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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

CLOSE UP: MUSIC FOR CURIOUS YOUNG MINDS

Ensemble 360

The Guildhall, Portsmouth

Monday 22 April 2024, 1.30pm

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

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

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

Ideal for 7-11 year olds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About the Artists

Ensemble 360

THE CHIMPANZEES OF HAPPY TOWN

Ensemble 360 & Elinor Moran

The Guildhall, Portsmouth

Monday 20 November 2023, 1.30pm

Booking for schools is now open, for tickets please contact portsmouthmusichub@portsmouthcc.gov.uk

Home› What's on› THE CHIMPANZEES OF HAPPY TOWN

CONCERTS FOR PRIMARY SCHOOLS

Celebrating the importance of love and happiness in everyone’s lives, Paul Rissmann’s much-loved musical retelling of Giles Andreae and Guy Parker-Rees’s best-selling picture-book returns.

Meet Chutney the Chimpanzee who, with one small act of planting a seed, transforms the lives of the entire town of Drabsville, and teaches its inhabitants to celebrate their differences and make life more colourful along the way!

With narration, visuals from the book and lots of music to introduce the musicians of Ensemble 360, this is a brilliant first concert for 3 – 7 year-olds.

Presented in collaboration with the Guildhall Trust and Portsmouth Music Hub.

About the Artists

Ensemble 360

Elinor Moran

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

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

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

MARSCHNER, BRAHMS, DVOŘÁK

Gould Piano Trio

The Guildhall, Portsmouth

Monday 20 May 2024, 7.30pm

Tickets:

£10 – £20

Past Event

Home› What's on› MARSCHNER, BRAHMS, DVOŘÁK

MARSCHNER Piano Trio No.2 in G minor, Op.111 (32’)
BRAHMS Piano Trio No.3 in C minor, Op.101 (21’)
DVOŘÁK Piano Trio No.4 in E minor, Op.90 ‘Dumky’ (32’)

The Gould Piano Trio returns to Portsmouth after a warmly received collaboration with violist Gary Pomeroy in 2021. At the heart of this concert is Dvořák’s most celebrated chamber work, the ‘Dumky’ trio which takes its name from a bohemian lament. This earthy and emotionally rich work is full of contrasts, folk tunes and invention. Paired with a rarely performed trio from a celebrated opera composer and Brahms’s lush, dramatic third piano trio, this promises to be an evening of high drama and the finest musicianship.

There will be a post-show Q&A with the artists and Colin Jagger of Portsmouth Chamber Music.

Series Discount: 20% discount if you book any 6 or more Portsmouth Chamber Music/Sounds of Now concerts.

Time advertised is the start time, please check your ticket for door time.

About the Artists

Gould Piano Trio

The Gould Piano Trio has been compared in the Washington Post to the great Beaux Arts Trio for their “musical fire” and “dedication to the genre” and has remained at the forefront of the international chamber music scene for well over a quarter of a century. They have performed at iconic venues worldwide, such as New York’s Weill Recital Hall, with tours of N. America, the Far East, Europe and New Zealand, and numerous appearances at London’s Wigmore Hall. Their extensive discography includes releases on Naxos, Chandos, Somm, Resonus, NMC and Champs Hill.

STRAVINSKY, COLERIDGE-TAYLOR, SCHUBERT

Ensemble 360

The Guildhall, Portsmouth

Monday 22 April 2024, 7.30pm

Tickets:

£10 – £20

Past Event

Home› What's on› STRAVINSKY, COLERIDGE-TAYLOR, SCHUBERT

STRAVINSKY Three Pieces for String Quartet (7’)
COLERIDGE-TAYLOR Clarinet Quintet (31’)
SCHUBERT String Quartet No.14 ‘Death and the Maiden’ (40’)

A concert of contrasts, showcasing the versatility of the world-class musicians from Ensemble 360.

Schubert’s deeply personal and beloved ‘Death and the Maiden’ string quartet is set alongside two lesser-known pieces written within a century but which could hardly be more different: Stravinsky’s compelling fragments for string quartet and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s exquisite clarinet quintet. The latter is arguably the greatest achievement in Coleridge-Taylor’s chamber music, by turns lyrical and muscular. It bears the unmistakable hallmarks of Dvořák’s profound influence on this tumultuous period of music.

There will be a post-show Q&A with the artists and Colin Jagger of Portsmouth Chamber Music.

Series Discount: 20% discount if you book any 6 or more Portsmouth Chamber Music/Sounds of Now concerts.

Time advertised is the start time, please check your ticket for door time.

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

Nigel Simeone

Allegro energico
Larghetto affettuoso
Scherzo. Allegro leggiero
Finale. Allegro agitato – Poco più moderato – Vivace

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was born in London and entered to Royal College of Music in 1890 to study the violin. His ability as a composer soon became apparent, and he studied composition with Stanford, becoming one of his favourite pupils. His Piano Quintet Op.1 (1893) heralded the arrival of a remarkable talent, but the Clarinet Quintet, composed in 1895, demonstrates Coleridge-Taylor at the height of his creative powers. Stanford had given his students a challenge, declaring that after Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet, written in 1891, nobody would be able to escape its influence. Coleridge-Taylor couldn’t resist trying, and when Stanford saw the result he is said to have exclaimed ‘you’ve done it!’ Coleridge-Taylor took his influences not from Brahms but from another great contemporary composer: in places this work sounds like the clarinet quintet that Dvořák never wrote. That’s a mark of Coleridge-Taylor’s wonderfully fluent and assured writing. The sonata form first movement is both confident and complex, with the clarinet forming part of an intricately-woven ensemble texture. The Larghetto has a free, rhapsodic character, dominated by a haunting main theme. The Scherzo delights in rhythmic tricks while the central Trio section is more lyrical. The opening theme of the finale governs much of what follows until a recollection of the slow movement gives way to an animated coda. The first performance took place at the Royal College of Music on 10 July 1895, with George Anderson playing the clarinet. Afterwards, Stanford wrote to the great violinist Joseph Joachim describing the piece as ‘the most remarkable thing in the younger generation that I have seen.’

About the Artists

Ensemble 360

MENDELSSOHN STRING QUARTETS

Consone Quartet

The Guildhall, Portsmouth

Monday 26 February 2024, 7.30pm

Tickets:

£10 – £20

Past Event

Home› What's on› MENDELSSOHN STRING QUARTETS

HAYDN String Quartet in D Op.64, No.5 ‘Lark’ (20’)
FANNY HENSEL-MENDELSSOHN String Quartet in E flat (22′)
FELIX MENDELSSOHN String Quartet in E minor Op.44, No.2 (32′)

The electrifying Consone Quartet, recent BBC New Generation Artists, comprises four sensitive and spirited musicians who have formed a dynamic ensemble prized for expressive interpretations of classical and romantic repertoire through historically informed performance.

One of Haydn’s most popular quartets opens this concert, featuring a soaring bird-like part for violin which earned the piece its Lark nickname. The evening also contrasts the music of both Mendelssohn siblings: Fanny’s raw, passionate and tempestuous quartet, the only one she published, and Felix’s stately, lyrical and deftly crafted E minor quartet.

There will be a post-show Q&A with the artists and Colin Jagger of Portsmouth Chamber Music.

Series Discount: 20% discount if you book any 6 or more Portsmouth Chamber Music/Sounds of Now concerts.

Time advertised is the start time, please check your ticket for door time.

Time displayed is start time.

It was the soaring violin theme at the start of the first movement which gave this quartet its nickname, in a movement which wears its learning lightly, transforming the main melody in inventive ways right up to its final appearance. The hymn-like Adagio cantabile (with a contrasting minor-key central section) is followed by a Minuet which combines the feeling of a rustic dance with sophisticated motivic development. The finale is an exciting virtuoso display with almost continuous activity, but also some ingenious elements of contrast (such as the passage where the rushing main idea is treated fugally).

Composed in 1790, Haydn’s Op.64 quartets were the earliest to receive their premieres at public concerts rather than at intimate gatherings of connoisseurs, and the finale of The Lark must have electrified its large audience – and delighted the composer himself: at the invitation of Johann Peter Salomon, Haydn arrived in England on New Year’s Day 1791 and remained there for the next 18 months. When the Quartets were published by the London firm of John Bland in June 1791, the title page announced that they had been ’composed by Giuseppe Haydn and perform’d under his direction at Mr Salomon’s concert, the Festino Rooms, Hanover Square’.

In the last couple of decades, the increasing interest in Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn’s music has demonstrated beyond doubt that her brother Felix was not the only member of the family with extraordinary gifts.

Fanny’s only String Quartet dates from 1834 but has its origins in an earlier piano sonata from 1829. That was never completed but its first two movements were reworked as the Adagio and Scherzo of the present quartet which was given its first performance at her Berlin salon in 1834. The formal freedom of this quartet is one of its most remarkable features, beginning with an intense, fantasia-like Adagio that begins in C minor before gradually working towards the home key of E flat by the end of the movement. The Scherzo in C minor, with a Trio section in C major, has something an elfin quality, whereas the following Romanze is a deeply-felt movement that shifts between G minor and major with some surprising detours into remote keys. The finale is a Rondo whose main theme (in tumbling thirds on the violins) dominates this movement, an exciting moto perpetuo.

Mendelssohn composed a set of three string quartets first published in 1840 and dedicated to Gustav, Prince of Vasa, Crown Prince of Sweden. The first version of Op.44 No.2 was completed in 1837 and first performed that year, and before publication Mendelssohn revised it two years later. This work shows the most comprehensive command of the medium of the string quartet – demanding but superbly crafted, and beautifully written for the instruments involved. The first movement is dominated by a kind of lyrical melodiousness that hints at the musical language of a more famous work by Mendelssohn in the same key: the Violin Concerto. Where his earlier string quartets were intended as a deliberate homage to Beethoven – reflecting that in their terse, concentrated ideas – in this quartet Mendelssohn is more overtly expressive, while still controlling the form with great concision and skill. The Scherzo in E major is in the dashing, elfin style familiar from the Octet and the incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream and it’s easy to forget just how utterly original Mendelssohn was being in these movements. The slow movement, in G major, is a relaxed song without words, leading to a finale of great intensity and ingenuity in which a consistent level of energetic flow is complemented by a brilliant variety in texture.

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.

HAYDN, SCHUMANN & MORE

Trio Gaspard

The Guildhall, Portsmouth

Monday 29 January 2024, 7.30pm

Tickets:

£10 – £20

Past Event

Home› What's on› HAYDN, SCHUMANN & MORE

HAYDN Piano Trio in A Hob.XV:9 (13’)
SCHUMANN Piano Trio No 2 in F Op.80 (27’)
HAYDN Piano Trio in E flat minor Hob XV:31 (13’)
BEAMISH Piano Trio written for Trio Gaspard’s ‘Haydn Project’ (c.10’)
LISZT Hungarian Rhapsody No.9 ‘Carnival in Pest’ (10’)

Trio Gaspard has earned an international reputation for refreshing interpretations of core piano trio repertoire and championing new music. This eclectic programme does just that, juxtaposing two trios by Haydn, the father or the form, and a short work commissioned from Sally Beamish celebrating this ever-evolving tradition. Liszt’s colourful and virtuosic Hungarian Rhapsody provides a spirited and celebratory finale.

There will be a post-show Q&A with the artists and Colin Jagger of Portsmouth Chamber Music

Series Discount: 20% discount if you book any 6 or more Portsmouth Chamber Music/Sounds of Now concerts.

Time advertised is the start time, please check your ticket for door time.

Haydn composed this trio in 1785 – the year when he also wrote the ‘Paris’ Symphonies. It was first published in February 1786 by the London firm of William Forster as one of Three Sonatas for the Harpsichord or Piano-Forte with an Accompaniment for a Violin & Violoncello and further editions appeared soon afterwards in Germany and Austria. It is cast in two movements, both in A major. The first is a spacious Adagio in which Haydn can be heard developing the notion of an ‘accompanied’ piano sonata into music where the string parts begin to emerge as more equal partners. Near the end of the movement, Haydn inserts a short cadenza-like passage before the music winds down to a gentle close. The second movement is fast and florid, with its fair share of harmonic quirks, as well as Haydn’s endless melodic invention and his irresistible flair for generating energetic momentum.

Schumann’s Second Piano Trio was initially sketched in 1847, while he was still finishing the Op. 63 Trio, but it was not completed until nearly two years later, in April 1849. Written in the pastoral key of F major, it is a very different work from its much darker and more dramatic predecessor. The reason for this is immensely touching: when Schumann began work, it was the tenth anniversary of his secret engagement to Clara, and the Trio is full of allusions to their first love. As Joan Chisell wrote: ‘no further guesses are needed as to why the first two movements are threaded with the opening phrase (“In the depths of my heart I keep a radiant image of you”) of his love-song Intermezzo (from the Eichendorff Liederkreis Op. 39) written for Clara just before their eventual long-delayed marriage in 1840.’ The first movement, in quick triple time, is both lively and ardently lyrical, while the song-like slow movement is a radiant outpouring of adoration. The third movement Scherzo is in a minor key, gentle and wistful. After this nostalgic interlude, the finale ends the work in a state of almost untroubled elation. For Clara Schumann this piece remained a great favourite among her husband’s works – partly, no doubt, because of its intimate private messages, but also because it shows Schumann at his most effortlessly inventive. The first performance was given in their house on 29 April 1849, in a private concert that also included the première of Schumann’s Spanisches Liederspiel for four solo voices and piano, and Clara subsequently played it on many occasions.

Haydn’s autograph manuscript of this trio is in the British Library, part of the extraordinary music collection assembled by the writer Stefan Zweig which was later bequeathed to the nation by his heirs. The first page of music is signed and dated ‘Haydn, 1795’. The most striking aspect of this work is the key of the first movement: E flat minor (with its key signature of six flats). This was very rarely used in the eighteenth century except in works like Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier which deliberately explored all 24 major and minor keys. The Andante cantabile is rather an austere rondo, which includes some remarkable harmonic excursions (including an episode in B major) and a generally serious mood which is only lightened by a contrasting episode in E flat major. At the head of the last movement, the manuscript has a line in Haydn’s writing which has subsequently been scratched out (presumably by the composer himself): ‘Sonata: Jacob’s Dream’, a reference to Jacob’s vision in the Book of Genesis where he sees a ladder reaching from earth up to an angel-filled heaven. But Haydn’s use of the title was a joke: a violinist he knew liked to show off his playing in the highest register (apparently none too well) and Haydn peppers his cheery movement (in E flat major) with moments where the violin has to play extremely high and fast.

This piece was commissioned by the Trio Gaspard to sit alongside Haydn’s piano trios. The sound of these wonderful players was in my head as I wrote. Haydn’s trios famously give a pretty subordinate role to the cello, so my first idea was to make the cello a soloist in my piece. My relationship with Haydn’s F sharp minor trio goes back to childhood, when my mother, violinist Ursula Snow, performed it many times with her trio. I must have heard hours of rehearsal. This led me to think of my mother, and how much I miss her, and feel I understand her better as I get older. This short piece is dedicated to her memory.

I took F sharp as my starting point, and threaded in occasional notes taken from Haydn’s Andante cantabile movement. The harmonies, which form a repeated chaconne-like pattern in the piano part, are also derived from the Haydn, but in my own way, and not necessarily audible to the listener. The music is like a series of fragmented memories; the violin at first ghost-like, while the cello has an improvisatory line; the violin then drawing the cello into its falling 5th motif, while the piano has the solo line. The three instruments become equal as the music comes to a head, before dissolving into a quiet final statement of the chord sequence.

The melancholic nature of Haydn’s trio affected my approach, combined with memories of my mother and her gradual disappearance into dementia. The title, Trance, indicates a meditative state, but also a ‘passageway’, or departure – the confusing journey of my relationship with my mother as her personality shifted, changed and faded.

Trance was commissioned by the Trio Gaspard, and first performed at the West Cork Festival on 28th June, 2023.

Liszt composed his Carnival in Pest in 1847 for solo piano, the ninth of his Hungarian Rhapsodies in which he aimed to compose virtuoso works in which he could incorporate traditional music from his homeland. Carnival in Pest is dedicated to the Brno-born violinist Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst, It was therefore a particularly appropriate idea for Liszt to compose a version for piano trio which includes a flamboyant violin part – in fact all three instruments are given some dazzling writing.

Dating from 1848, the autograph manuscript of the trio version (in the collection of the Juilliard School in New York) is covered in revisions and deletions, suggesting that Liszt rethought much of the work when he made this transcription. It is a piece that is largely celebratory in mood and Liszt presents a succession of stirring Hungarian Gypsy themes with frequent changes of tempo, interspersed with cadenzas. It culminates in a triumphant reprise of the opening idea on the strings, in octaves, followed by a dizzying coda. It is unclear why Liszt did not publish the trio version during his lifetime, but it eventually appeared posthumously in 1892.

About the Artists

Trio Gaspard

Founded in 2010, Trio Gaspard is one of the most sought-after piano trios of their generation, praised for their unique and fresh approach to the score. Trio Gaspard is regularly invited to perform at major international concert halls, such as Wigmore Hall, Berlin Philharmonie, Essen Philharmonie, Grafenegg Castle Austria, Salle Molière Lyon, NDR Rolf-Liebermann Hall, Hamburg and Shanghai Symphony Hall as well as making appearances at festivals such as Heidelberger Frühling, Mantua Chamber Music Festival, Boswiler Sommer and PODIUM Festival Esslingen. Important engagements over the past year include recitals at the BBC Proms, Unione Musicale Turin, Wigmore Hall, KKL Lucerne as well as at Berlin’s Pierre Boulez Saal. A highlight of 2018 was performing Beethoven Triple Concerto in Switzerland under the baton of eminent musician and conductor, Gabor Takács-Nagy. Read their full biography here.

RACHMANINOV 150

Ensemble 360

The Guildhall, Portsmouth

Monday 20 November 2023, 7.30pm

Tickets:

£10 – £20

Past Event

Home› What's on› RACHMANINOV 150

RACHMANINOV Trio élégiaque No.1 in G minor (14’)
PROKOFIEV Quintet in G minor (21’)
PROKOFIEV Overture on Hebrew Themes (9’)
TCHAIKOVSKY String Quartet No.2 in F Op.22 (36’)

The world-class musicians from Ensemble 360 return with a blistering programme of Russian music to celebrate the 150th birthday of Sergei Rachmaninov, best known for his sweeping symphonic music and monumental works for piano. They open with his heart-wrenching trio and conclude with a rarely-performed piece by Tchaikovsky, considered by the composer to be his best work of all: a dense, lyrical and dramatic quartet which shares much with his better known large-scale works.

There will be a post-show Q&A with the artists and Colin Jagger of Portsmouth Chamber Music.

Series Discount: 20% discount if you book any 6 or more Portsmouth Chamber Music/Sounds of Now concerts.

Time advertised is the start time, please check your ticket for door time.

Lento lugubre
Risoluto
Tempo primo
Più vivo
Alla marcia funebre

Rachmaninov wrote two piano trios, both called “elegiac”. The second (D minor) trio was composed at the end of 1893 as a memorial to Tchaikovsky, but the present G minor Trio dates from January 1892, and was first performed on 30 January 1892 with Rachmaninov at the piano and his friend Anatoly Brandukov as the cellist – later to be the dedicatee of Rachmaninov’s Cello Sonata and best man at Rachmaninov’s wedding. The G minor Trio was written while Rachmaninov was still a student, and is a single-movement lamentation. The main theme (reminiscent of a melody in Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony) is first presented by the piano over shimmering bare fifths. This idea dominates the movement, appearing in a variety of guises, and the contrasting falling melody that is no more consoling. The final presentation of the main idea is the most stark – a transformation into a funeral march.

Tema con variazioni
Andante energico
Allegro sostenuto, ma con brio
Adagio pesante
Allegro precipitato, ma non troppo presto
Andantino

Prokofiev’s Quintet Op.39 of 1924 incorporates music from Trapeze, a ballet he composed at the same time. Written while Prokofiev was living in Paris for a company that could only afford a small instrumental ensemble, the original ballet comprised eight movements of which six were used in the Quintet. The language is often astringent but Prokofiev is highly imaginative in the way he uses limited resources to the fullest possible effect. After a Theme and Variations that moves from a deadpan opening to frenetic energy before returning to the music of the start, the second movement opens with a double bass solo before some rather acidic writing for the whole ensemble. The short Allegro sostenuto, ma con brio is a witty scherzo-type movement that is followed by the darkest part of the Quintet, a brooding Adagio pesante notable for some unusual instrumental colours including sul ponticello string writing. The Allegro precipitato is another brilliant, highly animated exploration of intriguing sonorities, while the concluding Andante is more stately to begin with, becoming a little livelier in the central section, and ending vigorously, with the parts marked tumultuoso e precipitato.

Prokofiev composed this piece for clarinet, string quartet and piano in 1919, while he was on tour in the USA. It was commissioned by the Zimro Ensemble, a Russian group who had recently arrived in America. The ‘Hebrew’ themes Prokofiev used were very probably composed by Simeon Bellison, the group’s clarinettist. The premiere was given by Prokofiev with the Zimro Ensemble in New York on 2 February 1920.

Nigel Simeone 2014

Adagio – Moderato assai
Scherzo. Allegro giusto
Andante ma non tanto
Finale. Allegro con moto

Tchaikovsky wrote his Second String Quartet in January 1874 and it remains a neglected work – a fate it shares with the Third Quartet of 1876 – certainly when compared with the better-known First Quartet. In his biography Tchaikovsky: the man and his music, David Brown has suggested that the F major shows Tchaikovsky trying to grapple with the economy and rigour of Beethoven’s quartets, particularly in the first movement where the thematic material is “more concise” than might be expected with Tchaikovsky, “thus facilitating far greater flexibility in what is built from it.” This is a very fair assessment of a movement that has clear debts to Beethoven in terms of structure and compositional process. The Scherzo is delightfully quirky, based on a lopsided bar of 2, 2 and 3 beats until the more stable, waltz-like Trio section. The emotional core of the work is anguished slow movement (David Brown describes this as music of pain-filled intensity). The Rondo finale that follows is effervescent and untroubled.

About the Artists

Ensemble 360

SCHUBERT, JANÁČEK & BRAHMS

Leonkoro Quartet

The Guildhall, Portsmouth

Monday 16 October 2023, 7.30pm

Tickets:

£10 – £20

Past Event

Home› What's on› SCHUBERT, JANÁČEK & BRAHMS

SCHUBERT String Quartet No.9 in G minor D173 (23’)
JANÁČEK String Quartet No.1 ‘Kreutzer Sonata’ (19’)
BRAHMS String Quartet No.1 in C minor, Op.51 No.1 (32’)

The four outstanding young musicians of the Leonkoro Quartet have already acquired an astonishing list of international prizes to their name. Last year’s awards included first prize at the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition, where they astonished both the jury and audience with their boundless energy and powerful musicality, and their appointment to the prestigious BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme.

For their Portsmouth debut, they’ll be performing a programme that tackles the profound drama of Janáček and Brahms, alongside the graceful lightness of a quartet composed by Schubert when he was still a teenager.

There will be a post-show Q&A with the artists and Colin Jagger of Portsmouth Chamber Music.

Series Discount: 20% discount if you book any 6 or more Portsmouth Chamber Music/Sounds of Now concerts.

Time advertised is the start time, please check your ticket for door time.

Allegro con brio
Andantino
Menuetto. Allegro vivace
Allegro

Schubert’s sheer productivity in 1815, the year in which he turned 18 years of age, is nothing short of astonishing: over 150 songs, two symphonies, piano pieces, religious music and the present string quartet, written between 25 March and 1 April 1815, while Schubert was also working as an assistant teacher in his father’s school. According to a note in his own hand, the first movement was composed ‘in four and a half hours.’ There’s no mistaking the influences on the teenage Schubert in this music, particularly Beethoven’s Op.18 quartets and, above all, Mozart’s Symphony No.40.

But far from being merely derivative or imitative, this quartet is a notable example of Schubert experimenting with quartet structures, and starting to find his way as an original genius. Schubert expert Brian Newbould has noted that ‘Schubert’s way of plucking … principles from the repertoire all around him in his teenage years … is part of a positive, learning, and properly creative purpose.’ Newbould goes on to write that in this quartet, we find ‘things here that represent the first stirrings of inclinations that were to come to fruition in later works.’

Adagio – Con moto
Con moto
Con moto – Vivo – Andante
Con moto – (Adagio) – Più mosso

Janáček composed his 1st String Quartet in 1923, taking as his inspiration Kreutzer Sonata, the novella by Tolstoy that had in turn been inspired by Beethoven’s famous violin sonata. Janáček’s quartet was composed in just a few days, and it’s probable that he drew on material from an earlier piano trio (now lost) based on the same story. The music does not follow Tolstoy’s narrative in detail, but it does evoke the rage and passion of the protagonists, using a musical language made up of generally quite short motifs that form both the melodies and the urgent, thrilling ideas that accompany them. Janáček also alludes to Beethoven’s Kreutzer, most obviously at the start of the third movement where he recalls the second theme of Beethoven’s opening movement. Janáček’s own motto theme in the Quartet is the rising idea heard at the opening. This returns at the start of the fourth movement, but this time it is followed by a melancholy violin theme, marked ‘as if in tears’. Janáček’s final transformation of the motto theme is magnificent: a furious fortissimo, accompanied by chords marked ‘festive, like an organ’. After this ecstatic moment of release, the music subsides back to the brooding, unsettled mood of the opening.

Allegro
Romanze. Poco adagio
Allegretto molto moderato e comodo
Allegro

The string quartet was a form that gave Brahms a great deal of trouble and the masterpieces of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven meant that Brahms was especially critical of his efforts at quartet writing. The C minor Quartet was finished in the mid-1860s, but Brahms revised it extensively over the next decade and re-wrote it during the summer of 1873. The first performance took place in Vienna in December 1873 by the Hellmesberger Quartet. The work is dedicated to Brahms’s friend Theodor Billroth, one of the most innovative surgeons of his time and a keen amateur musician. There’s a very close relationship between the main themes in each of the four movements, each of which grow from the same basic idea, and the overall structure sees two intimate miniatures framed by the more symphonic outer movements.

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

Süddeutsche Zeitung

About the Artists

Leonkoro Quartet

The ensemble is framed by brothers Jonathan and Lukas Schwarz on first violin and cello, while the middle voices are formed by Amelie Wallner on second violin and Mayu Konoe on viola. Leonkoro, in Esperanto: Lionheart, alludes not coincidentally to Astrid Lindgren’s children’s book about two brothers, a book that juxtaposes the grave reality of death with a large and heartfelt yearning for comfort and solace – a sentiment that string quartet repertoire addresses in several instances. See their full biography here.

HAYDN, BORODIN & BEETHOVEN QUARTETS

Esme Quartet

The Guildhall, Portsmouth

Monday 22 May 2023, 7.30pm

Tickets
£10 – £20

Past Event

Home› What's on› HAYDN, BORODIN & BEETHOVEN QUARTETS

HAYDN Quartet in D Op.71 No.2
BEETHOVEN Quartet in B flat Op.18 No.6
BORODIN Quartet No.2 in D

The Esme played once before in Portsmouth, in October 2019, after winning the Wigmore Hall competition the previous year.

Originally from South Korea, they are based in Germany and have already established themselves as one of the most exciting quartets in the world. Korngold is now best known for his Hollywood film scores, but as a young man he was warmly praised by figures such as Mahler and Strauss. By 1935, however, when this second quartet was composed, ‘romantic’ music had fallen out of fashion and he struggled to be taken seriously by the musical establishment.

About the Artists

Esmé Quartet

At home in Germany, the Esmé Quartet is one of the most dynamic and multi-faceted string quartets of its generation, winning audiences and reviewers over with its infectious energy and immaculate ensemble playing. The ensemble won the first prize and four special prizes, including the Mozart and the Beethoven Prize, at the 2018 International String Quartet Competition at London’s Wigmore Hall: a sensational launch of an international string quartet career.

This great success in competition also proved the springboard for worldwide concert activities, ranging from the USA to Europe’s great musical centres and all the way to Asia, where they were celebrated during a prestigious residency at Seoul’s Lotte Concert Hall during the past season. Furthermore, innumerable concert tours and guest appearances have taken the Esme Quartet to festivals and concert halls such as the Lucerne Festival, the Verbier Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Flagey Musiq3 Festival in Brussels, L’Auditori in Barcelona, Teatro La Fenice in Venice, the Heidelberg String Quartet Fest and Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie. In the summer of 2018, they were also the Quartet in Residence at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence.

In 2019, the Esme Quartet became HSBC Winner of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, also taking first prize at the 55th Possehl Music Prize in Lubeck. Its debut CD, featuring works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Unsuk Chin and Frank Bridge and released in early 2020 by Alpha Classics, won a 5-star review from Diapason d’Or and was named one of the best classical albums of 2020 by WQXR Radio in New York. In October of that year, the Esme Quartet also received the Hans Gal Prize of the German Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz and the Villa Musica Foundation.

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HONEGGER Arthur, Intrada

BOULANGER Lili, Nocturne et Cortège

VIVALDI Antonio, Agitata da due venti

BOZZA Eugene,

FRANÇAIX Jean, Sonatine

HUBEAU Jean, Sonata

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

PRICE Florence, Songs to the dark virgin

MAHLER Gustav, Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft

GUY-ROPARTZ Joseph, Andante et Allegro

ONSLOW George, Nonet in A Op.77

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

WATKINS Huw, Broken Consort

About the Artists

Ensemble 360

BOSMANS Henriëtte, String Quartet (1927)

BOULANGER Nadia, Three pieces for cello and piano

DEBUSSY Claude, String Quartet in G minor Op. 10

About the Artists

Solem Quartet

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

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

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

WEIR String Quartet (excerpt for ‘Close Up’)

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

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

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

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

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

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

About the Artists

Ensemble 360

About the Artists

Ensemble 360

Elinor Moran

About the Artists

Gould Piano Trio

STRAVINSKY Igor, Three Pieces for String Quartet

COLERIDGE-TAYLOR Samuel, Clarinet Quintet Op.10

About the Artists

Ensemble 360

HAYDN Joseph, String Quartet in D Op.64, No.5 ‘Lark’

HENSEL-MENDELSSOHN Fanny, String Quartet in E flat

MENDELSSOHN Felix, String Quartet in E minor Op.44, No.2

About the Artists

Consone Quartet

HAYDN Joseph, Piano Trio in A, Hob.XV:9

SCHUMANN Robert, Piano Trio No 2 in F Op.80

HAYDN Joseph, Piano Trio in E flat minor Hob XV:31

BEAMISH Sally, Trance

LISZT Franz, Hungarian Rhapsody No.9 ‘Carnival in Pest’

About the Artists

Trio Gaspard

RACHMANINOV Sergei, Trio élégiaque No.1 in G minor

PROKOFIEV Sergei, Quintet in G minor

PROKOFIEV Sergei, Overture on Hebrew Themes

TCHAIKOVSKY Pyotr, String Quartet No.2 in F Op.22

About the Artists

Ensemble 360

SCHUBERT Franz, String Quartet in G minor, D173

JANÁČEK Leoš, String Quartet No.1 Kreutzer Sonata

BRAHMS Johannes, String Quartet in C minor Op.51 No.1

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

Süddeutsche Zeitung

About the Artists

Leonkoro Quartet

About the Artists

Esmé Quartet