SCHOOLS’ CONCERT: THE STORM WHALE

Ensemble 360

The Guildhall, Portsmouth
Monday 19 January 2026, 1.30pm
Home› What's on› SCHOOLS’ CONCERT: THE STORM WHALE

Music in the Round invites your class to take part in a brilliant music project, culminating in a live concert at The Guildhall, Portsmouth.

Paul Rissmann (composer) has created a brand-new piece of music based around the modern-classic children’s books by Benji Davies, which includes songs for your class to learn and join in with in the concert.

The Storm Whale tells the story of a boy, a whale washed up on the beach and friendships that will change their lives forever and echo down the generations. Benji Davies’ heart-warming tales of friendship, love and courage are brought to life through music specially written to accompany the book. 

Our EY and KS1 practitioners will support you to embed singing and music-making in classroom learning throughout the project, with training, resources, and in-school support newly developed around The Storm Whale books. The project introduces young children to classical music in a fun and educational setting, including a concert featuring strings, woodwind and horn, presented together with story-telling and projected illustrations.

Performed by the wonderfully dynamic and hugely engaging musicians from Ensemble 360, this concert is a great introduction to live music for early years and KS1 children. It’s full of wit, invention, songs and actions, and plenty of opportunities to join in.

An educators’ classroom pack and other resources are available here.

“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, Gripple Foundation, 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)

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. 

 

SITAR with TABLA & STRING QUINTET

Jasdeep Singh Degun & Ensemble 360

The Guildhall, Portsmouth
Monday 23 March 2026, 7.30pm

Tickets:
£8 – £20

Book Tickets
Home› What's on› SITAR with TABLA & STRING QUINTET

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

A composer and virtuoso of the sitar with a classical string quintet makes for a spellbinding pairing. Ensemble 360 celebrates its 20th birthday with a gift to us – boundary-breaking new music created collaboratively. Jasdeep Singh Degun is no stranger to forming alliances in the music world. He was composer and co-music director for Opera North’s 2022 award-winning production of Orpheus, weaving a tapestry from the European and Indian traditions. ‘It’s really not a matter of different worlds meeting’, he reflects. ‘It’s just me: as much as I’m immersed in Indian classical music, I’m a product of this country; I’m a British composer.’ Both innovator and custodian of tradition, composer and performer, with a debut album made with the legendary Nitin Sawnhey released on Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records, he is reshaping the musical landscape.

Series Discount: 20% discount if you book all 5 Portsmouth Chamber Music concerts.

Time advertised is start time

 

About the Artists

Jasdeep Singh Degun

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

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

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

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

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

 

THE LARK ASCENDING

Ensemble 360

The Guildhall, Portsmouth
Monday 19 January 2026, 7.30pm

Tickets
£8 – £20

Past Event
Home› What's on› THE LARK ASCENDING

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′)
HARRISON Clarinet Quintet (12′)
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (arr. Gerigk) The Lark Ascending

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 for strings and clarinet. Fantasies from the Baroque gems of Purcell’s Three-part Fantasias to Imogen Holst’s Phantasy String Quartet sit alongside this perennial favourite.

Series Discount: 20% discount if you book all 5 Portsmouth Chamber Music concerts.

Time advertised is start time

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.

 

© Nigel Simeone

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. 

© Nigel Simone 2025 

PURCELL Henry, Three-Part Fantasias

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). 

HARRISON PAMELA, Clarinet Quintet

Allegro moderato
Lento
Allegro molto e agitato 

Pamela Harrison is a lesser-known English composer of the 20th Century. Born in Orpington, Greater London in 1915, Harrison produced many of her works during the Second World War. She studied at the Royal Northern College of Music under Australian pianist Arthur Benjamin, and regularly performed her own piano compositions as a student.  Her Clarinet Quintet (1956) was one of three pieces inspired by and written for her friend Jack Brymer, who was one of the most renowned clarinettists of the 20th Century. The opening Allegro Moderato begins in a jaunty manor, but quickly gives way to an unsettled feeling, in both the rhythm and the melody. The Lento movement is spacious and full of emotional intensity, with the clarinet line floating above a static string accompaniment. The final movement, the Allegro molto e agitato sees the return of the opening theme, riding a flurry of notes in the accompanying parts. Ensemble 360’s Robert Plane has championed Harrison’s music and was responsible for the world premiere recordings of her clarinet chamber pieces. 

 

© Nigel Simeone    

 

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.

© 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. 

 

INTIMATE EPICS: BEETHOVEN & JANÁČEK

Fibonacci Quartet

The Guildhall, Portsmouth
Monday 6 October 2025, 7.30pm

Tickets:
£8 – £20

Past Event
Fibonacci String Quartet, photo by Julia Bohle
Home› What's on› INTIMATE EPICS: BEETHOVEN & JANÁČEK

HAYDN String Quartet Op.33 No.4 (16’)
JANÁČEK String Quartet No.2 ‘Intimate Letters’ (26’)
BEETHOVEN String Quartet in C sharp minor Op.131 (40’)

With a glittering array of prizes and accolades, this young quartet has rapidly made a name as one of the most exciting European quartets working today. Through three great string quartets, they will showcase their staggering range and committed artistry. Janáček’s ‘Intimate Letters’ is a rich late work of love and longing, and this programme is crowned by Beethoven’s towering final achievement blending a lightness of touch with the depth of a lifetime of music: both intimate and epic.

Series Discount: 20% discount if you book all 5 Portsmouth Chamber Music concerts.

Time advertised is start time.

HAYDN Joseph, Quartet in B flat Op.33 No.4

Allegro moderato
Scherzo. Allegretto – Minore
Largo
Presto

 

Haydn’s Opus 33 quartets, also known as the “Russian” quartets, are a collection of six string quartets composed in 1781. These works represent a significant milestone in the development of the string quartet as a genre, and they are widely regarded as Haydn’s finest compositions.

 

This quartet in B flat major opens with a vibrant and exuberant Allegro moderato showcasing Haydn’s signature humour and wit, with playful exchanges between the four instruments. The Scherzo is a lively and rhythmic dance that is full of energy and syncopation. The Adagio is a poignant and expressive, aria-like movement that showcases Haydn’s gift for melody and his ability to evoke deep emotion through music. The quartet concludes with a dazzling and virtuosic finale, that brings the work to an exhilarating conclusion. Throughout the quartet, Haydn’s use of form and inventive musical ideas play with tonality, harmonic structure and texture to create a rich and complex musical tapestry. The quartet is marked by surprise, unexpected turns, and humour, while maintaining a sense of coherence and unity. Haydn’s Opus 33 No.4 is a landmark in the development of the genre: a work of great beauty, depth, and complexity.

 

© Nigel Simeone

JANÁČEK Leoš, String Quartet No.2 “Intimate Letters”

Andante 
Adagio 
Moderato 
Allegro  

This extraordinary work was the result of extraordinary circumstances. As a married man in his 70s, Janáček had been head over heels in love with the much younger Kamila Stösslová for a decade by the time he wrote his 2nd String Quartet. This was a passionate (if largely one-sided) love that is eloquently expressed in the hundreds of letters he wrote her, and in the pieces that were directly inspired by her – from operas such as Katya Kabanova to the much more private world of chamber music. On 29 January he told Kamila about the latest piece to be inspired by her: ‘Today it’s Sunday and I’m especially sad. I’ve begun to work on a quartet; I’ll give it the name Love Letters.’ By 19 February the sketch was finished, and a couple of weeks later Janáček had written out a fair copy. He changed his mind several times about the title, eventually settling on Intimate Letters. The original scoring, noted on the manuscript, was to include a viola d’amore – the viola of love – but this was more symbolic than practical and after a private play-through, Janáček abandoned the idea.   

Janáček’s letters to Kamila are revealing about the programmatic content of this quartet. The first movement he described as ‘the impression of when I saw you for the first time!’ and the third evokes a moment ‘when the earth trembled’. The fourth movement was ‘filled with a great longing – as if it were fulfilled.’ As for the whole work, he confided in April 1928 that ‘it’s my first composition whose notes glow with all the dear things that we’ve experienced together. You stand behind every note, you, living, forceful, loving.’  

Janáček died on 12 August 1928, and the quartet had to wait another decade before it was published, by which time both Kamila and Janáček’s long-suffering wife Zdenka were dead. Intimate Letters stands as one of the most personal and original works in the twentieth-century quartet repertoire. The Czech novelist Milan Kundera summarized the essence of Janáček’s art as ‘capturing unknown, never expressed emotions, and capturing them in all their immediacy’. 

Nowhere is it more immediate – or more emotional – than in this quartet.  

© Nigel Simeone

BEETHOVEN Ludwig van, String Quartet in C sharp minor, Op.131

i. Adagio ma non troppo e molto espressivo
ii. Allegro molto vivace
iii. Allegro moderato
iv. Andante ma non troppo e molto cantabile
v. Presto
vi. Adagio quasi un poco andante
vii. Allegro 
 

Beethoven himself considered the C sharp minor Quartet to be his finest work: an immense single span comprising seven movements that are performed without a break. When Richard Wagner heard the work performed by the Maurin-Chevillard Quartet in Paris, he was overcome with admiration. It’s always fascinating to read one great composer writing about another, and despite the purple prose, Wagner’s remarks are a wonderful tribute. He likens the Quartet to a “Beethoven day”, and describes the music as follows:  

“I should designate the long introductory Adagio – than which, probably, nothing more melancholy has ever been expressed in sound – as the awakening on the morning of a day … It is, at the same time, a penitential prayer, a conference with God. The introspective eye views (Allegro, 6/8) there, too, the comforting phenomenon in which Desire becomes a sweet, sorrowful play with itself: the innermost dream-image awakens in a most charming reminiscence. And now (in the short transitional Allegro moderato) it is as though the Master, recollecting his art, addressed himself to his magic work. He employs (Andante, 2/4) the revived power of spells peculiarly his own, to charm a graceful shape … in order that he may enrapture himself by ever new and unprecedented transformations … We now fancy (Presto 2/2) that we see him who is so completely happy, cast a glance of indescribable serenity upon the outer world. … Everything is rendered luminous by his inner happiness. … He now reflects on how he must begin (Adagio, 3/4), a short but troubled meditation … He awakens, and now strikes the strings for a dance, in such a way as the world has never yet heard (Allegro Finale). It is the dance of the world itself: wild delight, the lamentation of anguish, ecstasy of love, highest rapture … and sorrow: suddenly, lightning quivers, the angry tempest growls; and above all this, the mighty player … smiles at himself, for the incantation was to him, after all, only a play. Night beckons to him. His day is finished.”

 

Nigel Simeone 2013 

About the Artists

Fibonacci String Quartet, photo by Julia Bohle

Fibonacci Quartet

The Fibonacci Quartet are one of Europe’s leading young string quartets. Formed at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the quartet teach as Quartet in Residence at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama as well as at the Royal Academy of Music in their position as Nina Drucker Fellows. Winners at the 2024 Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) International auditions, they were also recently appointed as Grand Résident ensemble at ProQuartet in Paris for seasons 2025-2027.

The only ensemble ever to win both the First and Audience Prize at the Premio Paolo Borciani International String Quartet Competition in 2024, the Fibonacci’s are prolific prize winners, winning prestigious awards including First Prize in the Royal Overseas League Chamber Music Competition, First Prize in the Cavatina Chamber Music Competition, The RPS Henderson Chamber Ensemble Award, First Prize in the International Triomphe de l’Art Competition in Belgium, The Kirckman Society Award, Audience Prize at the Schiermonnikoog Festival and Special Prizes of the Shostakovich Association in Paris and Peermusic in Hamburg.

The 2025/26 season sees them continue their busy schedule, with performances including performances at Vienna Musikverein, Berlin Philharmonie, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Frankfurt Alte Oper, Wigmore Hall, Munich Prinzregententheater and Philharmonie de Paris. Read more.

CLOSE UP: MUSIC FOR CURIOUS YOUNG MINDS

Ensemble 360 & Elinor Moran

The Guildhall, Portsmouth
Monday 17 March 2025, 1.30pm

For tickets, please email hayley.reay@portsmouthguildhall.org.uk

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

A lively schools concert, presented by Elinor Moran and featuring five wind musicians (flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon and horn). Together they breathe life into the wondrous world of chamber music.

They’ll play well-known classical favourites from Britten and Debussy to Haydn and Holst, alongside more recent works such as Anna Meredith’s playful portrait of a moth and Valerie Coleman’s celebratory Kwanzaa dance. Perfect for 7-11 year olds, this is a lively and interactive concert.

Ideal for 7-11 year olds.

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. 

 

Elinor Moran

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

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

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

SCHOOLS’ CONCERT: GIDDY GOAT

Ensemble 360 & John Webb

The Guildhall, Portsmouth
Monday 2 December 2024, 1.30pm

To book email hayley.reay@guildhalltrust.org.uk

Giddy Goat family concert image
Home› What's on› SCHOOLS’ CONCERT: GIDDY GOAT

Music in the Round invites your class to take part in a brilliant music project, culminating in a live concert at the Portsmouth Guildhall. 

Paul Rissmann (composer) has created a fantastic piece of music based around the children’s book Giddy Goat (Jamie Rix and Lynne Chapman) which includes songs for your class to learn and join in with in the concert.

Our EY and KS1 practitioners will support you to embed singing and music-making in classroom learning throughout the project, with training, resources, and in-school support newly developed around the Giddy Goat story. The project introduces young children to classical music in a fun and educational setting, including a concert featuring strings, woodwind and horn, presented together with story-telling and projected illustrations.

Being a mountain goat is no fun when you are scared of heights! Stand poor Giddy on a mountain ledge and his head starts spinning and his knees turn to jelly. But can he find the fearless goat inside himself in time to rescue little Edmund?

Performed by the wonderfully dynamic and hugely engaging musicians from Ensemble 360, this concert is a great introduction to live music for early years and KS1 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. 

 

A CELEBRATION OF CZECH MUSIC

Ensemble 360

The Guildhall, Portsmouth
Monday 17 March 2025, 7.30pm
Past Event
Ensemble 360 classical musicians - oboe player Adrian Wilson, horn player Naomi Atherton and clarinet player Robert Plane
Home› What's on› A CELEBRATION OF CZECH MUSIC

HAAS Oboe Suite Op.17 (16′)
JANÁČEK In the Mists (15′)
HAAS Wind Quinet Op.10 (14′)
JANÁČEK Mládi (19′)

Janáček’s beloved Mládí (‘Youth’) was written towards the end of his life as a nostalgic celebration of memories of his youth, drawing on his early writing. Receiving its premiere performances in autumn 1924, we celebrate the 100th anniversary of this iconic piece for wind, featuring the bass clarinet alongside a regular wind quintet line-up of flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon. Also featured in this concert is Janacek’s expressive masterpiece for solo piano ‘In the Mists’ and two works from wind and piano by his most illustrious student, Pavel Haas.

HAAS Pavel, Wind Quintet Op.10

Pavel Haas who was born in 1899, was a Jewish composer from Czechoslovakia, who had his promising career tragically cut short when he was killed in Auschwitz in 1944. His music, once forgotten, is gradually gaining recognition, thanks to dedicated efforts by surviving colleagues and scholars. Haas was a student of Leoš Janáček, and his music reflects the influence of Moravian folk tunes and Jewish liturgical music. One of his most significant works, the Wind Quintet (1929), showcases his distinct style, blending rhythmic complexity and folk influences, much like his teacher Janáček’s Mládí.

Written on the eve of the tumult of the 1930s and infused with the bleakness and forboding of the period, it remained largely unknown for decades, with nearly all copies lost during World War II. However, Czech musicologist Lubomír Peduzzi, a former student of Haas, discovered the manuscript in the Moravian Museum in Brno. His 1991 edition of the work has helped the piece find its place alongside other important wind quintets of the interwar period, such as those by Nielsen, Schoenberg, and Hindemith.

The Wind Quintet is a four-movement work characterized by its emotional depth and modal melodies. The first movement, Preludio, begins with a folk-like tune, while the second, Pregheira (“Prayer”), conveys a heartfelt spiritual yearning. The third movement, Ballo Eccentrico, is a lively, quirky dance, and the final movement, rooted in Moravian folk music, ends with an expansive, triumphant chord. Despite its predominantly minor tonality, the work is varied in mood, alternating between seriousness and cheerfulness, much like Janáček’s compositions.

Haas’ music, though overshadowed by the atrocities of the Holocaust, is now recognized as a significant contribution to 20th-century chamber music. His Wind Quintet, in particular, stands as a powerful and original work, blending folk traditions with modern compositional techniques, and is gradually earning its place in the standard repertoire.

JANÁČEK Leoš, Mládí

Janáček composed Mládí in July 1924 (the month of his 70th birthday) at his rural retreat in the village of Hukvaldy. He described it to Kamila Stösslová as ‘a sort of memoir of youth’, and a newspaper article in December 1924 described the programme of the suite as follows: ‘In the first movement, [Janáček] remembers his childhood at school in Hukvaldy, in the second the sad scenes of parting with his mother at the station in Brno, in the third in 1866 as a chorister when the Prussians were in Brno; the concluding movement is a courageous leap into life.’ Intended as a nostalgic evocation of Janáček’s youth (his original title was Mladý život – Young Life) it is a typically quirky and ebullient product of his incredibly productive old age. It was first performed in Brno on 24 October 1924, followed a month later by a performance in Prague. Janáček also heard the work during his only visit to England, at a concert in the Wigmore Hall on 6 May 1926 when it was played by British musicians including Leon Goossens and Aubrey Brain. 

Nigel Simeone © 2011 

About the Artists

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

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

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

 

PIANO FAVOURITES

Kathryn Stott

The Guildhall, Portsmouth
Monday 21 October 2024, 7.30pm
Past Event
Classical pianist Kathryn Stott
Home› What's on› PIANO FAVOURITES

BACH Prelude and Fugue No. 1 in C BWV846 (5′)
L BOULANGER Théme et Variations (9′)
FAURÉ Barcarolle No.4 in A Flat Op.44 (4′)
RAVEL Jeux d’eau (5′)
GRIEG Wedding Day at Troldhaugen Op. 65 No. 6 (6′)
PIAZZOLLA (arr. YAMAMOTO) Milonga (5′)
SHOSTAKOVICH Prelude & Fegue No. 24 in D minor Op.87 (12′)
FITKIN Scent (4′)
RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN (arr. HOUGH) ‘My Favourite Things’ (3′)
SHAW Gustave Le Gray (11′)
CHOPIN Mazurka Op. 17 No. 4 in A minor (4′)
GRAINGER Molly on the Shore (4′)
VINE Short Story (3′)
FITKIN Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (8′)

Acclaimed pianist Kathryn Stott brings a programme of ‘musical postcards’ to Portsmouth as part of her farewell tour. As Kathy draws her performing career to a close, she performs an eclectic programme spanning four centuries of music, showcasing her diverse musical loves and friendships.

Opening with exquisite Bach and concluding with a brand-new farewell commission, via a Scandinavian wedding celebration from Grieg, the spirit of Broadway and a masterful Chopin Mazurka, this promises to be a whirlwind tour through a unique musical career from a captivating performer much-loved across the world.

PIANO FAVOURITES

When Kathryn Stott performed this programme at the Aldeburgh Festival in June 2024, it was billed as a concert of ‘Musical Postcards’. That’s a good description of a recital which explores the huge range of her repertoire, starting with the first prelude and fugue from The Well-Tempered Clavier by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) and ending with a brand-new piece by Graham Fitkin which was given its world premiere at the Aldeburgh concert on 21 June. Lili Boulanger (1893–1918) composed her Thème et variations in 1914 but the work remained unknown until its rediscovery led to its first performance (and publication) in 1993. The theme (marked ‘avec douleur, mais noble’) is presented without accompaniment and eight variations follow, each treating the theme (or part of it) in imaginative ways that are entirely characteristic of Boulanger.

 

Caroline Potter has noted that the work was modelled on the Thème et variations, Op. 73 by Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924) who was Boulanger’s teacher and a family friend. Fauré’s Barcarolle No. 4, Op. 44, was composed in 1886 and dedicated to Mme Ernest Chausson. Quietly poetic in mood, it is full of the rich harmonic surprises and fluid melodies that are so typical of Fauré’s music. Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) was one of Fauré’s most imaginative pupils and he wrote Jeux d’eau – among the most evocative and brilliant of all ‘water’ pieces for piano – in 1901, with a dedication ‘à mon cher maître Gabriel Fauré’.

 

Edvard Grieg (1843–1907) composed Wedding Day at Troldhaugen to celebrate his silver wedding anniversary with his wife Nina in 1896 and it was included in Book VIII of Grieg’s Lyric Pieces the following year, when it acquired its definitive title (Grieg has originally called it ‘The well-wishers are coming’). The Argentine Astor Piazzolla (1921–1992), creator of the nuevo tango which fused traditional tango with elements of jazz and classical styles, composed Milonga del Ángel in 1965, and it is heard here in a later piano transcription by the Japanese pianist Kyoko Yamamoto. Inspired by a visit to Leipzig in 1950 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Bach’s death, Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–75) modelled his Preludes and Fugues Op. 87 on Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, even including some quotations as well as following Bach’s design of preludes and fugues in each of the major and minor keys. Completed on 23 February 1951, the D minor Prelude and Fugue ends the entire set with a stern prelude followed by a highly elaborate double fugue (which also includes allusions to Bach’s Art of Fugue) deploying a formidable array of contrapuntal techniques. The whole set was first performed in April and May 1951 at a private concert for the Soviet Union of Composers and heard in public in December 1952, played by Tatiana Nikolayeva, for whom the Preludes and Fugues had been composed.

 

Graham Fitikin (b. 1963) composed Scent in 2007, originally for the harpist Ruth Wall. The pianist Stephen Hough (b. 1961) included his hugely entertaining and ingenious transcription of ‘My Favorite Things’ from The Sound of Music by Richard Rodgers (1902–79) on one of his earliest recital discs, bringing Lisztian pyrotechnics to Broadway. When Caroline Shaw (b. 1982) composed Gustave Le Gray in 2012, she was inspired by Chopin’s Mazurka Op. 17 No. 4 – one of his most harmonically inventive earlier pieces – and included direct references to it in her own work. Shaw herself described it as ‘a multi-layered portrait of Op. 17 No. 4 using some of Chopin’s ingredients overlaid and hinged together with my own.’ The original Mazurka by Fryderyk Chopin (1810–49) was first published in Paris in 1834. It is a spellbinding kind of dance poem, full of ambiguity and quiet longing, some astonishingly daring harmonies and a trajectory which begins and ends in uncertain silence. Molly on the Shore by the Australian Percy Grainger (1882–1961) was based on two traditional Irish reels and written in 1907 as a birthday present for Grainger’s mother. He first composed it for strings, then made an orchestral version in 1914 and the present piano transcription in 1918. He later made further versions for military band (1920) and for two pianos (1947).

 

Carl Vine (b. 1954) is another Australian composer, and his Anne Landa Preludes were written in 2006 in memory of Anne Landa (who died in 2002 at the age of 55), particularly her passionate encouragement of young Australian pianists. The first of the preludes is ‘Short Story’ described by Vine as follows: ‘The prelude contains a story. But the drama emerges through its own internal logic rather than from a specific series of predetermined events’. Graham Fitkin composed Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly specifically for Kathryn Stott’s farewell recitals, taking his title from the euphemism used by Elon Musk’s SpaceX when its rockets blew up in 2015 and 2023 (though the phrase probably goes back to the 1960s when NASA used similar terminology to describe earlier explosions). As Stott said in a recent interview, ‘My one request to Graham was, this will be the last notes I play in public, so keep that in mind!’ 

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. 

BEETHOVEN, MOZART & MORE: STRING QUARTETS

Marmen Quartet

The Guildhall, Portsmouth
Monday 20 January 2025, 7.30pm
Past Event
Home› What's on› BEETHOVEN, MOZART & MORE: STRING QUARTETS

BEETHOVEN String Quartet No. 11 in F minor Op.95 “Serioso” (22′)
BARTÓK String Quarter No. 3 (15′)
FISHER Heal (8′)
MOZART String Quartet in C K465 ‘Dissonance’ (30′)

The Marmen Quartet has won a glittering array of international prizes; its musicians are rigorous and deeply humane performers. Charting hundreds of years string writing, their concert begins with Beethoven’s ‘Serioso’ String Quartet No. 11 in F minor, followed by the vivid folk-inspired motifs of the Third Quartet No. 11 in F minor, followed by the vivid folk-inspired motifs of the Third Quartet by Hungarian composer Belà Bartók.

Salina Fisher’s highly original hypnotic new work, specially commissioned for the Marmen Quartet during lockdown by Chamber Music New Zealand, also features. Culminating in Mozart’s daring ‘Dissonance’ String Quartet in C, join us for a celebration of timeless classics and the innovative spirit of modern works.

BEETHOVEN Ludwig van, String Quartet in F minor Op.95 Serioso

Allegro con brio
Allegretto ma non troppo, attacca subito
Allegro assai vivace ma serioso. Più allegro
Larghetto espressivo. Allegretto agitato. Allegro

‘The Quartet is written for a small circle of connoisseurs and is never to be performed in public.’ Thus wrote Beethoven to Sir George Smart in October 1816. The kind of public concerts he had in mind – mixed programmes of vocal and instrumental music – would indeed make an odd setting for a work of such concentrated intensity. Composed in 1810 and revised for publication in 1815, Beethoven dedicated it to his friend, Nikolaus Zmeskall von Domanovetz, a talented amateur cellist who worked as Hungarian Court Secretary in Vienna.

One of Beethoven’s shortest and most tautly argued quartets, it was the composer himself who called it Quartetto serioso on the autograph manuscript. The Beethoven expert William Kinderman sums up its character as ‘dark, introspective, and vehement’, and it’s no surprise that Beethoven takes a similarly pithy approach to form: a much-shortened recapitulation in the first movement, a slow movement that eschews lyricism in favour of a chromatic fugal section, and a prickly Scherzo (more of an anti-Scherzo really, since it is not only completely lacking in any kind of humour, but is even marked ‘serioso’). The finale sustains this tension and agitation until the last moment – then something extraordinary happens: the music takes a sudden turn to F major, and there’s a dash to the finish. The American composer Randall Thompson commented that ‘no bottle of champagne was ever uncorked at a better time.’

© Nigel Simeone

About the Artists

Marmen Quartet

From 2015-2018, the Marmen Quartet was the first ensemble to participate in Music in the Round’s Bridge scheme to support promising young musicians at the start of their professional career. Bridge provided the quartet with performance opportunities, mentoring, guidance and advice on developing and succeeding in the world of professional music-making. This included mentoring by the late, world-renowned leader of The Lindsay String Quartet and founder of Music in the Round, Peter Cropper.

Formed in 2013 at the Royal College of Music, the Marmen Quartet were holders of the Guildhall School of Music String Quartet Fellowship (2018-2020) and studied at the Hochschule für Musik in Hannover with Oliver Wille as well as in London with Simon Rowland-Jones and John Myerscough (Doric Quartet). They were mentored by the late Peter Cropper and have received support from the Musicians Company/Concordia Foundation, the Hattori Foundation, Help Musicians and the Royal Philharmonic Society (Albert and Eugenie Frost Prize). The Marmen Quartet is an official Pirastro Artist.

With a growing reputation for the courage, vitality and intensity of its performances the Marmen Quartet is fast establishing itself as one of the most impressive and engaging talents in the chamber music arena. 2019 marked a year of significant achievement for the Quartet, with First Prizes at both the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition and Banff International String Quartet Competition, where they were also awarded the Haydn and Canadian Commission prizes. Other accolades include first prize at the Royal Overseas League Competition (2018) and awards at the International Joseph Joachim Chamber Music Competition.

The Marmen Quartet has performed at leading European venues including Wigmore Hall, Berlin Philharmonie, Boulez Saal, Frankfurt Alte Oper, Stockholm Konserthuset, Milton Court (Barbican), Palladium Malmö and Muziekgebouw Eindhoven. Festival engagements have taken the Quartet to the BBC Proms, Lockenhaus, Mecklenburg Vorpommern, Rheingau, Heidelberg and Zeister Musiekdagen Festivals as well as the Amsterdam, Barcelona and Gulbenkian Foundation String Quartet Biennale Festivals. Read more.

FANFARE! TRUMPET CLASSICS

Aaron Azunda Akugbo & Zeynep Özsuca

The Guildhall, Portsmouth
Monday 28 April 2025, 7.30pm
Past Event
Aaron Akugbo, rising-star trumpet player
Home› What's on› FANFARE! TRUMPET CLASSICS

HONEGGER Intrada (4′)
L BOULANGER Nocturne et Cortege (8′)
VIVALDI Agitata da due venti (6′)
BOZZA Aria (4′)
FRANCAIX Sonatine (8′)
HUBEAU Sonata (15′)
PRICE The Glory of the Day was in Her Face (3′)
PRICE Song to the Dark Virgin (3′)
MAHLER Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft (3′)
ROPARTZ Andante et Allegro (6′)

Having made waves with recent performances at Wigmore Hall and the BBC Proms, rising star trumpeter Aaron Akugbo comes to Portsmouth. Citing Louis Armstrong as his greatest musical influence, this charismatic performer presents an uplifting mix of works in a captivating evening of diverse and evocative musical expressions. With music spanning centuries and continents, from classical elegance to vibrant modern works, this evening promises to take you on a journey through a rich tapestry of emotions and styles.

HONEGGER Arthur, Intrada

 The Intrada by Arthur Honegger (1892–1955) was composed in April 1947 for that year’s concours at the Geneva Conservatoire. Its maestoso outer sections are ceremonial in character – with angular melodic lines (over sustained piano chords) that are particularly well suited to the trumpet – while the lively central section resembles a kind of toccata for trumpet.  

Nigel Simeone © 2024 

BOULANGER Lili, Nocturne et Cortège

The phenomenal gifts of Lili Boulanger (1893–1918) were recognised when she was in her teens, and in 1913 she became the first woman to win the Prix de Rome for composition at the Paris Conservatoire with her cantata Faust et Hélène. She was nineteen at the time, but her musical language was already distinctive. The Nocturne was one of her earlier pieces, originally entitled ‘pièce courte pour flûte et piano’, the manuscript dated 27 October 1911. It was subsequently reworked for violin and piano and is here arranged for trumpet. The Cortège, which is often paired with it, dates from June 1914 when it began as a piano solo which was then arranged for violin and piano and later transcribed for trumpet. 

Nigel Simeone © 2024 

VIVALDI Antonio, Agitata da due venti

Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) is much less remembered for his operas than for his instrumental and choral works, but he claimed to have composed more than 90 of them, of which complete scores of around 20 are known to survive. The aria ‘Agitata da due venti’ began life in his opera Adelaide – first performed in Verona during the Carnival season in February 1735, and recycled few months later in Griselda which was given its premiere at the Teatro San Samuele in Venice on 18 May 1735. In both cases, this florid virtuoso aria was performed by the same singer, Margherita Giacomazzi. The title refers to the character Costanza, caught by conflicting emotions like a sailor between opposing winds. The coloratura vocal lines of Vivaldi’s original transfer very successfully to a trumpet.  

Nigel Simeone © 2024 

BOZZA Eugene,

Eugène Bozza (1905–91) was born in Nice to an Italian father (who was a professional violinist). After graduating from the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, he pursued further studies over the next decade (in violin, conducting and composition) at the Paris Conservatoire, winning the Prix de Rome in 1934. He composed the Aria in 1936, scoring it originally for saxophone and piano but its flowing melody over ripely-harmonised piano chords is well suited to the trumpet. 

Nigel Simeone © 2024 

FRANÇAIX Jean, Sonatine

Jean Françaix (1912–97) composed his Sonatine for the 1952 trumpet concours. Cast in three short movements, the opening ‘Prélude’ requires considerable agility while the ‘Sarabande’ presents a long, slow melody on a muted trumpet which gives way to faster and more complex section full of rapid chromatic writing. An unaccompanied cadenza leads directly to an entertaining ‘Gigue’ which brings the work to a high-spirited close.

Nigel Simeone © 2024 

HUBEAU Jean, Sonata

Jean Hubeau (1917–92) is remembered primarily as a pianist, but he studied composition with Paul Dukas at the Conservatoire and was runner up in the 1934 Prix de Rome competition, coming second to Eugène Bozza. Hubeau composed his Sonata for Trumpet in 1943 and it was published by Durand the following year with a dedication to Jean Bérard, head of the Pathé-Marconi recording company. One of its most celebrated later exponents was the trumpeter Maurice André who recorded the work with the composer at the piano. It is cast in three movements: a Sarabande marked Andante con moto, a rapid Intermède and a concluding blues-inspired Spiritual.  

Nigel Simeone © 2024 

PRICE Florence, The glory of the day was in her face

The rediscovery of the African-American composer Florence Price (1897–1953) has not only revealed an impressive body of symphonic music but also a number of songs including The Glory of the Day was in Her Face (on a poem by James Weldon Johnson) and Song to the Dark Virgin (from her 1941 collection Songs of the Weary Blues, four settings of Langston Hughes, the great poet of the Harlem Renaissance).  

Nigel Simeone © 2024 

PRICE Florence, Songs to the dark virgin

The rediscovery of the African-American composer Florence Price (1897–1953) has not only revealed an impressive body of symphonic music but also a number of songs including The Glory of the Day was in Her Face (on a poem by James Weldon Johnson) and Song to the Dark Virgin (from her 1941 collection Songs of the Weary Blues, four settings of Langston Hughes, the great poet of the Harlem Renaissance).  

Nigel Simeone © 2024 

MAHLER Gustav, Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft

‘Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft’ is from the Rückert-Lieder by Gustav Mahler (1860–1911), composed in the summer of 1901 and evoking the gentle fragrance of a lime tree which the poet associated with his love.

Nigel Simeone © 2024 

GUY-ROPARTZ Joseph, Andante et Allegro

Joseph Guy-Ropartz (1865–1955) composed his Andante et Allegro for the 1903 trumpet concours at the Paris Conservatoire. Born in Brittany, he studied composition with Massenet and the organ with César Franck before becoming director of the conservatoires in Nancy and then Strasbourg. His compositions include five symphonies as well as shorter works including this fluently written competition piece which explores many of the characteristics of the instrument – expressiveness in the slower sections and considerable brilliance towards the close. 

Nigel Simeone © 2024 

MOZART, ONSLOW & WATKINS

Ensemble 360

The Guildhall, Portsmouth
Monday 2 December 2024, 7.30pm
Past Event
Home› What's on› MOZART, ONSLOW & WATKINS

ONSLOW Nonet (35′)
MOZART Quintet for Piano and Wind K452 (25′)
WATKINS Broken Consort (30′)

On the eve of their 20th anniversary, the string, wind and piano players of much-loved Ensemble 360 return to Portsmouth. Their programme includes captivating charm and wit in George Onslow’s Nonet. This is a chance to hear one of the finest and largest-scale chamber works by the composer, nicknamed the ‘French Beethoven’, whose five movements move through an expressive array of moods from turbulence to a jubilant conclusion.

A delightful Mozart masterpiece for piano and wind follows, and the evening concludes with a specially commissioned work, Broken Consort, by award-winning Welsh composer Huw Watkins.

ONSLOW George, Nonet in A Op.77

Allegro spirituoso
Scherzo. Agitato
Tema con variazioni
Finale. Largo – Allegretto quasi Allegro

 

Onslow was born in Clemont-Ferrand, the son of an aristocratic British family. He studied with Cramer and Dussek, and though travelling widely, he always remained loyal to the Auvergne working as a successful farmer as well as composing a large body of chamber music (including thirty-six string quartets) along with four symphonies and operas. His music was admired by Schumann and Mendelssohn, and the Nonet, composed in 1848, is dedicated to Prince Albert. The first movement has a nervous energy that is quite characteristic, and from the very start it’s clear that Onslow makes imaginative use of the ensemble. The Scherzo that follows has an unusual combination of austerity and charm, based on pithy Beethovenian main idea. The slow movement is theme with five variations. After a slow introduction, the finale is gently animated, working its way towards a dramatic conclusion.

 

Nigel Simeone © 2012

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

Largo – Allegro moderato
Larghetto
Allegretto

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

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

Nigel Simeone © 2011

WATKINS Huw, Broken Consort

Broken consort is a term used to describe an instrumental ensemble that developed in Europe during the Renaissance. It originally referred to ensembles featuring instruments from more than one family of instruments, as for example a group featuring both string and wind instruments. It also neatly describes what I have done with the eleven instruments from Ensemble 360 (a group featuring string, wind, brass and keyboard instruments). There are four main movements – a lament, a study, a sicilienne and a finale – which all use different groups of instruments with the whole ensemble only playing together in the finale. Each movement is preceded with a brief interlude (or introduction in the case of the lament) which all use the same fanfare-like material in different ways. This material occasionally finds its way into the main movements, more or less overtly, at important structural moments.

Huw Watkins, 2008

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. 

 

NEW IMPRESSIONS: DEBUSSY & MORE

Solem Quartet

The Guildhall, Portsmouth
Monday 19 May 2025, 7.30pm
Past Event
Home› What's on› NEW IMPRESSIONS: DEBUSSY & MORE

BOSMANS String Quartet (12′)
FINNIS String Quartet No.3 ‘Devotions’ (23′)
N BOULANGER Three Pieces for cello and piano, arr. Tress for string quartet (c.8′)
DEBUSSY Quartet in G Minor (25′)

A concert of glittering works with Debussy’s sensual and impressionistic quartet at its heart, shimmering with life and light between opening storms and a grand conclusion.

Praised for their “immaculate precision and spirit” (The Strad) and “cultured tone” (Arts Desk), the Solem Quartet is on of the most innovative and adventurous string quartets of its generation. The Quartet is celebrated for their pairing of established works with hidden gems, and their programme here also features complementary works by Nadia Boulanger, Edmund Finnis and Henriette Bosmans.

BOSMANS Henriëtte, String Quartet (1927)

1. Allegro molto moderato
2. Lento
3. Allegro molto

Henriëtte Bosmans had a successful career as a pianist in the Netherlands in the 1920s and 30s, appearing as a soloist with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra. She was less fortunate as a composer, initially running into the prejudice against female composers that was prevalent at the time. Later on, her performing career was curtailed: as a half-Jewish woman she was registered as a ‘Jewish case’ in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. After the war, Bosmans wrote a number of songs, and was awarded the Royal Order of Orange Nassau in 1951 – a recognition that came too late: she was always very ill and died the following year.

Bosmans’s String Quartet is in three movements. It was composed in 1927, the year in which she began studying with the outstanding Dutch composer of the time, Willem Pijper. She dedicated it to Pijper, noting on the manuscript that it was completed in time for his birthday on 8 September 1927. The Allegro molto moderato opens with a haunting idea in unison which blossoms into a movement full of unusual harmonies. A new faster section (in 7/8 time) is launched by the cello. After a recollection of the opening idea, the movement ends quietly with two plucked chords over a low cello note. The central Lento opens with a violin lament over sustained chords, its mood serious but with gentler, pastoral moments. The finale is marked by driving rhythms which make for an urgent and exciting close. Throughout the work, the influence of the quartets by Debussy and Ravel is often apparent, but this in not derivative music: even in a work from quite early in her composing career, Bosmans has an individual creative voice.

The first performance of this remarkable quartet was given on 28 January 1928 by the Amsterdam String Quartet, all members of the Concertgebouw Orchestra.

BOULANGER Nadia, Three pieces for cello and piano 

Moderato
Sans vitesse et à l’aise
Vite et nerveusement rythmé 

Nadia Boulanger, teacher, conductor, early music pioneer and trusted adviser to the likes of Stravinsky and Poulenc, was also a gifted composer. Fiercely self-critical, she always claimed her own music was nothing like as significant as that of her brilliant younger sister, Lili, but with the rediscovery of Nadia’s music it has become clear that she was a remarkable talent in her own right. She entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of nine and subsequently studied composition with Fauré. Most of her music dates from between 1904 and 1918 (the year Lili died), including the Three Pieces for cello and piano, composed in 1914 and first published the following year. The first, in E flat minor, presents a song-like melody on the cello over a hushed piano part marked doux et vague. After a brief climactic central section, the opening music returns for a serene close in E flat major. The second piece, in A minor, treats a deceptively simple tune – almost a folksong – in an ingenious canon between the cello and the piano. The last piece, in C sharp minor, is quick, with a middle section that provides a contrast in both rhythm and texture to the playful but muscular mood of the rest.   

Nigel Simeone © 2022 

DEBUSSY Claude, String Quartet in G minor Op. 10

Debussy’s String Quartet was first performed at the Société Nationale de Musique on 29 December 1893 – almost exactly a year before he shocked Paris with the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, the most laconic manifestation of his revolutionary creative spirit. The Quartet, composed just after the Prélude, is one of his earliest mature works – a piece that still has some roots in the musical language of César Franck but in which a fresh and brilliant imagination can be heard, not just in the free handling of forms, but also in the spectacularly inventive writing for string instruments – something absorbed by Ravel in the Quartet he wrote a decade later. The first movement is robust and confident, while the second, with its extensive use of pizzicato, hints at the Javanese music that Debussy heard at the 1889 Exposition. The slow movement begins with fragments of the theme split between the lower instruments before being introduced in full by the first violin, over rich chromatic harmonies. The finale has clear thematic links with the first. It starts hesitantly, gradually building up both tension and speed, on a melodic idea that is presented in different guises before reaching the dazzling conclusion in G major. 

Nigel Simeone © 2011 

About the Artists

Solem Quartet

Praised for their “immaculate precision and spirit” (The Strad) and “cultured tone” (Arts Desk), the Solem Quartet has established itself as one of the most innovative and adventurous quartets of its generation. A 2020 awardee of the Jerwood Arts Live Work Fund, one of 33 artists selected from more than 1200 applicants, the Solem Quartet takes its place amongst some of the UK’s brightest artistic voices.

Since winning the Royal Over-Seas League Ensemble Competition 2014, the Solem Quartet has built a strong following. They enjoy a busy concert schedule, ranging from international tours in Asia and Europe to performances at venues such as London’s Wigmore and Queen Elizabeth Halls, Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, Perth Concert Hall (subsequently broadcast by Radio 3) and the Tung Auditorium in Liverpool.

Passionate about collaboration, the Quartet has worked with artists from across genres including filmmaker Jessie Rodger, cellist/singer/composer Ayanna Witter-Johnson, and clarinettist/composer Mark Simpson, with whom they appeared at the Aldeburgh Festival and live on BBC Radio 3. They have also worked closely with many of today’s leading composers, including Anna Meredith, Colin Matthews and Thomas Adès, and in 2021 gave the UK premiere of Jonny Greenwood’s Quartet Suite from “There Will be Blood” at the V&A Museum.