under 35s & Students 

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Home› What's on› BACH, BEETHOVEN AND BRAHMS

BACH The Art of Fugue, Contrapunctus 14 (8’)
BRAHMS Piano Quintet in F minor (40’)
BEETHOVEN Septet (42′)

The electrifying intensity of Bach and the majesty of Beethoven lead into Brahms’s monumental Piano Quintet.  

Performed by our Festival Curator, Kathryn Stott, and the string players of Ensemble 360, it’s a work of spectacular romanticism and epic scope. By turns dark and demonic, melancholic and haunting, with passionate musical fireworks in conclusion, it’s a piece Kathy played regularly with the Lindsay String Quartet and its leader Peter Cropper, founder of Music in the Round. 

BACH Johann Sebastian, The Art of Fugue, Contrapunctus 14 arr. for string quartet

Bach’s contrapuntal masterpiece The Art of Fugue is shrouded in mystery: no instrumentation is specified, and the last fugue – Contrapunctus XIV – was left unfinished. The structure is also highly unusual as the work is monothematic: each of its canons and fugues representing a different treatment of the same theme. The surviving autograph manuscript appears to date from the early 1740s, and the first edition of the score appeared in 1751, a year after the composer’s death. In spite of the uncertainty of how to play the work, or what forces Bach might have had in mind, the Bach scholar Christoph Wolff has summarised its importance as ‘an exploration in depth of the contrapuntal possibilities inherent in a single musical subject.’  

© Nigel Simeone

BEETHOVEN Ludwig Van, Septet in E flat Op.20

Adagio – Allegro con brio 
Adagio cantabile 
Tempo di menuetto 
Tema con variazioni. Andante 
Scherzo. Allegro molto e vivace 
Andante con moto alla marcia – Presto 
 

Beethoven’s Septet was written in 1799. It was first performed at a concert given by Beethoven at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 2 April 1800 and was published – after a typically querulous exchange between Beethoven and his publisher – in 1802. Aiming for the top in terms of potential supporters, Beethoven dedicated it to Maria Theresa – the last Holy Roman Empress and the first Empress of Austria. The Septet’s success was enduring, something Beethoven came to resent since he felt the public should take more interest in his later music. 

 

The first movement is a genial sonata form Allegro with a slow introduction. The Adagio cantabile opens with a clarinet melody that is taken over by the violin, while clarinet and bassoon play a counter-melody, all supported by a gentle accompaniment on the lower strings. The bucolic Minuet demonstrates Beethoven the recycler, using the same theme as the Piano Sonata Op.49 No.2. The relaxed mood is maintained in the charming theme and variations. The Scherzo is launched by a horn call from which much of what follows is derived. Even the start of the Trio has thematic links with this tune, but a cello theme provides an effective contrast. The finale begins with one of the few significant uses of a minor key in the Septet: a stern march that quickly gives way to a rollicking Presto, its mood unclouded and its themes deliciously memorable. 

 

© Nigel Simeone 2014 

BRAHMS Johannes, Piano Quintet in F minor Op.34

Allegro non troppo 
Andante, un poco adagio 
Scherzo. Allegro 
Poco sostenuto – Allegro non troppo – Presto non troppo 
 

In 1862, Brahms sent Clara Schumann the incomplete manuscript of a quintet for two violins, viola and two cellos. He must have been delighted by her reaction: ‘What richness in the first movement … I can’t tell you how moved I am by it, and how powerfully gripped. And what an Adagio – it sings and sounds blissful right up to the last note!’ A few months later, he asked the great violinist Joseph Joachim for his opinion. He was very positive about the work, but mentioned that ‘the instrumentation is not energetic enough to my ears to convey the powerful rhythmic convulsions.’ Brahms rewrote the piece as a Sonata for Two Pianos (and destroyed the manuscript of the string quintet version). Clara Schumann gave the first performance with the conductor Hermann Levi. She felt something was missing in the two-piano version: ‘Please, dear Johannes, do agree just this time, and rework the piece once more.’ So he did, producing a version that combined the best of both earlier versions. The result is one of Brahms’s greatest chamber works. 

 

But while it was immediately recognised as an important new piece, there was hardly a stampede to play it in public. It was performed privately (with Clara Schumann) in November 1864, and published in December 1865, but a Viennese première in February 1866 was abandoned at the last moment. There were early performances in Leipzig (22 June 1866), and Paris (24 March 1868). It had to wait until 1875 for a public hearing in Vienna. It subsequently enjoyed considerable success, notably when Clara Schumann, Joachim and others played it in London on 3 April 1876. 

 

The first movement opens with a dark-hued theme in octaves that soon develops into a turbulent drama – the music remaining in a minor key for the second theme. The slow movement has a radiance that provides a complete contrast with what has gone before. The Scherzo begins uneasily, full of suppressed energy and tense syncopations, but then bursts out into C major, and its central Trio section is one of Brahms’s most rapturous themes. The finale begins slowly, brooding and mysterious, until the main fast theme emerges. This movement’s coda hurtles towards an intense, uncompromising finish.   

 

Nigel Simeone © 2011 

About the Artists

Classical pianist Kathryn Stott

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. 

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. 

 

MOONLIGHT SONATA

Kathryn Stott, Tine Thing Helseth & Ensemble 360

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield
Saturday 13 May 2023, 7.15pm

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Home› What's on› MOONLIGHT SONATA

D SCARLATTI (arr. LIPATTI) Six Sonatas (20’)
PUCCINI Storiella d’amore; Sole e amore; E l’uccellino; Canto d’anime;  Avanti Urania! (11’)
BEETHOVEN ‘Moonlight’ Sonata (15’)
SHOSTAKOVICH Sonata for viola and piano (35’) 

Beethoven’s beloved ‘Moonlight’ Sonata takes the spotlight, performed by Ensemble 360’s Tim Horton, with echoes of the same piece in Shostakovich’s Viola Sonata – the final notes ever written by the Russian master.  

Performances from guest stars Tine Thing Helseth and Kathryn Stott are also woven into the evening, through a selection of Puccini’s songs transformed for trumpet and piano, and Scarlatti’s virtuosic keyboard sonatas brilliantly arranged for wind quintet.  

SCARLATTI Domenico, Six Sonatas arranged for wind quintet by Dinu Lipatti

Allegro marciale in G minor (K.450) 
Andante in C minor (originally Allegro, C sharp minor; K.247) 
Allegro ma non tanto in C major (K.515) 
Allegretto in G major (K.538) 
Allegro moderato in B minor (K.377) 
Allegro molto in G major (K.427) 
 

The Scarlatti sonatas recorded by the great pianist Dinu Lipatti in the late 1940s, during the last few years of his short life, are among the most famous (and admired) of all Scarlatti records. What is much less well known is that in 1938–9, Lipatti also made arrangements of Scarlatti for wind quintet. Lipatti was primarily a pianist, but he studied composition with Nadia Boulanger and Paul Dukas and these extremely ingenious transcriptions are in the spirit of neoclassical works like Stravinsky’s Pulcinella, though much less interventionist.  

Even though Lipatti is generally faithful to his original sources, transcribing such idiomatic keyboard music for wind instruments required imagination and skill – and the finished results sound as much of the sound of the early twentieth century as they do the early eighteenth. These transcriptions were first performed during a radio broadcast on Romanian Radio in April 1940 (apparently the only time Lipatti appeared as a conductor). They were played in public in Paris later in the same year by the Quintette à vent de Paris, the ensemble for which Lipatti started to compose his own wind quintet in 1938 which was destined to remain unfinished.  

 

© Nigel Simeone

PUCCINI Giacomo, 5 songs for trumpet and piano

Storiella d’amore (1883)
Sole e amore (1888)
E l’uccellino (1899)
Canto d’anime (1904)
Avanti Urania! (1896)

Storiella d’amore was Puccini’s first published work, printed in the magazine La musica popolare on 4 October 1883, with a note from the publisher proudly announcing that it was ‘a work by the young maestro Giacomo Puccini, one of the most distinguished students to graduate this year from the Milan Conservatory.’ Originally a song for voice and piano, it contains some intriguing pre-echoes of Mimi’s Act One aria from La bohème. 

Sole e amore from 1888 has even more explicit links with the same opera: the tune of this song is identical to that of the Quartet in Act Three. 

The charming E l’uccellino was written in 1899 as a cradle song for the infant son of a friend.  

Canto d’anime has links to Puccini’s lifelong fascination with technology – whether fast cars, speedboats or, in this case, the gramophone: this song, with words by Luigi Illica (librettist of Bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly) was commissioned by the Gramophone Company who subsequently issued a recording of it. 

Marked ‘Allegro spigliato’ (‘Fast and breezy’), Avanti Urania! was composed in 1896 to celebrate the acquisition of a handsome steamboat called Urania by Puccini’s friend, the industrialist Marchese Ginori-Lisci. 

 

© Nigel Simeone

BEETHOVEN Ludwig Van, ‘Moonlight’ Sonata: Piano Sonata in C sharp minor, Op.27 No.2

Adagio sostenuto 
Allegretto 
Presto agitato 
 

In 1801 Beethoven was preoccupied for two reasons. The first was the increasing problem he was having with his hearing. The second was altogether happier: “a dear, magical girl who loves me and whom I love”, as he told an old friend in a letter. In the same letter he even spoke of marriage: “this it is the first time that I have felt that marriage might make one happy.” The “magical girl” was Giulietta Guicciardi who had met Beethoven in 1800 when he started to give her piano lesson. Alas, the magic was not to last as Giulietta married a Count in 1803 – but the musical result is one of Beethoven’s most famous piano sonatas. 

 

The second of his Op.27 sonatas subtitled “quasi una fantasia”, has become universally known as the “Moonlight” – a nickname that derived from a description in 1832 by the critic and poet Ludwig Rellstab who likened the first movement to moonlight shining on Lake Lucerne. The form is unusually free: after the dreamy, slow opening movement, the second is a moment of repose before the angry outburst of the finale – clearly it’s not a portrait of Giulietta, even if Beethoven’s “magical girl” had been the inspiration for this highly original masterpiece. 

 

Nigel Simeone © 2012 

SHOSTAKOVICH Dmitri, Viola Sonata Op.147

Moderato 
Allegretto 
Adagio 
 

Shostakovich’s Viola Sonata was his last work, composed in June–July 1975, a few weeks before his death. As in the famous 8th String Quartet, there is a complex network of quotations, including from his own works, and also from Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Sonata. Composer Ivan Sokolov reports on Shostakovich’s phone calls from his hospital bed to the viola player Fyodor Druzhinin to whom he was to dedicate the work: ‘In one conversation, noted down immediately afterwards by Druzhinin, Shostakovich suggested titles for each of the three movements: Novella, Scherzo and Adagio in memory of Beethoven.’ Druzhinin gave the first performance on 25 September 1975, on what would have been the composer’s sixty-ninth birthday, and the work was heard in public for the first time a few days later, in the small hall of the Leningrad Philharmonic on 1 October 1975. 

 

The loosely programmatic titles given by the composer to Druzhinin are helpful. The first movement, ‘Novella’, begins with the open strings of the viola and it is a free-flowing structure in which tension is created by the contrast between the austere open sound of fifths (later fourths) and the use of the twelve-note theme heard in the first entry by the piano. The ‘Scherzo’, marked Allegretto, takes as its starting point music from a much earlier operatic project based on Gogol’s The Gamblers that Shostakovich abandoned in 1942. The character is close to that of a march apart from the eerie and mysterious Trio section. After an introductory viola solo, the finale introduces a quotation from the first movement of Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Sonata, but this long movement also explores Shostakovich’s own works. 

 

Biographer David Fanning has pointed out that the later part of the movement includes ‘note for note quotations, mainly found in the piano left-hand part, from Shostakovich’s Second Violin Concerto and all fifteen of his symphonies in sequence.’ Fanning concludes from this that ‘there could scarcely be a clearer indication that Shostakovich knew – or at least suspected – that this would be his last work’ 

© Nigel Simeone

“Tine Thing Helseth’s playing is stylish in every way”

Gramophone magazine

About the Artists

Classical pianist Kathryn Stott

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. 

Tine Thing Helseth

Since the beginning of her career, Norwegian trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth has championed the trumpet repertoire amongst audiences on all six continents, meriting the highest critical praise for her soulful, lyrical sound and collaborative approach to music-making. An artist who challenges the boundaries of genre with an intensely creative, open-minded philosophy, Tine’s ever-expanding repertoire ranges from the classical period to contemporary works and new commissions. Read more.

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. 

 

CLIMATE CHANGE: WHAT CAN MUSIC DO?

Graham Fitkin, Tim Horton, Helen Prior & Tom Payne

Crucible Adelphi Room, Sheffield
Saturday 13 May 2023, 5.00pm

£5 

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Home› What's on› CLIMATE CHANGE: WHAT CAN MUSIC DO?

This panel discussion is an opportunity to explore musical responses to the natural world and ask if music, and the wider arts, can contribute to developing our response to the most pressing issue facing us today.  

A distraction while sea levels rise, or a galvanising force to motivate us as we build a better world… does music have a role to play in tackling the climate crisis?  

Featuring composer Graham Fitkin, Co-creator of Sheffield Ark Tom Payne, music psychologist Helen Prior and Ensemble 360’s Tim Horton, this promises to be a lively conversation to inspire and provoke.

About the Artists

Graham Fitkin

Graham Fitkin is a British composer, pianist and conductor. His compositions fall broadly into the minimalist and postminimalist genres. He was born in Cornwall in 1963, studied at Nottingham University with Peter Nelson and Nigel Osborne and then in The Netherlands with Louis Andriessen at Koninklijk Conservatorium in The Hague. He works regularly with pianist Kathryn Stott, founded the four-pianist group ‘Nanquidno’ and worked closely with six piano ensemble Piano Circus.Described by The Independent in 1998 as “one of the most important of our younger composers”, he is particularly known for his works for solo and multiple pianos, as well as for music accompanying dance. Read more.

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. 

Helen Prior

Helen is a music psychologist, with interests in music performance, music education, music and wellbeing, and music and the environment based at the University of Hull. Her work with the Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice (CMPCP) explored the experiences of professional musicians in creating, or shaping, their musical performances. Equally important is the area of music education, within which she has explored remote music lessons through the Connect: Resound project, led by Professor Andrew King; and is also exploring transitions within music education with Dr Elaine King. Musical activities have a range of benefits, particularly in relation to wellbeing, and Helen’s involvement with the Strokestra Project (led by Elaine King) explore these benefits in detail. Music can have a profound influence on us, changing our physical and mental wellbeing, but also influencing our decisions; Helen’s work in relation to music and the environment investigates the ways in which we might harness this power to help people to adopt environmentally-friendly behaviours. Overall, Helen is fascinated by the myriad ways in which we interact with music as human beings, and her research explores these from a range of perspectives.

In her spare time, Helen enjoys playing the piano, and the modern and baroque violin, and occasionally doing some orchestral conducting.

Tom Payne

Tom is a performance maker, writer, dramaturg, filmmaker, and digital creative. He is Co-director of the UK/Australian performance company Doppelgangster and has worked extensively in the creative industries. Tom is Course Leader for the BA (Hons) Acting & Performance, and draws upon his professional experience to support work-based learning on the degree, and is also a Recruitment Lead, and Social Media Lead, within the Stage and Screen subject area. In his research and professional practice, Tom’s performance-making strategies seek to engage audiences with questions of social and ecological justice. Tom is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has taught drama, theatre, performance, and media communication and production in Further and Higher Education since 2001.

FAMILY CONCERT: IZZY GIZMO

Ensemble 360 & Polly Ives

Crucible Theatre, Sheffield
Saturday 13 May 2023, 11.00am

£12
£7 DLA, UC & PIP
£5 Under 16s 

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Home› What's on› FAMILY CONCERT: IZZY GIZMO

Back by popular demand, this delightful family concert for 3–7 year-olds, is based on the best-selling children’s book ‘Izzy Gizmo’, by Pip Jones and illustrated by Sara Ogilvie.

The book tells the enchanting story of an intrepid young inventor who puts her talents to work to rescue a crow that can’t fly. This family concert brings Izzy’s mechanical marvels and infectious creative spirit to life! 

Original music by Paul Rissmann features instruments including strings, woodwind, horn and piano, and you might even spot the musicians playing pots, pans, whistles and household items! Together with story-telling and visuals from the book, this concert is a great introduction to live music for children. It’s full of wit, invention, songs and actions, and plenty of opportunities to join in. 

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. 

 

Polly Ives

Polly Ives is one of the UK’s leading music educationalists with a varied portfolio as a concert presenter, narrator, promoter, workshop leader, trainer and cellist.

Polly believes that music should be accessible to everyone from birth and throughout people’s lives. Her career has focused on finding unique and creative ways to provide high-quality musical experiences for young children (particularly 0-8 year olds) and their wide and varied communities.

She regularly produces and presents children’s concerts (including with London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Mozart Players and Ensemble 360). She has worked with CBeebies, BBC Radio 3 and Scala Radio. Find out more. 

FESTIVAL LAUNCH: SONGS AND DANCES

Tine Thing Helseth, Kathryn Stott & Ensemble 360

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield
Friday 12 May 2023, 7.15pm

£21
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Home› What's on› FESTIVAL LAUNCH: SONGS AND DANCES

MARTINŮ  La Revue De Cuisine (15’)
DVOŘÁK Slavonic Dances Nos. 1 and 2 (for piano four hands) (10’)
WEILL  Nanna’s Lied; Youkali; Je ne t’aime pas (8’)
DE FALLA Pantomime and Ritual Fire Dance from ‘El Amore Brujo’ (9’)
FRANÇAIX Dixtuor for string quintet and wind quintet (18’)
SAINT-SAËNS Septet for trumpet, string quintet and piano (18’) 

This concert will put a song in your heart and a dance in your step! International star trumpet player Tine Thing Helseth joins Ensemble 360 to launch Sheffield Chamber Music Festival 2023 in style, with the rhythms of charleston and tango from Martinů, de Falla’s instantly recognisable Fire Dance, and more.  

Festival Curator Kathryn Stott joins the party, playing Dvořák’s sumptuous Slavonic dances for piano four hands with Ensemble 360’s Tim Horton, and the evening comes to a rollicking end as Ensemble 360 are joined by both Tine and Kathy for a tour de force from Saint-Saëns.

Welcome Drinks
Celebrate the start of the Festival with us and enjoy a post-concert complimentary glass of wine or soft drink in the Crucible Foyer (served to all ticket-holders).

 

DVOŘÁK Antonín, Slavonic Dances Op.46, Nos.1 & 2

Presto (furiant)
Allegretto scherzando (dumka)

It was Brahms who recommended his publisher Simrock to take on the Bohemian composer Antonín Dvořák, then in his thirties but largely unknown outside Prague. After the success of the Moravian Duets in 1878, Simrock immediately asked Dvořák for a set of Czech dances for piano four-hands as companion pieces to Brahms’s Hungarian Dances. Dvořák was delighted at the prospect and wrote them quickly between 18 March and 7 May 1878, producing a set of very stylised pieces drawing on the forms and characteristics of Czech folk dances. The Slavonic Dances immediately enjoyed huge success, and in 1886 Dvořák produced a second set. The first dance is a furious Presto in the style of a furiant (very fast, with syncopations and cross-rhythms). The second is the only one of the set for which the composer took inspiration from beyond Czech lands: its origins were a Ukrainian Dumka, a wistful lament which is intercut with livelier episodes.  

© Nigel Simeone 

WEILL Kurt, Nanna’s Lied; Youkali; Je ne t’aime pas

Nannas Lied (1939) 
Youkali (1934) 
Je ne t’aime pas [I don’t love you] (1934) (arr. for trumpet and piano) 

After Kurt Weill heard Hanns Eisler’s 1936 setting of Bertolt Brecht’s Nannas Lied he decided that he wanted to make a version of his own, and just before Christmas 1939, he produced this song, dedicating it to the singer Lotte Lenya. Youkali, subtitled a ‘Tango-habanera’ was originally an instrumental Tango for Weill’s ill-fated French musical Marie Galante which opened in Paris on 22 December 1934. In 1946 a version for voice and piano was published as Youkali. Je ne t’aime pas was a song for voice and piano, on a text by Maurice Magre, also composed in 1934 during Weill’s time in France. As a prominent Jewish composer – renowned for The Threepenny Opera and The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny – Weill was forced to flee Nazi Germany in 1933 and eventually settled in New York in September 1935 where he was able to rebuild his career with successful Broadway works such as Lady in the Dark, One Touch of Venus, Street Scene and Lost in the Stars.  

 

© Nigel Simeone 

DE FALLA Manuel, Pantomime and Ritual Fire Dance from ‘El Amore Brujo’

El amor brujo, known in English as Love, the Magician began as gitaneria (danced entertainment) in 1915. In due course, Falla expanded the orchestration and made some other changes before the definitive version of the ballet was given for the first time on 22 May 1925, at the Théâtre du Trianon-Lyrique in Paris, conducted by the composer. Four years before then, Falla’s own piano arrangement of the Ritual Fire Dance was published in London and it immediately became a very popular recital piece with pianists including Arthur Rubinstein and Myra Hess. The Pantomime that precedes it here begins with some bold splashes of Andalusian colour before turning to a lilting theme in 7/8 time. In the ballet, the Ritual Fire Dance is the moment when the gypsy Candela seeks to cast out the malign ghost of her dead husband. During this dance, which grows from sinister beginnings to a ferocious climax, the ghost is drawn into the flames and vanishes forever. Falla made the present arrangement of the Pantomime and Ritual Fire Dance for piano and string quintet in 1926.

 

© Nigel Simeone 

FRANÇAIX Jean, Dixtuor

Larghetto tranquillo – Allegro 
Andante 
Scherzando 
Allegro 
 

Jean Françaix came from a musical family and took up composing at the age of six. He became a favourite pupil of Nadia Boulanger, and his youthful gifts were also recognised by Ravel. During the 1930s, his output included chamber music, orchestral pieces, ballets, the opera Le diable boiteux and an oratorio, L’Apocalypse selon Saint Jean. After World War Two, Françaix continued to produce a stream of new works, including several film scores. His style remained neo-classical, usually marked by a lightness of touch and wit. 

 

The Dixtuor, for string quintet and wind quintet, is one of his last major works, the manuscript dated at the end 24 October 1986. It was a commission for the Cologne-based Linos Ensemble which gave the premiere in 1987. The Dixtuor opens with a long, gentle introduction which gives way to a vigorous Allegro. The lyrical Andante opens with a melody shared by oboe and clarinet (over strings) before the rest of the ensemble join gradually. Marked Scherzando, the third movement makes virtuoso demands on the players, but it is music of genuine charm, with a slow (and endearingly odd) central Trio section. The finale is a brisk Allegro.  

© Nigel Simeone 

SAINT-SAËNS Camille, Septet Op.65

Préambule. Allegro moderato 
Menuet. Tempo di minuetto moderato 
Intermède. Andante 
Gavotte et Final. Allegro non troppo – Più allegro  
 

Saint-Saëns wrote his Septet for the chamber music society ‘La Trompette’ and dedicated the work to its founder, Émile Lemoine. La Trompette gave the first performance of the ‘Préambule’ at one of its soirées in the rue de Grenelle in January 1880 and the complete work was given its premiere on in December 1880, with Saint-Saëns at the piano.  

 

The dedicatee, Lemoine, noted down the origins of the piece on Saint-Saëns’s autograph manuscript: ‘For a long time, I’d been pestering my friend Saint-Saëns to compose something for our evenings at La Trompette, a serious work which included a trumpet mixed with the string instruments and piano which we normally had. At first he joked about this bizarre combination of instruments, saying that he would first write something for guitar and 13 trombones. In 1879 he gave me a piece for trumpet, piano, string quartet and double bass entitled Préambule which was played on 6 January 1880. It no doubt pleased Saint-Saëns because he told me afterwards that “you will have your complete piece and the Préambule will be the first movement”. He kept his word, and the Septet was played for the first time on 28 December 1880.’ 

 

The four movements give a clear indication of Saint-Saëns’s classical leanings and his fondness for ancient dance forms, but what gives the work its delightful individuality is the unusual mixture of instruments combined with particularly fertile melodic invention.  

 

© Nigel Simeone 

“Tine Thing Helseth’s playing is stylish in every way ”

Gramophone magazine 

About the Artists

Tine Thing Helseth

Since the beginning of her career, Norwegian trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth has championed the trumpet repertoire amongst audiences on all six continents, meriting the highest critical praise for her soulful, lyrical sound and collaborative approach to music-making. An artist who challenges the boundaries of genre with an intensely creative, open-minded philosophy, Tine’s ever-expanding repertoire ranges from the classical period to contemporary works and new commissions. Read more.

Classical pianist Kathryn Stott

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. 

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. 

 

SHEFFIELD JAZZ

Fergus McCreadie Trio

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield
Friday 13 January 2023, 7.30pm

£18
£16 Over 60, Disabled & Unemployed
£9 Students with NUS card
£4 Under 16s 


(Sheffield Jazz tickets do not qualify for any Music in the Round offers or discounts) 

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Fergus McCreadie (piano) 
David Bowden (bass) 
Stephen Henderson (drums) 

Award-winning jazz pianist Fergus McCreadie is an improviser of exceptional ability and a composer of elegant, nuanced and captivating music. He burst onto the scene with his self-released debut album Turas in 2018, while his third studio release Forest Floor has been shortlisted for the 2022 Mercury Prize. He cites Keith Jarrett as his greatest inspiration, but his music is rooted in a Scottish folk tradition while honouring the American and Nordic jazz legacies. The Trio’s live performances are exuberant, uplifting and soul-stirring experiences that have prompted comparisons with EST and The Bad Plus for sheer excitement and originality. 

“...his exquisite sense of melody remains undimmed, but the interaction between the pianist and the members of his trio is even more vigorous and vibrant than before, the intensity of their rapport deeply rooted in the jazz tradition ”

Review of Forest Floor album, The Jazz Mann

About the Artists

Fergus McCreadie Trio

Fergus McCreadie is one of the most exciting young jazz pianists on the world stage. With his unique blend of Jazz and Scottish folk music inspired by his country’s  sublime landscapes, Fergus captures the hearts and minds of audiences worldwide. He is undoubtedly a future star in the making.

Find out more.

CHOPIN FOR SOLO PIANO

Tim Horton

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield
Saturday 14 January 2023, 7.15pm

£21
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£5 Under 35s & Students 

 

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CHOPIN Prelude in C sharp minor Op.45 (5′)
BACH English Suite No.2 in A minor BWV 807 (15′)
CHOPIN Waltz in A minor Op.34 No.2 (6′)
CHOPIN Fantaisie in F minor Op.49 (13′)
CHOPIN 2 Polonaises Op.26 (13′)
CHOPIN 3 Mazurkas Op.63 (6′)
CHOPIN Polonaise-Fantaisie Op.61 (5′)

For this latest instalment in Tim Horton’s series focusing on Chopin’s music for solo piano, he brings together a range of the composer’s most personal and beautifully intimate works, together with a piece that influenced his music. Johann Sebastian Bach was the composer whom Chopin revered above all others, and his English Suites are works of incredible virtuosity.

CHOPIN Frédéric, Prelude in C sharp minor Op.45

Composed in 1841, the Prelude Op. 45 is quite different from the short pieces that make up the famous collection of Preludes Op. 28. It’s a more extended rather dream-like piece with an unusual and very chromatic cadenza just before the end. According to the Chopin scholar Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, this is an example of Chopin exploiting ‘colouristic effects unrelated to the thematic material’. Chopin was not known as a great lover of paintings, but he was a close friend of the artist Eugène Delacroix, who was himself passionately interested in music. According to Chopin, Delacroix ‘adores Mozart and knows all his operas by heart; he also spent many hours discussing music with Chopin, a subject about which the composer was famously reticent. Delacroix confided to his journal that Chopin ‘talked music with me … I asked him what establishes logic in music. He made me feel what counterpoint and harmony are; how fugue is like the pure logic in music.’ Eigeldinger has proposed in a fascinating article that the Prelude Op. 45 is a kind of reciprocal gesture: an attempt by Chopin to apply Delacroix’s theories of colour to music. The warm respect these two great creative artists had for each other is demonstrated by an extraordinary account by George Sand of Chopin improvising for Delacroix – the piece that, perhaps, became the Prelude Op. 45:

Chopin is at the piano … He improvises as if haphazardly … ‘Nothing’s coming to me, nothing but reflections, shadows, reliefs that won’t settle. I’m looking for the colour, but I can’t even find the outline.’ ‘You won’t find one without the other’, responds Delacroix, ‘and you’re going to find them both.’ ‘But if I find only the moonlight?’ … Little by little our eyes become filled with those soft colours corresponding to the suave modulations taken in by our auditory senses. And then the note bleue resonates and there we are, in the azure of the transparent night … We dream of a summer night: we await the nightingale. A sublime melody arises.

Nigel Simeone 2010

CHOPIN Frédéric, Waltz in A minor Op.34 No.2

Chopin’s three Grandes valses brillantes Op. 34 were published in 1838. The second waltz in the set suggests that the collective title was a misnomer. Chronologically, it was the first to be composed, probably in 1831, and rather than ‘brilliant’, the mood is lacrymose and melancholic. Marked ‘Lento’, it opens with a melody in the left hand that seems to wander disconsolately, before giving way to an idea in the right hand, at first halting but eventually taking wing. Two brief episodes in A major hint at something more hopeful, but at the end, Chopin returns to the left-hand melody from the opening, and the piece fizzles out in a state of despair.  

 Nigel Simeone, 2021 

CHOPIN Frédéric, Fantaisie in F minor Op.49

Chopin completed his Fantasy in F minor, Op.49, in October 1841 and he wrote about it in touching terms to his friend Julian Fontana: ‘Today I finished the Fantasy – and the sky is beautiful, there’s a sadness in my heart – but that’s alright. If it were otherwise, perhaps my existence would be worth nothing to anyone.’ In spite of the composer’s self-doubt, the Fantasy is one of his greatest single-movement works, hailed by Chopin’s biographer Frederick Niecks as ‘a masterpiece’ and among the late pieces described by the English Gerald Abraham as ‘the crown of Chopin’s work.’ Vigorous and passionate, it includes allusions to the Polish revolutionary song ‘Litwinka’, sung by patriots at the November Uprising in 1830. The form evolves with apparent freedom recalling the design of Mozart’s C minor Fantasy. The start is a solemn march which gives way to an explosive Agitato section. A plethora of themes follows, and a notable moment comes with the arrival of a chorale-like section (marked Lento sostenuto) in the extremely remote key of B major before a return of material heard earlier and a triumphant conclusion in A flat major.  

 

Nigel Simeone

CHOPIN Frédéric, Two Polonaises Op.26

Chopin had been fascinated the polonaise, a Polish national dance, since childhood. Both of his Polonaises, Op.26, were published in 1836 and are in minor keys. The first uses polonaise rhythms to fiercely dramatic effect in its outer sections, with a conciliatory and lyrical central Trio. The second is filled with dark passions, whether in the explosive main idea (preceded by fragments of polonaise rhythms) or in the hushed central section in B major.  

 

Nigel Simeone

CHOPIN Frédéric, Three Mazurkas Op.63

No. 1 in B major
No. 2 in F minor
No. 3 in C sharp minor

This group of three Mazurkas was the last set to be published during Chopin’s lifetime, appearing in 1847 with a dedication to the Countess Laure Czosnowska – a Polish friend of Chopin’s who was reputedly very beautiful and certainly much disliked by George Sand. After a visit to Chopin and Sand at Nohant (in company with the artist Delacroix, the singer Pauline Viardot and Chopin’s old friend Wojciech Grzymala), Sand told Chopin that Laure’s conversation induced migraine, and even that her dog had bad breath. By contrast, Chopin was always delighted by her company, and enjoyed the chance to talk to her in Polish.

Composed the previous year, they form a contrasted group: in terms of speed the three are marked Vivace, Lento and Allegretto. The key contrasts are more extreme: from B major to F minor and C sharp minor. In a long letter to his family dated 11 October 1846 and sent from Nohant, Chopin revealed something of his fastidious and self-critical nature in connection with the composition of these Mazurkas: ‘I have three new mazurkas, I do not think that they are too similar to the old ones … but it takes time to judge properly. When I composed them, it seemed that were good – if it were otherwise I would never write anything. But later comes reflection, and one rejects or accepts it. Time is the best judge, and patience the best master.’ Chopin’s biographer Frederick Niecks marvelled at the originality of these pieces, and he is quoted admiringly by his James Huneker, who add some further praise of his own.

Niecks believes there is a return of the early freshness and poetry in the last three Mazurkas, op. 63. ‘They are, indeed, teeming with interesting matter’, he writes. ‘Looked at from the musician’s point of view, how much do we not see novel and strange, beautiful and fascinating withal? Sharp dissonances, chromatic passing notes, suspensions and anticipations, displacement of accent, progressions of perfect fifths – the horror of schoolmen – sudden turns and unexpected digressions that are so unaccountable, so out of the line of logical sequence, that one’s following the composer is beset with difficulties. But all this is a means to an end, the expression of an individuality with its intimate experiences. The emotional content of many of these trifles – trifles if considered only by their size – is really stupendous.’ Spoken like a brave man and not a pedant! Full of vitality is the first number of op. 63. In B major, it is sufficiently various in figuration and rhythmical life to single it from its fellows. The next, in F minor, has a more elegiac ring … The third, of winning beauty, is in C sharp minor … I defy anyone to withstand the pleading, eloquent voice of this Mazurka.

It was also the mazurkas that produced one of Schumann’s most memorable descriptions of Chopin’s music, presenting them not as experiments in a traditional dance form, but as acts of resistance against the Russian Empire that had suppressed Poland in 1830 (precipitating Chopin’s move to Paris): ‘Fate rendered Chopin still more individual and interesting in endowing him with an original, pronounced nationality: Polish. And because this nationality wanders in mourning robes in the thoughtful artist it deeply attracts us … If the powerful Autocrat of the North knew what a dangerous enemy threatens him in Chopin’s works, in the simple melodies of his mazurkas, he would forbid music. Chopin’s works are cannons buried in flowers.’

Nigel Simeone 2010

CHOPIN Frédéric, Polonaise-Fantaisie Op.6

The Polonaise-Fantasy Op. 61 is a magnificent example of Chopin’s late style. In the mid-1840s he was searching for new forms and the Polonaise-Fantasy was only given a title after the work was finished. By combining heroic elements of the polonaise with the freer, more melancholy mood of the fantasia, the result is a glorious poetic vision summarised by the British Chopin scholar Arthur Hedley, as ‘pride in the past, lamentation for the present, hope for the future.’  

 

Nigel Simeone

“Tim Horton’s unaffected, heartfelt playing is perfectly judged.”

The Arts Desk

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. 

SHOSTAKOVICH & BEETHOVEN STRING QUARTETS

Ensemble 360

Upper Chapel, Sheffield
Saturday 28 January 2023, 7.00pm

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

 

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Home› What's on› SHOSTAKOVICH & BEETHOVEN STRING QUARTETS

STRAVINSKY Three Pieces for String Quartet (7′)
SHOSTAKOVICH String Quartet No.3 Op.73 (32′)
BEETHOVEN String Quartet Op.135 (26′) 

“Must it be? It must be!” Beethoven inscribed these words on the manuscript of his profoundly moving final string quartet. This Op.135 quartet was written towards the very end of his life, and is touched by the wisdom of his years yet as full of contrast, quick wit and struggle as any of earlier works.  

Two masterpieces of the 20th century are presented alongside Beethoven’s quartet: Stravinsky’s wonderfully inventive short pieces and Shostakovich’s masterful third quartet, which encompasses the scope of a symphony in an intimate chamber work. 

STRAVINSKY Igor, Three Pieces for String Quartet

Composed in 1914, Stravinsky revised these pieces in 1918 when he dedicated them to the Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet. The first performance was given in Paris in May 1915 by a quartet which included the composer Darius Milhaud playing violin, while the 1918 version had its premiere in London on 13 February 1919. The work comprises three short movements without titles or tempo markings. Though the dimensions of the pieces are slight, Stravinsky managed to baffle (and infuriate) early critics with the unusual sound effects and performance markings in places, and the deliberate absence of any conventional forms or traditional thematic development. Instead, the mood is by turns stange and grotesque. The second piece was inspired by the comedian Little Tich (Harry Relph) whose jerky stage act had impressed Stravinsky during a visit to London in 1914. The result might almost be described as an anti-quartet, and as the critic Paul Griffiths later remarked, these little pieces are ‘determinedly not a “string quartet”. The notion of quartet dialogue has no place here, nor have subtleties of blend: the texture is completely fragmented, with each instrument sounding for itself.’  

 Nigel Simeone 

SHOSTAKOVICH Dmitri, String Quartet No.3 in F major Op.73

Shostakovich began his Third String Quartet in January 1946 but made no progress beyond the second movement until May when he went with his family to spend the summer at a dacha near the Finnish border. According to Beria (head of the Soviet secret police) in a letter to Shostakovich, this retreat was a personal gift from Stalin. It was a productive summer and the quartet was completed on 2 August 1946. The same day Shostakovich wrote to Vassily Shirinsky, second violinist of the Beethoven Quartet: ‘I have never been so pleased with a composition as with this Quartet. I am probably wrong, but that is exactly how I feel right now.’ The Beethoven Quartet gave the first performance at the Moscow Conservatory on 16 December 1946. Though there was an ominous silence from official critics, Shostakovich’s reputation was still high among the nation’s leaders: on 28 December he was given the Order of Lenin and each member of the Beethoven Quartet received the Order of the Red Banner of Labour. Just a year later the Third Quartet was denounced in the journal Sovetskaya musika as ‘modernist and false music.’

Although Shostakovich had no overt programme in mind, he invested a great deal of private emotion in the work – sufficient, as Fyodor Druzhinin (violist of the Beethoven Quartet) recalled, for the music to move the composer to tears when he attended a rehearsal in the 1960s, twenty years after he had written it. The start of the first movement, in F major, recalls the Haydn-like mood of the Ninth Symphony (completed in 1945) and this is followed by a contrasting idea, played pianissimo. The development includes some turbulent fugal writing, injecting a sense of unease that hovers over the rest of the movement. The Moderato con moto (in E minor) is based on a series of sinister ostinato figures and frequent repetitions while the third movement is a violent scherzo in G sharp minor. The Adagio is an extended passacaglia (ground bass) that gives way to a Moderato in which some kind of resolution is found in the closing bars, ending with three pizzicato F major chords.

 

Nigel Simeone

“Vividly present playing and discreet virtuosity”

PlanetHugill.com

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. 

 

ROMANTIC PIANO TRIOS

Leonore Piano Trio

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield
Saturday 18 February 2023, 7.00pm

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

Doors open 6.30pm

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**Please note the earlier start time for this concert. Doors open at 6.30pm, concert starts at 7pm.**

HAYDN Piano Trio in A Hob:XV No.18 (17′)
TCHAIKOVSKY The Seasons (selection) arr. for piano trio (12′)
TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Trio Op.50 (47′) 

The much-loved Leonores continue their series of great Romantic works for violin, cello and piano alongside Haydn’s joyful piano trios, which sparkle with endless invention and life. Opening with the dazzling brightness of Haydn, the rich colours of Tchaikovsky follow in two works by the celebrated composer.  

The Seasons take us on a journey through a year in St Petersburg, from a crackling fireside, through carnivals, star-filled skies on a summer night and the fall of autumn leaves. Just a few years after The Seasons, Tchaikovsky wrote his Piano Trio, a work steeped in heroic passion and drama that both laments and celebrates the loss of a close friend. Many have called it his greatest piece of chamber music, writing at the peak of his melodic powers. 

HAYDN Joseph, Piano Trio in A major Hob XV:18

Allegro moderato 
Andante 
Allegro 
 

Haydn’s Piano Trio in A major is a work that shows the composer at his most genial and his most inventive. Many of his trios are essentially piano sonatas with accompaniment, but in this work the violin and cello are much more important participants in the ensemble right from the start. After the three arresting chords that open the first movement, Haydn introduces an idea that is taken up in imitation by all three instruments. A few years later, Haydn was to use an almost identical opening gesture to begin one of his greatest string quartets, the G major Quartet Op.76 No.1. The combination of contrapuntal writing – usually thought of as ‘learned’ – with a wonderfully genial spirit makes for a potent mixture in the first movement. The central development section contains some extraordinary harmonic surprises, as fragments of the opening idea are taken into some remote keys. The lilting slow movement – in a minor key – is a wistful interlude that leads directly into a ‘gypsy’ style finale full of syncopations, accents off the main beats, and a driving rhythmic energy, all based on a single theme. Near the end Haydn enjoys a brief excursion into some remote keys, before bringing the movement to a rousing close.  

 

It’s easy to underestimate Haydn’s trios: more than forty of them survive but relatively few of these are played regularly. This A major Trio is an outstanding example: it’s not only melodically rich but endlessly inventive. It was first published in London by Longman and Broderip in 1794 as one of a set of ‘Three Sonatas’ for piano with accompaniment for violin and cello. In Amsterdam the same year, the firm of J.J. Hummel issued it as one of ‘Three Grand Trios’ – an interesting reflection of what would appeal to different national markets, but in the case of this ebullient little masterpiece the Amsterdam title seems much more appropriate.  

 

Nigel Simeone 

TCHAIKOVSKY Piotr, The Seasons

In 1875, while working on Swan Lake, Tchaikovsky was commissioned to write a set of twelve piano pieces which were published in monthly instalments by the St Petersburg magazine Nuvellist. In November 1875, Tchaikovksy wrote to the magazine’s editor Nicolay Bernard to thank him for the commission, adding that he was ‘grateful for your courtesy and readiness to pay me such a high fee.’ And in its December issue the magazine announced that ‘Our celebrated composer P. I. Tchaikovsky has promised the editor of Nuvellist, that he will contribute to next year’s issues a whole series of his piano compositions, specially written for our journal, the character of which will correspond entirely to the titles of the pieces, and the month in which they will be published in the journal.’ The twelve pieces were composed between December 1875 and the summer of 1876. 

 

The composer and pianist Alexander Goedicke – a native of Moscow, student at the Conservatoire there and winner of the Anton Rubinstein Competition in 1900 – made this arrangement of The Seasons for piano trio which is particularly successful: introducing the colours of string instruments while maintaining the intimate character of Tchaikovsky’s original pieces. 

 

© Nigel Simeone 

TCHAIKOVSKY Piotr, Piano Trio in A minor Op.50

Pezzo elegiaco (Moderato assai. Allegro giusto) 
Tema con variazioni
Andante con moto
Variazioni
Finale e coda 
 

Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio is subtitled ‘to the memory of a great artist’: a memorial to the composer’s friend and mentor Nicolai Rubinstein who died in 1881. The choice of ensemble for this piece in his memory was surprising since a year earlier Tchaikovsky had told his patron Nazdezhda von Meck, that “to my ears the acoustic combination of piano with violin or cello solo is completely incompatible. In this sonority the instruments seem to repel one another, and I assure you that any kind of trio or sonata with piano or cello is absolute torture for me.” Clearly he changed his mind, since he started work on a trio that was conceived on a positively epic scale. A year later he completed the work in Rome on 9 February 1882. 

It is an expansive lamentation in two long movements. The first, ‘Elegiac piece’, is a large sonata-form that opens with the theme that is to dominate the whole work. The second movement is an extended set of variations on a folk tune. Each of the variations is a kind of character piece, by turns elegant, charming, robustly energetic and darkly moving – at the close the music returns to a mood of despair as the opening theme returns in octaves on the violin and cello before its final transformation into a funeral march.  

© Nigel Simeone 

“a soaring potency and impassioned eloquence”

The Strad

About the Artists

Leonore Piano Trio

Formed in 2012, the Leonore Piano Trio brings together three internationally acclaimed artists whose piano trio performances as part of Ensemble 360 were met with such enthusiastic response that they decided to form a piano trio in its own right. The Trio has since given concerts both at home and in many other parts of the world, combining a comprehensive repertoire of works by the celebrated classical and romantic composers; an unrivalled exploration of lesser-known and forgotten pieces from the 19th century; exciting and innovative performances for young audiences and a range of contemporary and new works.

Find out more. 

BRAHMS, SCHUMANN & MORE

Ensemble 360

Upper Chapel, Sheffield
Friday 10 February 2023, 3.00pm / 7.00pm

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

 

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R SCHUMANN Three Romances for Oboe & Piano (12′)
BRAHMS Viola Sonata Op.120 No.1 (23′)
KLUGHARDT Five Schilflieder (20′) 

Luxurious music from three Romantic masters. Schumann’s three romances are beguiling, colourful works that showcase the contrasting tones of the oboe and piano. Brahms’s rhapsodic sonata is characterised by a yearning intensity that builds toward a lively conclusion by way of a widely celebrated, achingly beautiful slow movement. Klughardt’s evocative and dreamy ‘Songs of the Reeds’ entwine the three distinct musical voices of viola, oboe and piano to describe a wanderer’s journey through changing scenes and weather, concluding in gentle moonlight. 

SCHUMANN Robert, Three Romances for Oboe and Piano

Nicht schnell  
Einfach, innig  
Nicht schnell   

Having written pieces for clarinet and horn early in 1849, Schumann finished what he called his ‘most fruitful year’ with the Three Romances for oboe and piano, completed at Christmas 1849. Like the Fantasy Pieces for clarinet, the Romances were written for domestic performance, described by the American musicologist Stephen Hefling as ‘Poetic Hausmusik’. But in Schumann’s case, there’s a reflective quality that invests these pieces with a depth that goes beyond their modest purpose. 

© Nigel Simeone 

BRAHMS Johannes, Viola Sonata in F minor Op.120 No.1

Allegro appassionato
Andante un poco adagio
Allegretto grazioso
Vivace

When Brahms wrote his two clarinet sonatas for his muse Richard Mühlfeld during a summer at Ischl in 1894, he always conceived alternative versions of them with a viola in place of the clarinet. He made careful alterations to create idiomatic viola parts and when the two sonatas were published in June 1895 they were issued with both clarinet and viola parts (Brahms also made versions for violin as well).

The viola is certainly ideally suited to the darker hues of the F minor Sonata. The differences in the viola version are mostly to do with passages taken down an octave, the occasional addition of appoggiaturas and double stoppings as well as changes to expression and dynamic markings, while the piano part remains completely unchanged. The viola versions present the same music in subtly different instrumental colours and in both works this provides a distinctive alternative view.

The F minor Sonata is in four movements: the first is often stern and dramatic, though there are some heart-stoppingly beautiful moments of repose. The movement ends quietly in F major. The Andante un poco adagio that follows (in A flat major) has a restrained eloquence that makes a profound but extremely poetic impact. With the Allegretto grazioso the mood genial – a scherzo substitute that serves as a kind of lyrical intermezzo. Robust and forthright, the finale opens in F major – its expressive intentions made clear from the three repeated notes that begin the main theme – and brings the work to an impassioned conclusion.

© Nigel Simeone

KLUGHARDT August, Schilflieder Op.28

Drüben geht die Sonne scheiden [The sun is sinking over there] 
Trübe wirds, die Wolken jagen [Darkness falls, the clouds are flying] 
Auf geheimen Waldespfade [Along a secret forest path] 
Sonnenuntergang [Sunset] 
Auf dem Teich, dem regungslosen [On the pond, the motionless one] 
 

August Klughardt may not be a familiar name today, but his career as a composer and conductor was distinguished. In 1869 he moved Weimar to become music director at the ducal court, and there he met and befriended Franz Liszt. A few years later he met Wagner and became associated with the New German School, a group of young composers who promoted the progressive values of Liszt, Wagner and Berlioz. But Klughardt was also attracted to Schumann’s music and to conventional forms (he wrote six symphonies). The Schilflieder (‘Reed Songs’) were composed in 1872 during his time in Weimar, are they notable for several reasons. First, there’s the instrumental combination for oboe, viola and piano – an ensemble for which very little has been composed. Second, the poetic inspiration is quite explicit: in the published score, Nikolaus Lenau’s poems are printed above the music, almost like song lyrics, with specific moments and moods reflected by Klughardt in his sensitive musical reflections on Lenau’s melancholy tales of man amid nature. Third, the score bears a fine dedication: ‘To Franz Liszt, in deepest admiration’ – an indication of the warm friendship between the two composers at this time.  

 

Published in 1832, Lenau’s Schilflieder have been set as songs by numerous composers from Robert Franz in 1842 to Schoenberg and Berg at the turn of the century, but Klughardt’s instrumental settings are notable for being a piece of chamber music that is so intimately linked to the poems that inspired it. Lenau’s poems prompted several great composers to write purely instrumental music – Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz No.1, Richard Strauss’s Don Juan and the third movement of Mahler’s Symphony No.3 – but Klughardt in his Schilflieder seems to be the only composer to have taken Lenau as the source for a piece of chamber music.  The subtitle – ‘Fantasiestücke’ – at once recalls Schumann, and his influence is strong throughout these five pieces. The first, is marked ‘slow and dreamy’ and the second ‘Impassioned’. The central movement, ‘Gentle, quietly moving’ is followed by the most dramatic of the five, marked ‘Fiery’, and the final piece brings the set to close in a mood of tranquillity.  

 

© Nigel Simeone 

“The emotional chemistry here was manifestly unusual… pure magic!”

Sunday Telegraph

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. 

 

CLASSICAL WEEKEND: CELLO SONATAS

Ensemble 360

Upper Chapel, Sheffield
Friday 17 March 2023, 1.00pm / 7.00pm

£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: CELLO SONATAS

BEETHOVEN Cello Sonata Op.5 No.1 (24′)
BEETHOVEN Cello Sonata Op.5 No.2 (25′) 

To launch Classical Weekend 2023, Ensemble 360 presents a recital of Beethoven’s virtuosic music for cello and piano.  

These two early works for piano and cello are the perfect introduction to the unique musical mind of Beethoven. Breaking out of the established formula of simple keyboard accompaniment for a solo instrument, Beethoven broke the mould by creating works in which the two instruments were true equals: in conversation and competition, wrestling and supporting one another to create dazzling musical journeys that remain thrillingly fresh and deeply moving.  

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

BEETHOVEN Ludwig Van, Cello Sonatas Op.5 No.1 & No.2

Cello Sonata No.1 in F, Op.5 No.1 

Adagio sostenuto. Allegro 

Rondo. Allegro vivace 

 

Cello Sonata No.2 in G minor Op.5 No.2 

Adagio sostenuto ed espressivo – Allegro molto più tosto presto 

Rondo. Allegro 

 

In 1796 Beethoven travelled from Vienna to Prague, Dresden and Berlin. In Berlin he heard the cellist Jean-Louis Duport at the court of Friedrich Wilhelm II. The King himself was also an enthusiastic amateur cellist to whom Mozart had dedicated his ‘Prussian’ Quartets, and though it was Duport who gave the first performance of the Op.5 sonatas, Beethoven was eager to attract aristocratic patronage and dedicated them to ‘His Majesty Friedrich Wilhelm II, King of Prussia’. He was rewarded handsomely, with a gold box full of gold coins, but no commissions followed, since the musical monarch died a year later. In his 1838 reminiscences of Beethoven, his pupil Ferdinand Ries wrote that ‘Beethoven played several times at the court of King Friedrich Wilhelm II, where he played the two grand sonatas with obbligato violoncello, Op.5 which he had composed for Duport, first violoncellist of the King, and himself. On his departure he received a gold snuffbox filled with Louis d’Or. Beethoven told me with pride that it was no ordinary snuffbox, but one of the kind that are presented to ambassadors.’  

The two sonatas were published in 1797 and they were innovative in terms of the instrumentation – neither Haydn nor Mozart had written sonatas for cello and piano. But their significance goes far beyond the scoring, since some of Beethoven’s boldest early musical ideas are to be found here. 

The 1st Sonata in F major opens with a slow introduction in which cello and piano creep in with a theme in octaves, but as the musical argument develops so does the distinctive role of each instrument. Billed – as was the custom of the time – as a ‘Sonata for Piano and Cello’, Beethoven establishes a sophisticated dialogue between the two musical partners. The main Allegro theme is introduced by the piano, with the cello providing the accompaniment, and the roles are then reversed for the second statement of the tune. The second (and last) movement begins with the cello and piano mirroring each other’s every gesture, and with only brief moments of respite, the music works towards a dramatic close.   

The 2nd Sonata in G minor begins with a slow introduction that presents a dramatic dialogue between the instruments. A more lyrical melody is heard on the cello, echoed by the piano, and the ideas already introduced are woven into a texture dominated by the descending scale from the opening, but now mirrored by an ascending scale, in an impassioned interchange between cello and piano. The slow introduction sinks into uneasy silences before the main Allegro molto più tosto presto. Here the principal theme is introduced by the cello, quickly answered by the piano. There are moments of repose (including a dancing theme introduced in the development section), but for most of this movement, there’s a powerful feeling of energetic momentum. Beethoven already demonstrates in this early work an ability to create a startlingly vivid musical landscape with the greatest economy – something he was to do in so many later works – by developing a few terse ideas to the fullest possible extent. For the concluding Rondo, Beethoven moves to G major, in a movement with a certain formal elegance at the start, and interrupted with a few darker outbursts, but above this finale is an affirmative celebration of instrumental virtuosity. 

 © Nigel Simeone  

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. 

 

SOUNDS OF NOW: APARTMENT HOUSE PLAYS FELDMAN

Apartment House

Channing Hall, Sheffield
Saturday 18 March 2023, 7.00pm

£16
£10 DLA, UC & 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› SOUNDS OF NOW: APARTMENT HOUSE PLAYS FELDMAN

FELDMAN Violin and String Quartet (135’) 

One of the greatest modernist composers of the 20th century, Morton Feldman often likened his music to studying the detail of Persian carpets, in which sequences of repeated shapes and colours create vast and endlessly fascinating patterns. Likewise, Feldman’s mind-bending music stretches time through tiny fragments that shimmer with hypnotic beauty. This is a rare chance to hear one of his immense works performed in full by the fantastic musicians of Apartment House, and we invite you, as Feldman always intended, to listen in a way that makes you feel comfortable, with the option to take breaks for refreshments from the bar. 

Presented in partnership with Another Timbre records and University of Sheffield Concerts.

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

About the Artists

Apartment House

Apartment House has been captivating audiences with performances of avant-garde and experimental music for more than 20 years. The group, created by cellist Anton Lukoszevieze in 1995, has performed all over the world, from Moscow to Vancouver and from Barcelona to Vilnius. Recent performances further afield include tours of Russia, Canada and a nine-concert series in Melbourne, Australia.

The ensemble has been a firm fixture on the British concert scene, with regular performances at Café Oto and a recent residency at the Wigmore Hall. Apartment House is the most frequently featured UK ensemble in the history of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and its 2011 concert of music by John Cage sold out the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre earning them a Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Chamber Music. The ensemble has made a substantial number of live and studio recordings for BBC Radio 3 as well as live recordings for many European stations including Danish Radio DR, Swedish Radio 2, WDR Cologne, ORTF Austria, Radio France and Deutschlandfunk, Berlin.

Find out more.