JS BACH Flute Sonata in G minor BWV1020 (12’) FAURÉ Fantasie Op.79 (5’) RAVEL Pavane pour une infante défunte (5′) NEILSEN The Fog is Lifting (3′) ALWYN Naiades Fantasy Sonata (13’) DEBUSSY Syrinx(3′) DEBUSSY Claire de lune(5′) ROTA Sonata for Flute and Harp (13’) PIAZZOLLA Bordel 1900 from ‘Histoire de Tango’ (4’) BORNE ‘Carmen’ Fantasie (13’)
The chart-topping and multi-award-winning “queen of harps”, Catrin Finch, joins Ensemble 360’s flautist Juliette Bausor for a glorious afternoon of duos. Arrangements and original works for this classic instrumental combination will sweep you away in this rare collaboration between two long-time friends.
The concert marks Catrin’s long-awaited return to Music in the Round, following her memorable sold-out performance with Senegalese kora player Seckou Keita in 2018.
Post-concert Q&A with Catrin Finch & Juliette Bausor Free, no need to book, just stay after the concert.
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Fantasies for Flute & Harp
Flute and harp duos have a history stretching back hundreds of years. The combination of instruments was very popular in the salons and courts of France in the mid-18th and early 19th centuries, mainly as a result of the harp’s most famous patron Marie Antoinette. Many courts and chateaux around France owned a harp and evening recitals of solo harp, or harp together with flute or violin, were commonplace. Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp K299 was composed in 1778 for the Duke of Guines and his daughter, helping establish this pairing in the concert repertoire.
The combination fell out of favour in the mid-19th century, but experienced a renaissance in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when French composers, drawn to its impressionistic colours and delicate textures, rediscovered its possibilities. Debussy in particular used the flute and harp’s capacity for creating shimmering, atmospheric soundscapes, while subsequent composers including Ravel, Roussel and Fauré contributed works that cemented the duo’s place in modern repertoire. Today, the pairing continues to attract composers across all styles, from neoclassical to contemporary, who are captivated by the instruments’ complementary timbres.
BACH Pièce d’Orgue BWV572 (6’) GIBBONS Two In Nomines in 5 parts (8’) DEBUSSY La fille aux cheveux de lin (3’) PURCELL Fantazia Upon One Note (3’) BALDWIN Proporcions to the minim(3’) PARSONS In Nomine (2’) TYE Trust (2’) DESMOND & REES Take Five In Nomines (6’) PÄRT Fratres (9’) WEELKES In Nomine in 5 parts (3’) GOUGH Birds on Fire, Part I (6’) BYRD Fantasy: two parts in one the fourth above (6’) BYRD Browning (4’) BUSH/BEAMISH Running Up That Hill (5’)
For nearly 40 years, Fretwork has been celebrated as the world’s leading viol consort.
Returning to the Crucible Playhouse for the first time in over a decade, these acclaimed musicians share a playful and imaginative evening of music. Together, they trace a journey through core viol repertoire from Byrd and Weelkes, a Bach transcription, arrangements of great Romantic works and Arvo Pärt’s stirring modern classic ‘Fratres’. The concert culminates in an arrangement of a Kate Bush classic by one of Britain’s leading contemporary composers.
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Fretwork: Take Five
Bach’s Fantasia or Piece d’Orgue was originally written, as the name suggests, for organ. In it, a dynamic and cheerful opening leads to a contrapuntal central section in five voices, realised here on the five viols of the consort. Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625) was an English composer and keyboard player. His Nomine in 5 Parts, composed around 1610, are among the most celebrated consort works of the Jacobean era. By contrast, Debussy’s La fille aux cheveux de lin, originally a solo piano piece, evokes the ‘girl with flaxen hair’ of Leconte de Lisle’s poem of the same name. The number five continues later in the programme with the jazz standard, composed by Paul Desmond and made famous by the Dave Brubeck Quartet.
Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s Fratres has fast become a modern classic. Written without fixed instrumentation, it is driven by three voices that unfold simple repeating melodic material. Back in England, William Byrd (c.1540-1623) was one of the most influential composers of the Renaissance. The Fantasia was a popular form; with roots in improvisation, it seldom followed a strict musical form but was instead composed around an imaginative musical idea. The programme ends with music of an altogether different kind – Sally Beamish’s arrangement of Kate Bush’s iconic Running Up That Hill.
C SCHUMANN (arr. Tress) Three Romances (10’) MOZART String Quartet in C ‘Dissonance’ (22’) SCHUBERT String Quartet No.13 ‘Rosamunde’ (30’)
The “top-notch” (Allmusic) Consone Quartet has won numerous illustrious prizes, was the first period instrument quartet to be selected as BBC New Generation Artists and is rapidly building a following as Music in the Round’s Visiting Quartet.
This promises to be a captivating programme of music including Clara Schumann’s ‘Three Romances’ in a lush string quartet arrangement. Mozart’s striking ‘Dissonance’ Quartet, with its innovative opening, unfolds into the composer’s signature elegance and vitality. Schubert’s lyrical ‘Rosamunde’ Quartet concludes the evening, with its lush melodic themes woven through moments of tender melancholy and exuberant joy.
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SCHUMANN Clara, Three Romances for violin and piano, Op.22
i. Andante molto
ii. Allegretto, mit zarten Vortrage
iii. Leidenschaftlich schnell
Clara and Robert Schumann moved to Düsseldorf in early 1853, and found a house where Clara could practice and compose without disturbing her husband. She made the most of their improved circumstances and wrote several new pieces during the summer of 1853, including the Three Romances dedicated to Joseph Joachim, a close friend of both Robert and Clara. These character pieces, of which the third is much the longest, are among the last pieces Clara composed: Robert’s mental health took a turn for the worst the following year and he was moved to a sanatorium where Clara was only allowed to visit when it was clear that he was dying in 1856. After his death, she composed almost nothing, concentrating on playing the piano and overseeing Robert’s musical legacy.
Nigel Simeone 2014
MOZART Wolfgang Amadeus, String Quartet in C K465
Adagio–Allegro
Andante cantabile
Menuetto. Allegro
Allegro molto
In 1785 the Viennese publisher Artaria issued a set of six string quartets by Mozart, the title page of which reads: ‘Six Quartets for two violins, viola and violoncello. Composed and dedicated to Signor Joseph Haydn, Master of Music for the Prince of Esterhazy, by his friend W.A. Mozart.’ This was a most unusual dedication for the time: composers nearly always dedicated works to the aristocrats who supported them financially, not to fellow musicians. The Artaria edition of the six ‘Haydn’ Quartets includes a long dedicatory epistle dated 1 September 1785, and headed ‘To my dear friend Haydn’. The quartets, he writes, are ‘the fruit of a long and laborious study,’ but that Haydn himself had told Mozart of his ‘satisfaction with them during your last visit to this capital. It is this above all which urges me to commend them to you … and to be their father, guide and friend!’
This admiration was mutual: after hearing these quartets, Haydn told Mozart’s father that ‘your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name.’ Mozart’s ‘long and laborious study’ included a detailed examination of Haydn’s Six Quartets Op.33, which had been composed in 1781. Though Mozart’s music is very much his own in this magnificent set of quartets, it is interesting to note that the scholar David Wyn Jones has found striking parallels between the two sets of quartets, including the slow movements of Op.33 No.1 and K465.
The ‘Dissonance’ Quartet K465 is so called because of the extraordinary slow introduction to the first movement, described by Maynard Solomon as ‘an alien universe’ in which ‘reality has been defamiliarized, the uncanny has supplanted the commonplace.’ In this introduction, Solomon writes that ‘Mozart has simulated the transition from darkness to light, from the underworld to the surface.’ It is a passage of the most extreme chromaticism, but it reaches, finally, the simplicity of C major with the arrival of the main Allegro. The slow movement has parallels with the slow movement of Haydn’s Quartet Op.33 No.1, but it is also a magnificent movement in its own right. The Mozart biographer Otto Jahn waxed lyrical, calling it ‘one of those wonderful manifestations of genius which are only of the earth insofar as they take effect upon human minds, and which soar aloft into a region of blessedness where suffering and passion are transfigured.’ The Minuet has a darker central section in the minor key while the finale is unclouded apart from the occasional surprising twist of harmony – another subtle tribute to the genius of the work’s dedicatee.
Nigel Simeone 2014
SCHUBERT String Quartet No.13 ‘Rosamunde’
Allegro ma non troppo
Andante
Menuetto – Allegretto – Trio
Allegro moderato
Schubert finished his Octet on 1 March 1824 and the A minor Quartet was completed just a few days later. By the end of the same month he had not only written a handful of songs but also the ‘Death and the Maiden’ Quartet. In the space of little more than a month, he had composed three chamber music masterpieces, each of them highly distinctive. The A minor Quartet was given its first performance at the Musikverein in Vienna, played by the Schuppanzigh Quartet which went on the following year to give the premieres of Beethoven’s Op.127, Op.130 and Op.132 quartets. Most of Schubert’s chamber music (including ‘Death and the Maiden’) was only published after his death, but the A minor Quartet – optimistically billed as the first in a set of three – was published by Sauer & Leidesdorf in September 1824, with a dedication from Schubert ‘to his friend Schuppanzigh’.
For much of the time, the mood of this quartet is one of almost numbing melancholy. The first movement opens with a bleak accompaniment figure, the cello introducing a tremulous rhythm, over which the first violin enters with a drooping melody of infinite sadness. This sets the tone for much of what follows. The slow movement is a reworking of one of the entr’actes from Schubert’s Rosamunde music, giving the quartet its nickname. The wraith-like Minuet also draws on an earlier source, the song Der Götter Griechenlands D677, composed in 1819 and setting the words: ‘Schöne Welt, wo bist du?’ – ‘Beautiful world, where are you?’ The mood of quiet restraint is even maintained in the finale but here the clouds seem to lift, at least for a moment, and the music ends with a strong cadence in A major.
Nigel Simeone
“This was ‘serious’ music-making – concentrated, thoughtful, carefully considered – but the Quartet’s interpretations were fresh and personal, and the playing relaxed and warm.”
BRAHMS Sonata in E minor Op.38 (25’) BRITTEN Sonata for Cello and Piano Op.65 (20’) FANG Lin Chong (8’) BEETHOVEN Sonata in D Op.102 No.2 (20’)
A rare chance to hear the Chinese-Australian star cellist up close, performing some of the greatest chamber works ever written for the cello. “A superbly stylish, raptly intuitive performer” (Gramophone), Li-Wei Qin has twice been a soloist at the BBC Proms and has enjoyed artistic collaborations with many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras.
For his Sheffield debut, Li-Wei performs the last and perhaps finest of Beethoven’s cello sonatas; this is an opportunity to hear the much-decorated musician (Silver Medal, International Tchaikovsky Competition; First Prize, International Naumburg Competition) return to a work he has recorded for Decca to great acclaim. Brahms’s song-like and soulful Sonata is also among the highlights, in what promises to be an evening of stirring emotions and musicality of the highest order.
This concert will be recorded by BBC Radio 3 for future broadcast.
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BRAHMS Johannes, Sonata in E Minor, Op.38
Allegro nontroppo
Allegretto quasi Menuetto
Allegro
Brahms began his E minor Cello Sonata in the summer of 1862, but it was not until 1865 that he completed the work. The main themes of both the first and third movements allude to Bach’s Art of Fugue, but Brahms’s treatment of these ideas is firmly in the Romantic tradition. The first movement opens with the cello introducing the principal theme, accompanied by tentative piano chords played off the beat, before the same theme passes to the piano. The second group of themes ends with a particularly lyrical idea in B major that closes the exposition. A turbulent development section leads to a return of the main theme, this time accompanied by a melancholy falling motif in the piano as well as the off-beat chords. The coda brings the movement to a tranquil close in E major. Brahms originally wrote two central movements: the present Allegretto quasi Menuetto in A minor, and an Adagio which he abandoned. The Allegretto has a kind of folkish charm, as well as an ingenious Trio section derived from the same musical idea. The finale opens with the grandest of fugues, though the movement is broadly in sonata form. Whereas the first movement ended with a mood of consolation, the finale is dark, dramatic and intense to the end. The work was published in 1866 by Simrock (Brahms had sold him the sonata by telling him it was easy to play). The first public performance was given in Basel on 12 February 1867, by Moritz Kahnt and Hans von Bülow.
Britten sat next to Shostakovich at a concert in the Royal Festival Hall on 21 September 1960 – the occasion of the first British performance of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1, played by Mstislav Rostropovich. Britten was electrified by Rostropovich’s playing (Shostakovich later told Rostropovich that at the end of concert he was covered in bruises from being poked in the ribs by Britten: ‘As he liked so many things in the concerto, I am now suffering!’). Britten was delighted when Rostropovich asked him to write a piece for him. He planned the Sonata on a holiday in Greece and completed it in December 1960 and January 1961. Rostropovich and Britten gave the first performance on 7 July 1961 at the Jubilee Hall in Aldeburgh. In his programme note for the premiere, Britten wrote short descriptions of each movement. The first is ‘a discussion of a tiny motive of a rising or falling second. The motive is lengthened to make a lyrical second subject which rises and falls from a pizzicato harmonic.’ The demanding pizzicato second movement is ‘almost guitar-like in its elaborate right-hand technique’ while the third is ‘a long tune … developed by means of double, triple and quadruple stopping, to a big climax, and sinks away to a soft conclusion.’ The short march has the cello playing ‘a rumbustious bass to the jerky tune on the piano’, which returns after the central section ‘very softly, with the bass (now in the treble) in harmonics. The closing moto perpetuo includes an allusion to the D-S-C-H theme that Shostakovich used extensively in the Cello Concerto No. 1 – something Britten does not mention in his note, which describes the treatment of the dance-like theme as ‘now grumbling, now carefree’.
Nigel Simeone (C)
BEETHOVEN Ludwig van, Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Op.102 No.2
Allegro con brio
Adagio con molto sentimento d’affetto
Allegro – Allegro fugato
Beethoven’s last two cello sonatas were composed in 1815 dedicated to the Countess Anna Maria Erdödy. The initial critical response was one of bewilderment, one critic declaring that “these two sonatas are definitely among the strangest and most unusual works … ever written for the pianoforte. Everything about them is completely different from anything else we have heard, even by this composer.” Indeed, the D major Cello Sonata Op.102 No.2 is a work that points forward to some of Beethoven’s final instrumental works – the late piano sonatas and quartets – in significant ways. The Beethoven scholar William Kinderman has suggested that the solemnity and austerity of the slow movement (in D minor) has pre-echoes of the ‘Heiliger Dankgesang’ from the Quartet Op.132, while fugal finale is the one of a series of such movements in Beethoven’s late instrumental pieces (followed by the ‘Hammerklavier’ Sonata and the Grosse Fuge among others). The whole sonata, from the brusque opening of its first movement, to the extraordinary culmination of the fugue, is characterized by wild emotional contrasts: the stern, profoundly serious Adagio is flanked by two faster movements that are dominated by a fiery, even angry, dialogue between the two instruments.
TORROBA Sonatina for Guitar 1. Allegretto (4’) TORROBA Madroños (3’) VILLA-LOBOS Five Preludes (20’) PIAZZOLLA Invierno Porteño (7’) DYENS Con Fuoco from Libre Sonatina (4′) REINHARDT(arr. Dyens) Nuages (3’) SHEARING (arr. Lovelady) Lullaby of Birdland (7’) HOUGHTON Kinkachoo I Love You (3’) MARAIS Les Voix Humaines (6’) KOSHKIN The Usher Waltz (7’) SOR Introduction and Variations on a Theme by Mozart (9’)
Back by popular demand, Classic FM chart-topper Craig Ogden returns to Sheffield.
One of the greatest classical guitarists of our time, his incredible career over three decades has included a stream of best-selling albums and appearances with the world’s finest orchestras.
Craig’s previous solo recital in the Playhouse was described as “dazzlingly skilful and approachably genial” (Bachtrack). In an eclectic programme of personal passions, brimming with South American guitar classics and fresh, inventive arrangements of favourites such as the jazz talent of Django Reinhardt and more, this promises to be an intimate and entertaining tour through the guitar repertoire.
Prepare to be wowed by his brilliance and charmed by his warmth.
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MOZART Horn Quintet (16’) Clarinet Quintet (31’) String Quintet in G minor (35’)
Three Mozart favourites are brought together in this celebration of one of the best-loved composers of all time. Each quintet showcases the exuberance, elegance and humanity that mark the enduring appeal of Mozart’s music. The virtuosic Horn Quintet sits alongside the lyrical Clarinet Quintet, in which Mozart explored his musical friendships and the capacity of an exciting, new instrument. The haunting yet hopeful string quintet in G minor is perhaps the crowning achievement in his writing for strings.
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MOZART Wolfgang Amadeus, Horn Quintet K407
1. Allegro
2. Andante
3. Rondo: Allegro
The inspiration for Mozart’s famous horn concertos and the Horn Quintet was the Austrian virtuoso Joseph Ignaz Leutgeb (1732–1811). Though sometimes remembered as the victim of some of Mozart’s cruder practical jokes, Leutgeb was by all accounts a magnificent player, and had known the Mozart family ever since joining the Salzburg court orchestra in the early 1760s. When he moved back to Vienna, Leutgeb supplemented his income as a musician by running a cheese and wine shop – but he never stopped performing, and Mozart produced several major works for him to play. The Quintet is in many ways like a horn concerto in miniature. The musicologist Sarah Adams has pointed out that – given Leutgeb’s involvement – it is ‘not surprising that the horn plays a soloistic role, especially in the first movement [which] heightens the impact of the horn’s lyrical entrance by preceding it with tutti fanfares in the strings, a gesture evocative of a concerto’s preparation for the soloist’s entrance.’ This solo role is rather less apparent in the central movement of the Quintet, though it did require Leutgeb’s use of hand-stopping to obtain particular notes on the natural horn of the time (with no valves) – a technique that had attracted praise from critics all over Europe. Scored for horn, violin, two violas and cello, the Quintet was written in Vienna in 1782 – the composer’s first year in the city after his move from Salzburg.
NIGEL SIMEONE 2010
MOZART Wolfgang Amadeus, Clarinet Quintet in A K581
Allegro Larghetto Menuetto Allegretto con variazioni
The Clarinet Quintet was completed on 29 September 1789 and written for Mozart’s friend Anton Stadler (1753–1812). The first performance took place a few months later at a concert in Vienna’s Burgtheater on 22 December 1789, with Stadler as the soloist in a programme where the premiere of the Clarinet Quintet was a musical interlude, sandwiched between the two parts of Vincenzo Righini’s cantata The Birth of Apollo, performed by “more than 180 persons.”
From the start, Mozart is at his most daringly beautiful: the luxuriant voicing of the opening string chords provides a sensuously atmospheric musical springboard for the clarinet’s opening flourish. The rich sonority of the Clarinet Quintet is quite unlike that of any other chamber music by Mozart, but it does have something in common with his opera Così fan tutte (premièred in January 1790), on which he was working at the same time. In particular, the slow movement of the quintet, with muted strings supporting the clarinet, has a quiet rapture that recalls the trio ‘Soave sia il vento’ (with muted strings, and prominent clarinet parts as well as voices) in Così. The finale of the Quintet is a Theme and Variations which begins with folk-like charm, then turns to more melancholy reflection before ending in a spirit of bucolic delight.
1. Allegro
2. Menuetto: Allegretto
3. Adagio ma non troppo
4. Adagio – Allegro
Mozart’s string quintets are all for the combination of two violins, two violas and cellos, with the two violas allowing for particularly rich inner parts. The Quintet in G minor K516 was completed on 16 May 1787, four weeks after his C major Quintet – and during the final illness of his father Leopold, who on 28 May. Though Mozart and his father had a strained relationship by this time, the composer was alarmed at Leopold’s illness and reacted with the now famous letter written on April 1787 in which he declared that ‘death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have formed during the last few years such close relations with this best and truest friend of mankind that his image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but is indeed very soothing and consoling!’
The G minor Quintet – written by an estranged son who knew that his father was dying – is probably the most tragic of all Mozart’s chamber works. W.W. Cobbett described it as a ‘struggle with destiny’ and found it ‘filled with the resignation of despair’ – though this is rather to overlook the major-key ebullience of the finale. The first movement is full of restrained pathos, both themes melancholy and understated – and all the more wrenching for that. The minuet is sombre and reflective while the slow movement was, for the great Mozart scholar Alfred Einstein, the desolate core of the work. He likened it to ‘the prayer of a lonely one surrounded on all sides by the walls of a deep chasm.’ The element of tragedy is still very apparent in the slow introduction to the finale; but finally Mozart unleashes a more joyous spirit. The French poet Henri Ghéon found an eloquent description for this turning point: ‘Mozart has had enough. He knew how to cry but he did not like to cry or to suffer for too long.’
MOZART Clarinet Quintet (31′) String Quintet in G minor (35’)
For this ‘Relaxed’ concert featuring two of Mozart’s best loved quintets, doors will be left open, lights raised, a break-out space provided, and there will be less emphasis on the audience being quiet during the performance. People with an Autism Spectrum, sensory or communication disorder or learning disability, those with age-related impairments and parents/carers with babies are all especially welcome.
MOZART Wolfgang Amadeus, Clarinet Quintet in A K581
Allegro Larghetto Menuetto Allegretto con variazioni
The Clarinet Quintet was completed on 29 September 1789 and written for Mozart’s friend Anton Stadler (1753–1812). The first performance took place a few months later at a concert in Vienna’s Burgtheater on 22 December 1789, with Stadler as the soloist in a programme where the premiere of the Clarinet Quintet was a musical interlude, sandwiched between the two parts of Vincenzo Righini’s cantata The Birth of Apollo, performed by “more than 180 persons.”
From the start, Mozart is at his most daringly beautiful: the luxuriant voicing of the opening string chords provides a sensuously atmospheric musical springboard for the clarinet’s opening flourish. The rich sonority of the Clarinet Quintet is quite unlike that of any other chamber music by Mozart, but it does have something in common with his opera Così fan tutte (premièred in January 1790), on which he was working at the same time. In particular, the slow movement of the quintet, with muted strings supporting the clarinet, has a quiet rapture that recalls the trio ‘Soave sia il vento’ (with muted strings, and prominent clarinet parts as well as voices) in Così. The finale of the Quintet is a Theme and Variations which begins with folk-like charm, then turns to more melancholy reflection before ending in a spirit of bucolic delight.
1. Allegro
2. Menuetto: Allegretto
3. Adagio ma non troppo
4. Adagio – Allegro
Mozart’s string quintets are all for the combination of two violins, two violas and cellos, with the two violas allowing for particularly rich inner parts. The Quintet in G minor K516 was completed on 16 May 1787, four weeks after his C major Quintet – and during the final illness of his father Leopold, who on 28 May. Though Mozart and his father had a strained relationship by this time, the composer was alarmed at Leopold’s illness and reacted with the now famous letter written on April 1787 in which he declared that ‘death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have formed during the last few years such close relations with this best and truest friend of mankind that his image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but is indeed very soothing and consoling!’
The G minor Quintet – written by an estranged son who knew that his father was dying – is probably the most tragic of all Mozart’s chamber works. W.W. Cobbett described it as a ‘struggle with destiny’ and found it ‘filled with the resignation of despair’ – though this is rather to overlook the major-key ebullience of the finale. The first movement is full of restrained pathos, both themes melancholy and understated – and all the more wrenching for that. The minuet is sombre and reflective while the slow movement was, for the great Mozart scholar Alfred Einstein, the desolate core of the work. He likened it to ‘the prayer of a lonely one surrounded on all sides by the walls of a deep chasm.’ The element of tragedy is still very apparent in the slow introduction to the finale; but finally Mozart unleashes a more joyous spirit. The French poet Henri Ghéon found an eloquent description for this turning point: ‘Mozart has had enough. He knew how to cry but he did not like to cry or to suffer for too long.’
WEIR King Harald’s Saga (15’) BIRTWISTLE Cortege for 14 musicians (15’) BRAHMS Serenade Op.11 (46’)
Claire Booth kicks off the 2026 Sheffield Chamber Music Festival in style!
Our Guest Curator, and RPS Singer of the Year 2025, opens with a one-woman opera retelling the story of ‘the last real Viking’, Harald Hardrada, by Judith Weir. The forces of Ensemble 360 follow, with Birtwistle’s highly theatrical procession of musicians and one of their favourites, Brahms’s brilliant and beloved Serenade, a swaggering, celebratory launch to nine days of chamber music, song and high theatre.
Post-concert drinks To celebrate the start of the Festival, ticket-holders are invited to join us for a free glass of wine or soft drink in the Crucible bar after the concert.
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BRAHMS Johannes, Serenade No. 1 in D Op. 11, nonet version reconstructed by David Walter
Allegro Molto
Scherzo: Allegro non troppo
Adagio non troppo
Minuet
Scherzo: Allegro
Rondo: Allegro
Brahms’s D major Serenade is well known as his first orchestral work – but, like the D minor Piano Concerto from the same period, it had a complicated genesis. It was first conceived in 1857 as a Serenade for eight instruments in three or four movements, and a year later it had become a work in six movements, now scored for nine instruments. By 1860, it had been rewritten for full orchestra – the version that survives today (though Brahms even considered developing that into his first symphony, but decided to leave well alone). The nonet version was performed in public on 28 March 1859 at a concert in Hamburg, and a year later the orchestral version was given its premiere in Hannover. Whether Brahms destroyed the chamber version, or whether the material simply vanished is not known, but a skilful reconstruction reveals something of Brahms’s original conception: a work much closer in spirit to the serenades and divertimentos of Mozart than the reworked orchestral version.
A brand-new storybook concert, based on the modern classic book series by Benji Davies.
The Storm Whale tells the story of a child, and a whale washed up on the beach, and friendships that will change their lives forever and echo down the generations. These heart-warming tales of friendship, love and courage are brought to life through music specially written to accompany the book by our Children’s Composer-in-Residence, Paul Rissmann.
Perfect for 3 to 7 year-olds and their families, this illustrated and narrated storybook concert is brought to Cast with Music in the Round, the producers of previous popular family concerts Izzy Gimzo, Giddy Goat and Sir Scallywag. It is a wonderful introduction to a live concert experience, brimming with wonderful music, memorable songs, images from the book and plenty of chances to join in.
“The Storm Whale tells a simple but powerful story about loneliness and the love between a parent and child… The world may be as big and lonely and incomprehensible as the ocean, but still it’s possible to find tremendous, heart-stopping tenderness.” The New York Times on the book
With many thanks to all our funders, including:
The Sarah Nulty Power of Music Foundation, The JG Graves Charitable Trust, Sheffield Town Trust and Wise Music Foundation
“The musicians did a wonderful job of introducing the young audience to enjoyment of the theatre, live music and engaging story-telling. Proof of their success [were] the lines of excited children coming up to meet the musicians who had gathered in the foyer with their instruments.”
The Yorkshire Post (on a previous Music in the Round storybook concert)
HOLST Phantasy String Quartet (10′) BRITTEN Three Divertimenti for String Quartet (10′) HOLBROOKE Ellean Shona (4′) HOWELLS Phantasy String Quartet (13′) PURCELL Three-part Fantasias (8′) HOWELLS Rhapsodic Quintet (12′) VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (arr. Gerigk) The Lark Ascending (15’)
The violin soars melodiously above the rest of the quartet in the gorgeous arrangement of Vaughan Williams’ most popular work The Lark Ascending, which concludes this concert of English music.
Fantasies from the Baroque gems of Purcell’s Three-part Fantasias to Imogen Holst’s Phantasy String Quartet sit alongside this perennial favourite.
Book all four Music in the Round concerts at Cast in the same transaction and save 20% on your tickets!
HOLST Imogen, Phantasy String Quartet
Imogen Holst (1907-1984) composed her Phantasy String Quartet in 1928 (although it wasn’t premiered until several years after her death, in 2007). The piece typifies the composer’s early style, blending the English pastoral tradition with her own unique talents for melodic development, contrapuntal writing, and idiosyncratic quartet-textures. It won the Cobbet Prize – an award founded by the wealthy industrialist Walter Willson Cobbett to encourage composers to write ‘Phantasies’, works of one movement in the tradition of 16th and 17th-Century English ‘fancies’, ‘fantasies’, or ‘fantasias’. These were short instrumental works which, like Holst’s, did not adhere to strict forms but rather developed in their own imaginative and unexpected ways. Beginning with lush pastoral harmonies, Holst’s Phantasy transitions fluidly through episodes of meditative introspection and spirited energy.
BRITTEN Benjamin, Three Divertimenti for String Quartet
Britten planned these movements as part of a five-movement Quartetto serioso with a subtitle from Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale: “Go play, boy, play!” An earlier version of the opening March was written for a suite inspired by the film Emil and the Detectives (the children’s novel by Erich Kästner was a great favourite of Britten’s), but this was never completed. Eventually he settled on a work in three movements, and the first performance was given by the Stratton Quartet at the Wigmore Hall on 25 February 1936. The audience response was chilly and a hurt Britten withdrew the Three Divertimenti, which were only published after his death. His brilliant gift for idiomatic quartet writing is already apparent in this early work – from the arresting rhythms and textures of the March to the beguiling central Waltz, and the driving energy of the closing Burlesque.
HOLBROOKE Joseph, Eilean Shona for Clarinet and String Quartet
Joseph Holbrooke was a curious and sometimes infuriating character. His chamber music concerts would often include oddly aggressive notes for the audience, presenting – as he put it – ‘music to an apathetic public’ after which he ‘hopes to receive as few blows as possible (with the usual financial loss) in return.’ On another occasion, he refused to perform his Piano Concerto in Bournemouth: an insert in the programme explained that ‘Mr Joseph Holbrooke declines to play today because his name is not announced on the posters in large enough type.’ Setting his personal flaws to one side, he was capable of producing fine music, of which Eilean Shona is a brief and very attractive example. Eilean Shona is a small island off the west coast of Scotland and Holbrooke’s short work for clarinet and string quartet (reworked from a song for voice and piano) is haunting and evocative.
Nigel Simeone 2024
HOWELLS HERBERT, Phantasy String Quartet, Op.25
Herbert Howells (1892–1983): Phantasy String Quartet, Op. 25
In 1905, W.W. Cobbett launched a competition to breathe new life into British chamber music by reviving the ‘Phantasy’, an archaic form which Henry Purcell had made his own in about 1680. The competition’s criteria stated that ‘The parts must be of equal importance, and the duration of the piece should not exceed twelve minutes. Though the Phantasy is to be performed without a break, it may consist of different sections varying in tempi and rhythm.’ Composers including Vaughan Williams, John Ireland, Arnold Bax and Frank Bridge all rose to the challenge, composing works under Cobbett’s auspices. In the 1917 competition, second prize (of 10 guineas) was awarded to Herbert Howells for his Phantasy String Quartet Op. 25 (the first prize that year went to Harry Waldo Warner). In Cobbett’s Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music, he wrote that in Howells’s Quartet ‘the fine tunes on which it is built are not traditional, but are by Howells himself … modal colouring persists throughout, and the themes are subjected to a process of permutation, rather than development, which is analogous to the process which tunes undergo when transmitted orally.’ Cobbett went on to say that Howells ‘contrives in the single movement of a phantasy to let his themes pass through a series of moods which are equivalent, in miniature, to the fully expressed phrases of a four-movement work’. The result is a quartet that has moments of striking beauty, with occasional echoes of the Tallis Fantasia by his friend Vaughan Williams.
Henry Purcell (1659–1695) was one of the most celebrated English composers of the Baroque era. Among his remarkable works is a series of Fantasias (or Fancies), composed in 1680 when Purcell was only 21 years old. Showcasing his profound skill with contrapuntal writing – in which each of the instrument’s melodic lines work both independently and as part of the musical-whole – the Fantasias are considered among the finest examples of the form and are regarded by many to be the ‘jewel in the crown of English consort music’. This wasn’t always the case, however. When Purcell composed these works, the Fantasia was quite unfashionable. King Charles II is said to have had ‘an utter detestation of Fancys’. Out of favour in the Royal court, Purcell’s Fantasias were therefore likely intended to be performed in domestic settings. Originally written for three viols, they are here transcribed for string trio (violin, viola, and cello).
HOWELLS Herbert, Rhapsodic Quintet for Clarinet and Strings Op.31
Lento, ma appassionato – A tempo, tranquillo – Piu mosso, inquieto – Doppio movimento ritmico, e non troppo allegro – Più elato – Meno mosso – Lento, assai tranquillo – Più adagio
Herbert Howells is probably best remembered for his church music (including the famous hymn tune ‘All my hope on God is founded’ as well as several outstanding settings of service music) and for his choral masterpiece Hymnus paradisi. But he was also a gifted composer for instruments and wrote a good deal of chamber music at the start of his career. The Rhapsodic Quintet was completed in June 1919 and Howells himself said that there was ‘a mystic feeling about the whole thing’. Still, mystic feelings didn’t come without some serious hard work, and the Howells scholar Paul Spicer has drawn attention to an entry in the composer’s diary where he noted that the quintet had involved quite a lot of preparatory thinking. Howells wrote of his ‘long ponderous thoughts on problems of musical form … hours spent in an easy-chair, fire-gazing, form-thinking.’ The ‘form-thinking’ was clearly productive, since this beautifully written quintet for clarinet and strings in one movement appears to flow effortlessly from one idea to the next as well as having overall coherence. This was an early work – Howells had only recently finished his studies at the Royal College of Music with Stanford and Charles Wood – but his handling of the instruments shows tremendous assurance. Cobbett’s Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music makes particular mention of this, describing the work as having a ‘sensitive appreciation of instrumental needs’, but there is more to it than that, since Howells also shows a great gift for unfolding long, lyrical melodies, and contrasting these with more capricious ideas. It’s this combination of fluent and idiomatic writing with memorable thematic material that led Christopher Palmer, in his biography of Howells, to call the Rhapsodic Quintet ‘an outstanding achievement’.
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Ralph, The Lark Ascending
Vaughan Williams began The Lark Ascending before the outbreak of the First World War, taking his inspiration from George Meredith’s 1881 poem of the same name. But he set this ‘Romance’ aside during the war and only finished it in 1920. The violinist Marie Hall gave the first performance of the original version for violin and piano in Shirehampton Public Hall (a district of Bristol) on 15 December 1920. Vaughan Williams dedicated the work to her, and she went on to give the premiere of the orchestral version six months later, when it was conducted by the young Adrian Boult at a concert in the Queen’s Hall in London. Free, serene and dream-like, this is idyllic music of rare and fragile beauty.
BRITTEN Three Divertimenti for String Quartet (10’) MOZART String Quartet No.20 in D ‘Hoffmeister’ (26’) BEETHOVEN String Quartet Op.59 No.2 ‘Razumovsky’ (37’)
A passionate tour through three centuries of extraordinary music with the string quartet of Ensemble 360.
Britten’s playful and inventive Three Divertimenti is followed by Mozart’s radiant ‘Hoffmeister’ Quartet, blending grace and sophistication. The evening concludes with Beethoven’s fiery second ‘Razumovsky’ Quartet, a work of thrilling intensity and deep passion.
Performed with warmth and exhilarating energy, this programme showcases the expressive power of the string quartet.
Book all four Music in the Round concerts at Cast in the same transaction and save 20% on your tickets!
BRITTEN Benjamin, Three Divertimenti for String Quartet
Britten planned these movements as part of a five-movement Quartetto serioso with a subtitle from Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale: “Go play, boy, play!” An earlier version of the opening March was written for a suite inspired by the film Emil and the Detectives (the children’s novel by Erich Kästner was a great favourite of Britten’s), but this was never completed. Eventually he settled on a work in three movements, and the first performance was given by the Stratton Quartet at the Wigmore Hall on 25 February 1936. The audience response was chilly and a hurt Britten withdrew the Three Divertimenti, which were only published after his death. His brilliant gift for idiomatic quartet writing is already apparent in this early work – from the arresting rhythms and textures of the March to the beguiling central Waltz, and the driving energy of the closing Burlesque.
Like Haydn before him, Mozart habitually published his string quartets in groups of six (the ‘Haydn’ Quartets) or three (the ‘Prussian’ Quartets). Between these two sets there is a single work, entered in Mozart’s manuscript catalogue of his own works on 19 August 1786 as ‘a quartet for 2 violins, viola and violoncello’. The autograph manuscript (in the British Library) is simply titled ‘Quartetto’. It was published in 1788 by the Viennese firm founded by Mozart’s friend Franz Anton Hoffmeister and it has come to be known as the ‘Hoffmeister’ Quartet as a result. The first movement opens with a theme in octaves that outlines a descending D major arpeggio – an idea that dominates much of the movement despite some startling harmonic excursions along the way. The development section is marked by almost continuous quaver movement that gives way magically to the opening theme at the start of the recapitulation. The Minuet has an easy-going charm that contrasts with the sterner mood (and minor key) of the Trio section. The great Mozart biographer Alfred Einstein thought the Adagio spoke ‘of past sorrow, with a heretofore unheard-of-depth’. It is not only a deeply touching movement but also an extremely ingenious one, not least when the initial idea heard on two violins returns on viola and cello, investing the same music with a darker, richer texture. The finale is fast and playful, but there’s also astonishing inventiveness in the flow of ideas, from the opening triplets with their chromatic twists to a contrasting theme which scampers up and down the scale. A few sudden and surprising dynamic contrasts keep the listener guessing right to the end.
Nigel Simeone
BEETHOVEN Ludwig Van, String Quartet in E minor Op.59 No.2 Razumovsky
Allegro Molto Adagio. Si tratta questo pezzo con molto di sentimento Allegretto. Maggiore (Thème russe) Finale. Presto
“Demanding but dignified” was how the Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung described Beethoven’s new quartets dedicated to Count Rasumovsky when they were first heard in 1807. Composed in 1806, and including Russian melodies from a collection of folk tunes edited by Ivan Prach (published in 1790), these quartets were a major development in the quartet form. But though they were longer and more challenging than any earlier quartets, they were an immediate success. Before the Rasumovsky Quartets were played, Beethoven offered them to publisher Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig – in a job lot with the Fourth Piano Concerto, the Fourth Symphony and Fidelio, but the deal fell through and the quartets were first published in Vienna by the Bureau des Arts et d’Industrie and in London by Clementi.
While the first of the Rasumovsky Quartets is unusually expansive, the second is more concentrated. From the opening two-chord gesture establishing E minor as the home key, the first movement is tense and full of rhythmic ambiguity. The hymn-like slow movement has a combination of richness and apparent simplicity that blossoms into a kind of ecstatic aria: Beethoven himself is reported to have likened it to “a meditative contemplation of the stars”. The uneasy rhythms of the Scherzo are contrasted by a major-key Trio section in which Beethoven quotes a Russian tune that famously reappeared in the Coronation Scene of Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov. The finale begins with a surprise: a strong emphasis on the note C that is tantalising and unexpected in a movement that moves firmly towards E minor.
A lively family concert featuring four string musicians (violins, viola and cello) and a presenter. Together they breathe life into the wondrous world of chamber music.
They’ll play well-known classical favourites from Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert and more.
Perfect for 7-11-year-olds, this lively, interactive concert is a great introduction to classical music, and a chance for those who’ve enjoyed our storybook concerts to delve a little deeper.
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