HAYDN, SCHUMANN & MORE

Trio Gaspard

The Guildhall, Portsmouth

Monday 29 January 2024, 7.30pm

Tickets:

£10 – £20

Past Event

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.

© Nigel Simeone

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.

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.

HAYDN & BEETHOVEN STRING QUARTETS

Arcadia Quartet

The Guildhall, Portsmouth

Monday 20 March 2023, 7.30pm

Tickets
£10 – £20

Past Event

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

HAYDN Quartet in B-flat Op.33 No.4
WEINBERG String Quartet No.6 Op.35
BEETHOVEN Quartet in F Op.59 No.1

We were due to host the Romanian-based Arcadia Quartet in March 2021 before the continuing disruption caused by the pandemic intervened, and so we will finally get to hear them exactly two years later.

They won the Wigmore Hall competition in 2012, and then five years later produced a remarkable set of recordings of the Bartók quartets which led to their invitation to Portsmouth. A more recent recording project is the complete cycle of 17 quartets by Mieczysław Weinberg, a close friend of Shostakovich who deserves to be far better known.

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.

Allegro semplice
Presto agitato
Allegro con fuoco
Adagio
Moderato commodo
Andante maestoso

Weinberg’s String Quartet No. 6 is a powerful and deeply expressive work that showcases the composer’s distinctive voice. Weinberg was a Polish-Jewish composer who spent much of his career in the Soviet Union, and his music reflects both the rich cultural heritage of his homeland and the tumultuous times in which he lived. Composed in 1946, this quartet is one of Weinberg’s most accomplished works in the genre.

A powerful work consisting of six movements, it opens with forceful and energetic driving rhythms followed by a frenzied and virtuosic movement, with rapid, intricate passages. The soaring melodies of the fiery and intense third movement contain dramatic changes in tempo and dynamics which give way to the Adagio, an expressive and introspective movement marked by a lyrical and mournful melody passed between the instruments of the quartet. The fifth movement is more lighthearted and whimsical, before the final Andante maestoso, which brings the work to a triumphant, majestic conclusion.

Allegro
Allegretto vivace e sempre scherzando
Adagio molto e mesto –
Thème Russe. Allegro
The first of Beethoven’s three quartets written for Prince Rasumovsky was composed in 1806 and performed the next year. It marks a departure from the Op.18 set in several respects, one of which is its sheer scale: like the “Eroica” Symphony (1804–5) it shows Beethoven expanding the possibilities of the form to produce something on an epic scale while retaining the essential intimacy of a string quartet.
The first movement is introduced by a cello theme which Lewis Lockwood describes as “opening up a musical space of seemingly unbounded lyricism and breadth.” The Scherzo, in B flat major, is an unsual movement: while it has no distinct Trio section, it is also Beethoven’s longest Scherzo to date, even though Beethoven removed a large repeat while revising the work. The slow movement has the unusual marking mesto – “mournful” – and is cast in the tragic key of F minor. It ends on a trill that leads seamlessly into the finale. This is based on a Russian theme – a charming and appropriate choice since Rasumovsky was the Russian Ambassador to Vienna at the time.

About the Artists

Arcadia String Quartet

Winners of the 2014 Osaka International Chamber Music Competition, the 2012 Wigmore Hall London International String Quartet Competition, the 2011 Almere International Chamber Music Competition and the 2009 International Chamber Music Competition Hamburg, the Arcadia Quartet is rapidly establishing itself as one of the most exciting string quartets of their generation. Read more.

HAYDN, BEETHOVEN & MENDELSSOHN

Leonore Piano Trio

The Guildhall, Portsmouth

Monday 17 April 2023, 7.30pm

Full price ticket £20
Concessions £18
Under 25s £10

Past Event

Home› What's on› HAYDN, BEETHOVEN & MENDELSSOHN

The Leonore Trio was formed ten years ago and rapidly established itself as one of the pre-eminent piano trios in the world.

They are highly committed to new music, and this piece by Huw Watkins will receive its world premiere in the autumn of 2022. Haydn’s trio in the unusual key of F-sharp minor is a wonderful late work. Mendelssohn’s first published trio is arguably his finest chamber work, symphonic in nature in four beautifully worked-out movements.

HAYDN Piano Trio in F-sharp minor, Hob. XV/26,
BEETHOVEN Piano Trio in E-flat, Op.1 No.1
MENDELSSOHN Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49

Please note, due to illness, Benjamin Nabarro is unable to appear and Lucy Gould has kindly agreed to step in. This has necessitated a change in programme. Thank you for your understanding and apologies for any disappointment.

Allegro
Adagio cantabile
Finale. Tempo di Menuetto

This trio was the last of three new works composed for the pianist Rebecca Schroeter during Haydn’s visit to London in 1794–5 for the first performances of the last six of his ‘London’ Symphonies. The second of this, with its ‘Gypsy’ Rondo, is probably Haydn’s best-known trio, but the present work, in F sharp minor, is much more elusive and subtle, though the wistful mood of the opening is soon changed by a move towards major keys and increasing animation in the piano part. The slow movement – in the very unusual key for the time of F sharp major – is a reworking of the F major slow movement of Haydn’s Symphony No.102. In the symphony this is headed ‘In Nomine Domini’ (In the Name of the Lord) – a reminder of the religious inspiration of some of Haydn’s secular works. The finale is unusual: a rather stately Minuet in F sharp minor, with a contrasting central section in F sharp major. The close is dramatic and rather austere.

Allegro
Adagio cantabile
Scherzo. Allegro assai
Finale. Presto

Beethoven’s first piano trio – his Op.1 No.1 – was composed at almost exactly the same time as Haydn’s A major Trio. It was first performed at a private concert in Vienna in 1794 at the house of Prince Karl von Lichnowsky, to whom the whole set of three trios Op.1 was dedicated. This private concert turned out to be an extremely important event in Beethoven’s early career: the audience included many of the great and good of Viennese musical life, including Beethoven’s teacher Haydn. According the Ferdinand Ries, in his biographical sketch of Beethoven published in 1838, ‘The three trios by Beethoven were to be played to the artistic world for the first time at a soirée held at Prince Lichnowksy’s. Most artists and music lovers had been invited, in particular Haydn, whose pronouncement was eagerly awaited by all. The trios were played and caused a great stir. Even Haydn said many nice things about them.’ A year later the Viennese publisher Artaria put out an announcement for the first publication of the set: ‘Subscription for Ludwig van Beethoven’s Three Grand Trios for Pianoforte, Violin and Bass, which Artaria will engrave and publish within the next 6 weeks, and which, if previously indicated, can be purchased from the composer on handing back the [subscription] bill. The price of a complete copy is 1 ducat. The subscribers’ names will be printed at the beginning and they will have the advantage that this work is only available to others two months later, maybe even at a higher price. In Vienna subscriptions can be bought from the composer … in Kreuzgasse no. 35 behind the Minoriten Church on the first floor.’ The list of subscribers reads like a Who’s Who of Viennese patrons – and many of them were to play a crucial role in Beethoven’s subsequent career, including Count Appony (who first suggested to Beethoven that he should write a string quartet) Countess Anna Maria Erdödy (dedicatee of the two piano trios Op.70 and the cello sonatas Op.102), Prince Lobkowitz (dedicatee of both the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies), Count Rasumovsky (the Russian Ambassador in Vienna and dedicatee of the three String Quartets Op.59) and Prince Lichnowsky, to whom Beethoven dedicated his Op.1 and in whose home the pieces had first been played. The subscribers’ list shows that he ordered no fewer than 20 copies of the Op.1 Trios, a remarkable vote of confidence for the young composer.

Molto allegro ed agitato
Andante con moto tranquillo
Scherzo. Leggiero e vivace
Finale. Allegro assai appassionato

Mendelssohn’s First Piano Trio was started in February 1839, but it was not until the summer that he got down to serious work (on the autograph manuscript the first movement is dated ‘6 June 1839’ and the last ’18 July 1839’), and he put the finishing touches to it in September. It was a busy year for Mendelssohn, not only as a composer but also as a conductor: on 21 March he conducted the world première of Schubert’s ‘Great’ C major Symphony.

The first performance of Mendelssohn’s D minor Trio took place in the Leipzig Gewandhaus on 1 February 1840, played by Mendelssohn himself with the violinist Ferdinand David and cellist Carl Wittmann. Robert Schumann’s review in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik was ecstatic: he hailed Mendelssohn as ‘the Mozart of the nineteenth century’ and ‘the most brilliant of modern musicians.’ High praise indeed, but fully justified by a work that has a brooding passion that is at once very much of its time but also harks back to the Mozart of the Don Giovanni Overture and to the D minor Piano Concerto (K466) – a work which Mendelssohn performed on a number of occasions and for which he composed cadenzas. The Mendelssohn scholar Larry Todd has echoed Schumann’s view, describing the work as ‘a masterful trio with subtle relationships between the movements, and a psychological curve that incorporates the agitated brooding of the first, subdued introspection of the second and the playful frivolity of the third. The finale combines all three moods, before reconciling them in the celebratory D-major ending.’

About the Artists

Leonore Piano Trio

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

Find out more.

BEETHOVEN, BERWALD & MOZART

Ensemble 360

The Guildhall, Portsmouth

Monday 30 January 2023, 7.30pm

Tickets £10 – £20

Past Event

Home› What's on› BEETHOVEN, BERWALD & MOZART

BERWALD Grand Septet in B-flat (25′)
MOZART Clarinet Quintet in A K581 (35′)
BEETHOVEN Septet in E-flat, Op.20 (40′)

An evening featuring three celebrated works of chamber music, all on a larger scale.

Beethoven’s Septet was his most popular work; an inventive, celebratory piece, full of youthful energy and generosity of spirit, punctuated by fanfares, solos, cadenzas and exuberant fireworks! The evening begins with a Romantic septet, inspired by Beethoven, and written by his Swedish younger contemporary, Berwald; Mozart’s sublime Clarinet Quintet follows.

Adagio
Allegro molto
Poco adagio
Prestissimo
Poco adagio
Finale: Allegro con spirito

The influence and popularity of Beethoven’s Septet spread across Europe and the work was regularly performed in Berwald’s native city of Stockholm. Now widely regarded as the most important Swedish composer of the nineteenth century, during his lifetime Berwald was seldom able to earn a living from his music, working instead as a successful physiotherapist and, later, manager of a glass works. None of this should lead us to underestimate either Berwald’s creative talent or his imaginative handling of musical form. Both are apparent in this Septet. Completed in 1828, it may have been a reworking of an earlier piece for the same forces. Even so, it is a relatively early work, composed two decades before his best-known pieces such as the Symphonie sérieuse and Symphonie singulière. The musical language is consistently appealing, owing something to contemporary opera and to composers such as Spohr, but the melodies and harmonies have an idiosyncratic character that is entirely Berwald’s own (as at the start of the Allegro molto in the first movement, or the opening of the finale). In terms of the Septet’s design, the most striking innovation comes in the second movement which has a very quick Scherzo embedded within a seemingly conventional slow movement.

Allegro
Larghetto
Menuetto
Allegretto con variazioni

The Clarinet Quintet was completed on 29 September 1789 and written for Mozart’s friend Anton Stadler (1753–1812). The first performance took place a few months later at a concert in Vienna’s Burgtheater on 22 December 1789, with Stadler as the soloist in a programme where the premiere of the Clarinet Quintet was a musical interlude, sandwiched between the two parts of Vincenzo Righini’s cantata The Birth of Apollo, performed by “more than 180 persons.”

From the start, Mozart is at his most daringly beautiful: the luxuriant voicing of the opening string chords provides a sensuously atmospheric musical springboard for the clarinet’s opening flourish. The rich sonority of the Clarinet Quintet is quite unlike that of any other chamber music by Mozart, but it does have something in common with his opera Così fan tutte (premièred in January 1790), on which he was working at the same time. In particular, the slow movement of the quintet, with muted strings supporting the clarinet, has a quiet rapture that recalls the trio ‘Soave sia il vento’ (with muted strings, and prominent clarinet parts as well as voices) in Così. The finale of the Quintet is a Theme and Variations which begins with folk-like charm, then turns to more melancholy reflection before ending in a spirit of bucolic delight.

About the Artists

Ensemble 360

SIR SCALLYWAG & THE GOLDEN UNDERPANTS Schools concert

Ensemble 360 & Polly Ives

The Guildhall, Portsmouth

Monday 30 January 2023, 1.30pm

Sold Out

Home› What's on› SIR SCALLYWAG & THE GOLDEN UNDERPANTS Schools concert

When King Colin’s golden underpants go missing, it’s Sir Scallywag to the rescue! Brave and bold, courageous and true, he’s the perfect knight for the job… even if he is only six years old!

Original music by our children’s Composer-in-Residence, Paul Rissmann, features instruments including strings, woodwind, and horn, presented together with story-telling and projected illustrations from the best-selling children’s book by Giles Andreae and Korky Paul.

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

About the Artists

Ensemble 360

Polly Ives

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

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

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

MOZART, SCHUMANN, RACHMANINOV & LISZT

Llŷr Williams

The Guildhall, Portsmouth

Monday 21 November 2022, 7.30pm

Past Event

Home› What's on› MOZART, SCHUMANN, RACHMANINOV & LISZT

MOZART Fantasia in C Minor K475 (13’)
R SCHUMANN Fantasy in C Op.17 (30’)
RACHMANINOV Variations on a Theme of Corelli (19’)
LISZT Légende No.1: ‘St François d’Assise: la prédication aux oiseaux’ (10’)
LISZT Mephisto Waltz No.1 (11’)

Llŷr Williams is known and loved by television and radio audiences the world over for his role as pianist in the finals of BBC Cardiff Singer of the World. In this solo recital, Llŷr brings together some of the most captivating works for piano. The endlessly inventive fantasies of Mozart and Schumann are a prelude to Rachmaninov’s set of Variations that take us deep into the heart of the piano. Llŷr’s recital ends with works by the master of pianistic virtuosity, Franz Liszt, one a work of profound religious sentiment followed by a second diabolical dance.

Mozart completed his Fantasia in C minor on 20 May 1785 and it was published in December 1785 (in tandem with the Piano Sonata in C minor K457) with a dedication to Therese von Trattner (1758–96), one of Mozart’s favourite pupils. The Fantasia shows Mozart at his most audacious and the Mozart scholar Alfred Einstein wrote that the work ‘gives us the truest picture of Mozart’s mighty powers of improvisation – his ability to indulge in the greatest freedom and boldness of imagination, the most extreme contrast of ideas, the most uninhibited variety of lyric and virtuoso elements.’ This extraordinary work combines tragic grandeur with a relish for extreme chromaticism and bravura, alongside moments of great tenderness.

In December 1836, Robert Schumann finished a ‘Sonata for Beethoven’ but revised it in 1838 and gave it the new title Fantasie. It was published in 1839 with a dedication to Franz Liszt. Schumann marks the first movement to be played with ‘imagination and passion’. It is a highly original reinvention of sonata form, with unconventional key relationships and structural innovations, notably the interlude placed at the moment when the recapitulation might be expected to arrive. The second movement depicts Schumann’s imaginary army of Davidsbündler marching against the Philistines. Dominated by obsessive dotted rhythms, this colourful movement ends with a vertiginous coda. The third movement is a complete contrast. It is poetic, restrained, and noble – and surely full of quiet longing for Clara. When Clara first received a copy of the Fantasie she wrote to Schumann that it made her ‘half ill with rapture.’ Just over a year later, on 12 September 1840, they were finally able to marry. Liszt was immensely proud of the dedication, considering the Fantasie to be among the greatest of Schumann’s piano works, but he never performed it in public. Only with the next generation of pianists – many of them pupils of Liszt and Clara Schumann – did the Fantasie take its rightful place as a pinnacle of the Romantic piano repertoire.

Rachmaninov’s Variations on a Theme by Corelli have a singular place in the composer’s output as the only major work for solo piano that he composed after leaving Russia in 1917. The title is slightly misleading since these are variations on La Folia, an ancient tune that was used by Corelli – as well as by Lully and Vivaldi among others – but certainly wasn’t composed by him. This set of twenty variations (with an Intermezzo between the 13th and 14th variations) was composed in Switzerland and the manuscript is dated 19 June 1931. Rachmaninov himself gave the first performance in Montreal on 12 October 1931. Dedicated to his friend Fritz Kreisler, the variations show Rachmaninov at his most concentrated and ingenious.

In 1862–3, Liszt composed two Legends which he dedicated to his daughter, Cosima von Bülow (later Cosima Wagner). The first legend is a brilliantly evocative musical depiction of St Francis of Assisi praying to the birds. Liszt’s inspiration came not only from religious texts but also from the birds he observed on Monte Mario near Rome, while he was on a retreat – an occasion when he was visited by Pope Pius IX who may have been given a private performance of the piece. Liszt first played it in public at a concert in Budapest on 29 August 1865.

Liszt composed the Mephisto Waltz No.1 in about 1859, at the same time as a version for orchestra. It was dedicated to Carl Tausig, the Polish virtuoso who was considered Liszt’s most gifted pupil, still in his teens at the time. As well as being a dazzling concert waltz that calls on all a pianist’s technical resources, it is also a programmatic work derived from the 1836 Faust by Nikolaus Lenau (indebted to Goethe, and to Byron). Liszt quotes part of Lenau’s preface in the score to explain the story, which is closely mirrored by the music: A wedding feast is in progress with music and dancing. After encouraging Faust to join the festivities, Mephistopheles snatches a violin and draws seductive sounds from it. Faust whirls about with a beautiful woman in a wild dance, out of the hall and into the woods as a nightingale warbles its song.

ENSEMBLE PERPETUO

Ensemble Perpetuo

The Guildhall, Portsmouth

Monday 9 May 2022, 7.30pm

Tickets

£18

Past Event

Home› What's on› ENSEMBLE PERPETUO

SCHUBERT String Trio in B‐flat, D. 471
ADRIAN SUTTON Spring Masque for violin and viola
SIBELIUS String Trio in G minor
MARTINŮ Duo No. 1 for Violin & Cello, H. 157
MOZART Divertimento in E‐flat, K. 563

Fenella Humphreys last played in the Portsmouth Chamber Music series with the Lawson Piano Trio in May 2012. She mixes chamber music with a solo career in fairly equal measure.

The word Divertimento usually implies something light‐hearted, even frivolous, but this late Mozart work is perhaps the most sublime of all his chamber music. Leading up to this we have an intriguing mixture of lesser known trios by famous composers, and two duo rarities. Adrian Sutton is better known for a string of commissions for the National Theatre, including War Horse, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night‐time, and, most recently, Angels in America.

About the Artists

Ensemble Perpetuo

In performance on 9 May 2022: Fenella Humphreys violin, Rosalind Ventris viola, Cara Berridge cello

Perpetuo is a dynamic and versatile collective of musicians who perform a wide variety of traditional and contemporary chamber music in new settings, regularly taking music to venues including museums, cafes, found spaces and other unexpected locations. Through collaborations with everything from dancers to photographers to chefs, the ensemble seeks out audiences who have never engaged with classical chamber music.

Perpetuo was founded in 2013 by English Oboist, James Turnbull and has since appeared in numerous festivals such as St. Magnus (Orkney), Rye, Totally Thames and Little Venice. Perpetuo’s projects have been generously supported by organisations such as the Arts Council England and PRS Foundation in order to bring new music and exciting collaborations to a new audience. In recent years, Perpetuo has commissioned composers such as David Fennessy, Donald Grant, Alasdair Nicolson, Aidan O’Rourke and Ailie Robertson as well as working with composers such as Thomas Hewitt Jones, Cecilia McDowall and Roxanna Panufnik on their music.

RAVEL, SHOSTAKOVICH & DVOŘÁK

Piatti Quartet

The Guildhall, Portsmouth

Monday 1 November 2021, 7.30pm

Tickets £18

Past Event

Home› What's on› RAVEL, SHOSTAKOVICH & DVOŘÁK

RAVEL Quartet in F
SHOSTAKOVICH Quartet in No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110
DVOŘÁK Quartet in F, Op. 96, American

The Piatti Quartet makes a welcome return to Portsmouth, with perhaps the most famous of all quartets not yet heard in our series, Dvořák’s vigorous and very tuneful ‘American’.

Dvořák was still alive when Ravel composed his only addition to the repertoire, and indeed only ten years separates the two pieces, and yet their sound‐worlds could not be more different. Another huge contrast comes with Shostakovich’s darkly autobiographical C minor work, composed in just three days in 1960. At the time he thought it might be his last, though in the event he went on to produce seven further quartets.

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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

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

WEINBERG Mieczysław, String Quartet Op.6 No.35

BEETHOVEN Ludwig Van, Quartet in F, Op.59 No.1

About the Artists

Arcadia String Quartet

HAYDN Joseph, Piano Trio in F sharp minor, Hob XV:26

BEETHOVEN Ludwig van, Piano Trio in E flat Op.1 No.1

MENDELSSOHN Felix, Piano Trio No.1 in D minor

About the Artists

Leonore Piano Trio

BERWALD Franz, Grand Septet in B flat

MOZART Wolfgang Amadeus, Clarinet Quintet in A K581

About the Artists

Ensemble 360

About the Artists

Ensemble 360

Polly Ives

MOZART Amadeus, Fantasia in C minor K475

SCHUMANN Robert, Fantasy in C Op.17

RACHMANINOV Sergei, Variations on a Theme of Corelli

LISZT Franz, Légende No.1: St François d’Assise: la prédication aux oiseaux

LISZT Franz, Mephisto Waltz No.1

About the Artists

Ensemble Perpetuo