Venue: St Marie's Cathedral

SOUNDS OF NOW: ÉLIANE RADIGUE FOR ORGAN

Frederic Blondy

St Marie's Cathedral, Sheffield
Friday 17 October 2025, 8.00pm

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

Book Tickets
Home› What's on› SOUNDS OF NOW: ÉLIANE RADIGUE FOR ORGAN

RADIGUE Occam XXV (45’) 

Éliane Radigue’s ‘Occam XXV’ – written for, and performed here by, the French organist Frédéric Blondy – envelops its listener in a rich and slowly evolving ocean of sound. Beginning with a low, timbral rumble, the music grows over its 45 minutes, always imperceptibly changing, to a richly layered, shimmering and luxuriant texture which then, as the piece draws to a close, dissolves into air. This is music as sensation: sound to be immersed in – expansive and vibrational. As Radigue herself said, “I imagine how we are all bathing in a galactic ocean of sound waves”. 

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Part of: OCCAM OCEAN: THE MUSIC OF ÉLIANE RADIGUE 

“Radigue writes awesomely gradual music that is always on the move… It is music that flowers in some enchanted hinterland where sounds are sparse and mercurial, spiritual and grounded, narrative and abstract… she is always on the hunt for sound within sound – a realm of partials, harmonics, and subharmonics… the intangible cloud that makes up that note’s aura.”
Kate Molleson 

The French composer Éliane Radigue, now 93 years old, has dedicated the last quarter of a century to crafting her extraordinary, subtle and luminescent compositions for acoustic instruments. Each titled ‘Occam’ (after ‘Occam’s razor’, the idea that the simplest solution is often the best), these warm and generous works explore the essence of an instrument’s sound in gradually unfolding, richly present textures.  

For ‘Occam Ocean’, Music in the Round has curated a series of special events bringing together some of Radigue’s closest collaborators for two days of music and talks, offering a rare, immersive experience of this composer’s singular sound world. 

Presented in partnership with The University of Sheffield.  

MENDELSSOHN STRING QUINTET

Consone Quartet & Kay Stephen

St Marie's Cathedral, Sheffield
Saturday 15 March 2025, 7.00pm

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

Past Event
Musicians from the Consone Quartet with their instruments
Home› What's on› MENDELSSOHN STRING QUINTET

MENDELSSOHN 
   Capriccio from Four Pieces Op.81 (5’)
   String Quartet in E flat Op.12 (28’)
   String Quintet in A Op.18 (32’) 

The Consone Quartet completes its series of Mendelssohn’s chamber works with his String Quintet No.1, a work full of youthful joie de vivre. Scored for two violins, two violas, and cello, the Quintet forms the triumphant conclusion to this concert celebrating the composer’s early work for strings, all composed when Mendelssohn was – astonishingly – still a teenager.  

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MENDELSSOHN Felix, Capriccio from Four Pieces for String Quartet, Op. 81, No. 3

Mendelssohn wrote this Capriccio for string quartet in 1843 and it was published posthumously as one of his Four Pieces for String Quartet, Op. 81. It opens as a kind of cradle song, the tempo Andante con moto and the violin melody unfolding over a rocking accompaniment. Mendelssohn then springs a surprise: after a kind of mini-cadenza for the first violin, the music gives way to a rapid fugue, marked Allegro fugato, assai vivace. What follows is a dramatic demonstration of Mendelssohn’s ability to fuse the discipline of fugal writing with an acute sense of musical drama, leading to a splendidly abrupt close with three brusque chords. 

Nigel Simeone 2024 

MENDELSSOHN Felix, String Quartet in E flat Op. 12

Adagio non troppo – Allegro non tardante
Canzonetta: Allegretto
Andante espressivo
Molto allegro e vivace

 

Mendelssohn completed this string quartet on the first of his many visits to London (where he went to conduct the Philharmonic Society). Though it was the first to be published during his lifetime, he wrote an earlier one in the same key when he was 14 and the A minor quartet Op.13 was actually finished in 1827. By the time he composed the Quartet Op.12, Mendelssohn had also written the Octet (1825) and the String Quintet in A major – and it has much the same kind of inspired fluency. The first movement begins with a slow introduction that soon gives way to a closely-argued Allegro. The main influence is Beethoven and particularly late Beethoven – music that was very novel and only recently published. This can be seen in the unusual structure of the second movement (in place of a conventional Scherzo), and in the most unusual way in which the second theme of the first movement returns to striking effect in the finale. The main theme of the slow movement is one of Mendelssohn’s most inspired. In the Finale, Mendelssohn combines something of the urgency of Beethoven with a character that is entirely his own.

 

Nigel Simeone ©2014

MENDELSSOHN Felix, String Quintet in A, Op. 18

  1. Allegro con moto
  2. Intermezzo: Andante sostenuto
  3. Scherzo: Allegro di molto
  4. Allegro vivace

 Another remarkable product of Mendelssohn’s prodigious teenage years, his String Quintet in A major was completed in 1826, just after he had written the Octet, though in 1832 he substituted the original Minuet second movement for the slow intermezzo, written in memory of his violinist friend Eduard Rietz. The scoring is the ‘Mozart’ ensemble, of two violins, two violas and cello. The Allegro con moto, in triple time, opens with an elegant violin theme, but the texture soon becomes more animated as livelier ideas emerge. Mendelssohn uses all five instruments with typical ingenuity to create a rich texture. The Intermezzo, marked Andante sostenuto, is a warmly expressive song-like movement, full of tenderness and reflecting the deep affection Mendelssohn had for Rietz who died of consumption in 1832 (his younger brother Julius was a lifelong friend of Mendelssohn’s). The Scherzo (in 2/4 time) is a fine early example of a type of movement Mendelssohn was to make his own, something he succeeded in doing without ever repeating himself. This one is beautifully scored for the five string instruments, with many delicate and imaginative touches, and an enchanting pianissimo close. The finale is the movement which most clearly reflects the influence of Beethoven on the young Mendelssohn – not the late masterpieces this time, but Beethoven’s earlier works such as the Op. 18 quartets. Even so, Mendelssohn never merely imitated, and his unmistakable stylistic fingerprints are on every page as this work heads to its very satisfying conclusion. 

Nigel Simeone 2024 

About the Artists

Consone Quartet

The first period instrument string quartet to be selected as BBC New Generation Artists, the Consone Quartet are fast making a name for themselves with their honest and expressive interpretations of classical and romantic repertoire. Music in the Round is delighted to welcome the Quartet to ‘the family’ as our Visiting Quartet. Supported by the Frost Trust, they visit schools across the city, working in partnership with Sheffield Music Hub and performing at concerts promoted by us around the country.

Formed at the Royal College of Music in London, the Consone Quartet launched their professional career in 2015, shortly after which they were awarded two prizes at the 2015 York Early Music International Young Artists Competition, including the EUBO Development Trust Prize and a place on the EEEmerging Scheme in France. They went on to win the 2016 Royal Over-Seas League Ensemble Prize, and in 2022 were awarded a prestigious Borletti-Buitoni Trust (BBT) fellowship. Read their full biography here.

Kay Stephen

Scottish musician Kay Stephen is passionate about ensemble playing in all of its forms, and loves the spontaneity and communication of making music with others.

As a chamber musician, she has been a recipient of numerous awards including the Royal Overseas League Chamber Music Prize and the Audience Engagement Prize at the Franz Schubert and Modern Music Competition, Graz. She has been supported by the City Music Foundation, the Tunnell Trust and twice by the Park Lane Group, performing regularly at major UK venues including Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall, the Wigmore Hall, the Cadogan Hall and frequently on BBC Radio 3.

MENDELSSOHN STRING QUARTETS

Consone Quartet

St Marie's Cathedral, Sheffield
Saturday 15 March 2025, 3.00pm

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

Past Event
Consone String Quartet
Home› What's on› MENDELSSOHN STRING QUARTETS

MENDELSSOHN 
   String Quartet in D Op.44 No.1 (32’)
   Fuga from Four Pieces Op.81 (5’)
   String Quartet in A minor Op.13 (30’) 

Music in the Round’s Visiting String Quartet returns to Sheffield for its final immersive afternoon and evening of concerts exploring the music of Felix Mendelssohn. Here, the composer’s passionate String Quartet No.1 (written when he was just 18 years old – and newly in love) is presented alongside his String Quartet No.3, a composition full of light and levity.  

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Browse the full programme online, explore the seasons with our digital brochure or download a copy of our 2025 brochure.

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MENDELSSOHN Felix, String Quartet in D Op.44 No.1

Molto allegro vivace
Menuetto. Un poco Allegretto
Andante espressivo ma con moto
Presto con brio

 

Mendelssohn married Cécile Jeanrenaud in 1837 and it was under the influence of this blissfully happy time in his life that he returned to the string quartet for the first time in almost ten years. During their honeymoon he composed the Quartet in E minor published as Op.44 No.2, to which two companion pieces were added in 1838: the Quartet in E flat Op.44 No.3 and the present Quartet in D major – published as the first of the set, but actually the last of the three to be completed, started in April 1838, but not finished until 24 July. It is a work that recaptures something of the untroubled rapture of the much earlier Octet, but almost as soon as the ink was dry on the new quartet, Mendelssohn and his wife succumbed to the measles epidemic that was sweeping through Leipzig at the time. As a result of this illness, Mendelssohn was unable to conduct his scheduled concerts in September, and it was not until October that he was able to resume his duties as conductor of the Gewandhaus concerts.

 

The first movement of the D major Quartet opens with a soaring, joyful theme that seems reminiscent of the Octet, though within a more restrained and consciously Classical framework. For the only time in his quartets Mendelssohn wrote a Minuet as the second movement. This elegantly-crafted piece is perhaps an indication of the more refined but less progressive approach of his music at the time, something that the Mendelssohn biographer Eric Werner attributed to the composer’s domestic bliss, and his ‘wish to please and impress Cécile.’ Werner went so far as to suggest that this ‘weakened his artistic integrity’, a claim that seems to be firmly contradicted by the effectiveness of the D major Quartet. The Andante espressivo is a gentle interlude before the exciting finale: launched with a tremendous energy that is sustained almost throughout and which brings the work to a rousing conclusion. The first performance was given from the composer’s manuscript on 16 February 1839 in the Leipzig Gewandhaus, played by a quartet led by Ferdinand David. Schumann described the character of his friend Mendelssohn’s music of this period with typical perceptiveness: ‘A smile hovers round his mouth, but it is that of delight in his art, of quiet self-sufficiency in an intimate circle.’

 

Nigel Simeone © 2011

MENDELSSOHN Felix, Fugue from Four Pieces for String Quartet, Op. 81, No. 4

The high opus number of Mendelssohn’s Fugue in E flat major is misleading. The four pieces were published after the composer’s death and he never intended them to be grouped together, not least because they were written twenty years apart. The Fugue is the earliest, composed in 1827, when Mendelssohn was 18 years old. It opens with the subject on the viola, answered in turn by the second violin, then the first and finally the cello. Mendelssohn’s astonishing gifts were already fully apparent from even earlier works (above all in the Octet), but this Fugue is a remarkable demonstration of his effortless handling of counterpoint and fugal technique. It is also an important reminder of the impact which the late Beethoven quartets had on the younger man: understandably, he was awe-struck by Beethoven’s reinvention of fugal writing in these works and became obsessed with them. While Mendelssohn’s fugue is less overtly dramatic than any of Beethoven’s – in fact it is rather elegant – the idea of this piece being a kind of homage to Mendelssohn’s musical gods of Bach and Beethoven is surely not far-fetched. 

Nigel Simeone 2024

MENDELSSOHN Felix, String Quartet Op.13 (1827)

Adagio – Allegro vivace

Adagio non lento

Intermezzo. Allegretto con moto – Allegro di molto

Presto – Adagio non lento

 

Mendelssohn composed this quartet in 1827, while he was still in his teens but two years after the Octet. Written just months after the death of Beethoven, the work heavily influenced by Beethoven’s late quartets which so fascinated the young Mendelssohn at the same time as they shocked and appalled many of his older contemporaries. The A minor Quartet opens with a slow introduction that quotes from a Mendelssohn song (“Ist es wahr?” – “Is it true?” – an echo of Beethoven’s “Muss es sein?” in Op.135). The three-note motif that Mendelssohn derives from his song reappears in all four movements. After the drama of the first movement and the Adagio with its stern central fugal section, the Intermezzo brings us closer to the world of the Octet’s Scherzo or the Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream that dates from the same period. The finale is modelled directly on the finale of Beethoven’s Op.132 Quartet, also in A minor. After an unusual violin cadenza over a tremolo accompaniment, the main part of the movement is driving and passionate, its main themes owing much to Beethoven’s example, until Mendelssohn – in a daring move – dissolves the musical action before a brief concluding Adagio where the “Ist es wahr?” music from the start makes a poignant return.

 

Nigel Simeone © 2012

About the Artists

Consone Quartet

The first period instrument string quartet to be selected as BBC New Generation Artists, the Consone Quartet are fast making a name for themselves with their honest and expressive interpretations of classical and romantic repertoire. Music in the Round is delighted to welcome the Quartet to ‘the family’ as our Visiting Quartet. Supported by the Frost Trust, they visit schools across the city, working in partnership with Sheffield Music Hub and performing at concerts promoted by us around the country.

Formed at the Royal College of Music in London, the Consone Quartet launched their professional career in 2015, shortly after which they were awarded two prizes at the 2015 York Early Music International Young Artists Competition, including the EUBO Development Trust Prize and a place on the EEEmerging Scheme in France. They went on to win the 2016 Royal Over-Seas League Ensemble Prize, and in 2022 were awarded a prestigious Borletti-Buitoni Trust (BBT) fellowship. Read their full biography here.

VIENNESE MASTERWORKS: BRAHMS & MORE FOR SOLO PIANO

Tim Horton

St Marie's Cathedral, Sheffield
Friday 8 November 2024, 7.00pm

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

Past Event
Pianist Tim Horton
Home› What's on› VIENNESE MASTERWORKS: BRAHMS & MORE FOR SOLO PIANO

** Please note that the change in venue for this concert.**

MOZART 12 Variations ‘Ah vous dirai-je, Maman’ K265 (8′)
SCHOENBERG Drei Klavierstücke Op.11 (14′)
HAYDN Piano Sonata in D Hob.XVI:42 (11′)
BRAHMS Drei Intermezzi Op.117 (14′)
BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata No.23 Op. 57 ‘Appassionata’ (24′) 

In his new recital series, Tim Horton celebrates the music of Vienna, a city famous for its classical music, through works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and more.  

Alongside this showcase of the city’s musical traditions and the composers who link them, Tim presents some richly inventive offerings from the dawn of the 20th century. This promises to be a fresh and compelling new exploration of the dazzling musical variety derived from the City of Dreams. 

Post-concert Q&A –  free
Please join us after the concert for a free Q&A with Tim Horton.

View the brochure online here or download it below.

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MOZART Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 12 Variations on ‘Ah, vous dirai-je maman’, K265

Originally thought to have been written in about 1776, more recent research on the manuscript of these delightful variations has led to a dating of 1781–2, during Mozart’s first year in Vienna, possibly written for some of his more advanced piano pupils. The earliest published edition (issued by the Viennese firm of Torricella in 1785) has a dedication to Josepha Barbara Auerhammer (1758–1820) about whom Mozart had mixed feelings, writing to his father that ‘the girl is a fright! But she plays charmingly.’ Clearly Mozart admired his pupil’s gifts as a player since they gave concerts together in Vienna. The anonymous tune and text of ‘Ah, vous dirai-je maman’ first appeared in song collections in the 1760s. In English-speaking countries, the melody eventually came to be associated with Jane Taylor’s nursery rhyme ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star’ though that was originally set to a different tune (the earliest appearance of words and music together was in 1838). 

Following a straightforward presentation of the theme, Mozart embarks on a series of variations, ingenious and playful in mood until Variation VIII when the key changes into the minor for a rather sterner reworking of the tune. A return to the major for Variation IX marks the start of the later variations in which Mozart becomes more creative with his treatment of the theme, particularly in Variation XI – a lyrical Adagio – and the final Variation XII, marked Allegro, in which the tune is transformed into triple time to bring the work to a brilliant close. 

Nigel Simeone © 2024

SCHOENBERG Arnold, Three Piano Pieces Op. 11

SCHOENBERG Arnold, Three Piano Pieces Op. 11 

Schoenberg wrote a famous essay called ‘Brahms the Progressive’, and he drew much inspiration from the intimate sound-world of Brahms’s late piano pieces. But by 1909 he had started to abandon conventional tonality in favour of a free atonal language, without anchoring the music in traditional keys or harmonies. But through the use of recurring motifs, Schoenberg creates a unified work of extraordinary boldness. The composer likened his music to Wassily Kandinsky’s paintings, describing it as ‘an ever-changing, unbroken succession of colours, rhythms and moods’. 

Nigel Simeone © 2015 

HAYDN Joseph, Piano Sonata in D Hob.XVI:42

Composed in 1784, this two-movement sonata was originally published as part of a triptych of piano sonatas dedicated to 15-year-old Princess Marie Esterházy to celebrate her marriage the previous year to Prince Nikolaus II (then 17 years old; he later became Haydn’s patron after the death of his father in 1790). The first movement, marked Andante con espressione, is a set of variations. The theme itself is punctuated by silences and by a harmonic scheme which takes some characteristically surprising turns as the writing becomes increasingly florid. The most dramatic variation comes with a shift from D major to minor before a return to the music of the opening. The second movement, Vivace assai, is also full of harmonic quirks, but now the music is energetic and Haydn develops his ideas with conciseness and subtlety, including a good deal of imitative writing, right up to the delightfully inconsequential ending. 

Nigel Simeone © 2024 

BRAHMS Johannes, Three Intermezzos Op.117

Andante moderato
Andante non troppo e con molto espressione
Andante con moto

These three short pieces were composed at the Austrian spa town Bad Ischl in 1892 and first performed in Berlin on 6 January 1893 by the pianist Heinrich Barth. Like the first of the Ballades Op.10, the first Intermezzo is based on a Scottish poem printed in Herder’s collection, this time a lullaby (and, informally, Brahms sometimes called the whole set ‘Lullabies’). Clara Schumann was enchanted by these pieces when she first saw them, telling Brahms that ‘In these pieces I at last feel musical life stir once again in my soul’. When Brahms’s publisher Simrock suggested using Lullabies instead of Intermezzi as the official title, Brahms’s response was endearingly curmudgeonly: ‘It should then say, lullaby of an unhappy mother or of a disconsolate bachelor’.

© Nigel Simeone

BEETHOVEN Ludwig van, Piano Sonata in F minor Op.57 ‘Appassionata’

The Sonata in F minor Op.57 only acquired its famous nickname ‘Appassionata’ after Beethoven’s death – an invention by a Hamburg publisher that has stuck. The work was mostly sketched in 1805, finished the following year, and first published in 1807. The manuscript, in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, came from the family of the French pianist Marie Bigot, to whom Beethoven had given it after she sight-read it for him. Her husband recalled that just before Beethoven’s visit, during his journey back to Vienna from Silesia, he was ‘surprised by a storm and driving rain, which soaked through the case in which he carried the Sonata in F minor which he had just composed’ and, indeed, the manuscript has many water stains, presumably made by this downpour. The Appassionata is recognized as one of the greatest of Beethoven’s middle-period piano sonatas (alongside the Waldstein), and its turbulent emotional world moves from the gloom of the opening to a quotation from a folk song (for the second theme), a set of variations on a deceptively simple chordal theme for the slow movement, leading via a chromatic diminished seventh chord to the finale.  

Nigel Simeone © 2011 

About the Artists

Tim Horton

Tim Horton is one of the UK’s leading pianists, equally at home in solo and chamber repertoire. He is a founder member of both the Leonore Piano Trio and Ensemble 360 and has been a regular guest pianist with the Nash Ensemble. He was invited to make his solo debut at Wigmore Hall in 2016 where he will be giving further solo recitals in the coming seasons. Between 2011 and 2015 Tim presented a complete Beethoven Sonata cycle at the Crucible Studio, Sheffield for Music in the Round, and was invited to return to perform a cycle of Schubert Sonatas from 2017-2019. He is currently performing a cycle of concerts based around the composer Chopin for Music in the Round. Read more.