Venue: Upper Chapel

PIERROT LUNAIRE & MORE

Ensemble 360 & Claire Booth

Upper Chapel, Sheffield
Saturday 1 April 2023, 7.00pm

£21
£14 DLA, UC & PIP
£5 Under 35s & Students 

 

 

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Past Event
Home› What's on› PIERROT LUNAIRE & MORE

GRIME Seven Pierrot Miniatures (12’)
BRAHMS Clarinet Trio (25’)
SCHOENBERG Pierrot lunaire (40’) 

One of Arnold Schoenberg’s most celebrated works, Pierrot lunaire is a masterpiece of ground-breaking melodrama. The music, written for five instrumentalists and a reciter of Sprechstimme or ‘spoken-singing’, features poetry by Albert Giraud that explores an obsession with the wonders of moonlight.  

Helen Grime, who curated the 2022 Sheffield Chamber Music Festival, took the same poems by Giraud as the starting point for her own brilliantly eccentric miniatures, while Brahms’s soul-searching trio is a sublime and celebratory work. 

When Ensemble 360 performs Pierrot Lunaire, they’ll be joined by star soprano Claire Booth, whose many dramatic interpretations of Pierrot over the years have been lavished with praise. She’s become the go-to singer to take on this astonishing role, with her perfect understanding of the complex and ever-changing character of Pierrot’s obsession with the beauty of the moon. After a recent performance, The Guardian’s critic Andrew Clements was stunned by Claire’s ability to tread the line between cabaret and nightmarish extremes, but with her caricature staying just “on the right side of winsomeness”.

If Claire and the Ensemble’s performance will be your first experience of Pierrot Lunaire, then be prepared for a truly unforgettable evening.

 

BRAHMS Johannes, Clarinet Trio in A minor Op.114

Allegro  
Adagio  
Andantino grazioso – Trio 
Allegro  
 

When Brahms first heard the playing of Richard Mühlfeld, principal clarinettist of the Meiningen Court Orchestra, he had not written any chamber music involving the clarinet. But after a meeting in March 1891 he was inspired – following more than a year of creative silence – to write two major works for his new-found muse. On 24 November 1891, Mühlfeld, the Joachim Quartet and Brahms himself played both the Trio and the Clarinet Quintet at a private concert for the Duke of Meiningen. The first public performances followed on 12 December 1891, in the Berlin Singakademie. For the Trio Mühlfeld was again joined by the cellist Robert Hausmann and Brahms. 

 

The four movements of the Trio are concise and clear in design, without quite the mystery or the rapturous spirit that pervades the Quintet. However, the writing for the three instruments is unusually closely integrated, intertwined even – prompting Brahms’s friend Eusebius Mandyczewski to write in a letter to the composer that ‘it was as if the instruments were in love with one another.’ Brahms’s technical prowess can also be seen at its most ingenious: the second theme of the first movement is introduced as a canon in inversion, a procedure that can also be found in Haydn, and perhaps this was a nod from Brahms to one of the composers of the past he most admired. As well as the Trio and Quintet, Brahms went on to write the two Clarinet Sonatas Op.120 for Mühlfeld – all late masterpieces inspired by this great clarinettist.  

 

© Nigel Simeone 

SCHOENBERG Arnold, Pierrot Lunaire

  1. Mondestrunken (Drunk with Moonlight)
  2. Columbine
  3. Der Dandy
  4. Eine blasse Wäscherin
  5. Valse de Chopin
  6. Madonna
  7. Der kranke Mond (The sick moon)
  8. Nacht. Passacaglia (Night)
  9. Gebet an Pierrot (Prayer to Pierrot)
  10. Raub (Theft)
  11. Rote Messe (Red Mass)
    12. Galgenlied (Gallows Song)
  12. Enthauptung (Beheading)
  13. Die Kreuze (The Crosses)
  14. Heimweh (Homesickness)
  15. Gemeinheit! (Foul play!)
  16. Parodie
  17. Der Mondfleck (The Moon spot
  18. Serenade
  19. Heimfahrt (Journey home)
  20. O alter Duft (O ancient fragrance)

The first performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring in Paris in May 1913 may have provoked the most famous riot in musical history, but it wasn’t the only one. A few months earlier in Berlin on 16 October 1912, some members of the audience at the premiere of Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire were enraged by what they heard. When Albertine Zehme – the actress who had commissioned the work from Schoenberg – appeared on the platform in a Pierrot costume, she was, according to one eyewitness ‘greeted by an ominous murmur from the audience. One could not help admiring her courage, as she went on from poem to poem, disregarding the hissing, booing and insults shouted at her and Schoenberg. There were also fanatical ovations from the younger generation, but the majority were outraged. A well-known virtuoso, his face purple with rage, shouted: “Shoot him. Shoot him,” meaning Schoenberg, not the poor undaunted Pierrot.’ 

What was it that caused such rage? While Schoenberg’s use of Sprechgesang (speech-song) was not new (both Schoenberg and Humperdinck had used it before), its other-worldly effect in Pierrot lunaire is something that must have been disconcerting. So, too, was the sense of disorientation (and unpredictability) of Schoenberg’s music. To listeners in 1912 it’s easy to see how this might have seemed downright peculiar, but to audiences today, Pierrot lunaire is a work of eerie beauty. 

© Nigel Simeone 

“Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire belongs alongside Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and a few other modernist masterpieces as one of the truly groundbreaking scores of the early 20th century”

The Guardian

About the Artists

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

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

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

 

Claire Booth

British soprano Claire Booth has become internationally renowned both for her commitment to an extraordinary breadth of repertoire, and for the vitality and musicianship that she brings to the operatic stage and concert platform. In the 2019-20 season alone her diverse schedule included Benjamin’s A Mind of Winter with The Hong Kong Philharmonic, a streamed 5 star performance of Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine for Grange Park Opera, The title role in Handel’s Berenice for ROH, the critically acclaimed recording of Grieg songs, performances of Knussen’s Where the Wild Things Are with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Tippett’s Child of Our Time with the CBSO. Read more.

SCHUBERT & RACHMANINOV

Steven Osborne

Upper Chapel, Sheffield
Friday 10 March 2023, 7.00pm

£21
£14 DLA, UC or PIP
£5 Under 35s & Students 

***POSTPONED***

Past Event
Home› What's on› SCHUBERT & RACHMANINOV

***

Tonight’s concert in Sheffield with Steven Osborne has been postponed. Please bear with us while we make the arrangements for a new date. Tickets will be automatically transferred and box office will be in touch with ticket holders. Thanks for your patience, and sorry for any disappointment.

***

BEETHOVEN Bagatelle in A Op.33 No.4 (3’)
SCHUBERT Piano Sonata No.20 in A D959 (40’)
RACHMANINOV Preludes Op.23 & Op. 32 (selection) (10’)
RACHMANINOV Études Tableaux (selection) (10’)
RACHMANINOV Sonata No.2 in B flat minor (24’) 

Steven Osborne is one of the world’s most sought-after pianists, whose extraordinary musical depth has seen him in huge demand both on stage and in the recording studio, so it’s wonderful to welcome him back to Sheffield for what is sure to be a spectacular evening.  

Steven will open with Beethoven at his most perfectly simple, before the poignant beauty of music by Schubert, with a work he composed near the end of his life. Finally, the evening is completed with three breathtaking examples of pulse-racing works for piano by Rachmaninov. 

BEETHOVEN Ludwig Van, Bagatelle in A Op.33 No.4

Beethoven’s Bagatelles,Op.33, were first published in 1803 and they serve as a wonderful demonstration of his mastery of small forms. The A major Bagatelle, the fourth of the set, is a quiet, tender piece, its mood of calm entirely unruffled by drama. Though eminently Beethovenian in terms of its musical language, the serene feeling of this Bagatelle certainly seems to point the way forward to some of the music Schubert was to write more than two decades later.  

 

Nigel Simeone

SCHUBERT Franz, Piano Sonata No.20 in A D959

In May 1838, the Viennese firm of Diabelli published Schubert’s last three piano sonatas. Schubert had originally intended to dedicate this trilogy of sonatas to the pianist and composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel, but by the time they appeared in print Hummel, too, was dead and the publisher dedicated them instead to Robert Schumann, one of the most enthusiastic proponents of Schubert’s music. Schumann’s love of Schubert’s music had begun as a very private passion, as he wrote when reviewing the newly-published sonatas: ‘Time was when I spoke of Schubert reluctantly, and then only at night to the trees and the stars.’ In turn, Schumann’s great protégé Brahms wrote to his friend Adolf Schubring about Schubert, in words that could almost be a description of parts of Schubert’s A major Sonata in this concert: ‘Where else is there a genius like his, which soars with such boldness and certainty to the heavens, where we see the very greatest enthroned? He impresses me as a child of the gods who plays with Jove’s thunder and occasionally handles it in an unusual manner. But he plays in a region and a height which others cannot hope to attain.’ 

Composed in September 1828, two months before Schubert’s premature death, the A major Sonata opens with a noble first subject, soon contrasted with delicate triplets. Some typically adventurous harmonic excursions eventually arrive at the serene second subject. All this material is worked out in a spacious, unhurried sonata-form. The main theme of the slow movement (in F sharp minor) suggests a kind of cradle song, interrupted by a highly charged central passage full of dissonance and drama (pianist Alfred Brendel characterised it as ‘unease and horror’). The Schubert scholar Brian Newbould has written that in the delectable Scherzo, Schubert ‘uses the piano as percussionist and songster by turns’, while the finale combines elements of sonata form and rondo to create a sublime movement anchored by a gentle song-like main theme. 

 

Nigel Simeone 

RACHMANINOV Sergei, Preludes Op.23 & Op.32

One of the greatest pianists of his age, Rachmaninov’s own compositions for solo piano ranged from shorter works including sets of Preludes and Études-tableaux, to much more grandly-conceived pieces, notable among them his two piano sonatas. The Preludes (Op.23 and 32) were composed between 1901 and 1910. Unlike Chopin’s Préludes, Rachmaninov’s two sets were not conceived as a whole, but even though it wasn’t his initial plan, Rachmaninov eventually mirrored Chopin (and Bach before him) by composing one prelude in each of the twenty-four keys.

 

Nigel Simeone

RACHMANINOV Sergei, Études Tableaux

Rachmaninov’s conception of the form is more expansive than Chopin’s, with some preludes amounting to miniature tone-poems, but this tendency became more explicit in the two sets of Études-tableaux (Op.33 and 39), composed between 1911 and 1917. Reviewing an early performance, one Russian critic noted the stylistic evolution that can be detected in these works: ‘In the Études, Rachmaninov appears in a new light. The soft lyricist begins to employ more severe, concentrated and deepened modes of expression.’  

 

Nigel Simeone

RACHMANINOV Sergei, Sonata No.2 in B flat minor

Rachmaninov’s Piano Sonata No.2 in B flat minor was composed between January and August 1913, written simultaneously with his choral masterpiece The Bells. It was first published the following year but Rachmaninov was never entirely happy with the results and he made an extensive revision of the sonata in 1931, claiming that the original version was ‘too long’. Always ferociously self-critical, Rachmaninov’s 1931 revision has often been considered to be too drastic and pianists from Horowitz (with Rachmaninov’s blessing) to Steven Osborne in our own day have made performing editions which combine the best of both versions. The first movement, marked Allegro agitato, opens with a dramatic descent into despair, though this is by no means the only mood: one of the contrasting ideas is richly lyrical and the recapitulation is heralded by a glorious pealing of bells. The slow movement is a lilting intermezzo (with a more intense central section), while the Allegro molto finale brings the work to a thrilling and powerful close. The movements are played without a break and they are unified by thematic references which recur throughout the work.  

 Nigel Simeone

“A masterclass in the true beauty of pianism, delivered with an intelligent and instinctive musicality.”

The Scotsman

About the Artists

Steven Osborne

Winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist of the Year in 2013, pianist Steven Osborne is one of Britain’s most treasured musicians. Celebrated for his insightful interpretations, his musicality and technique, Osborne is much sought after as soloist, chamber musician and recitalist. His residencies at London’s Wigmore Hall, Antwerp’s deSingel, the Bath International Music Festival, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and, this season, at the Royal Scottish National Orchestra are a testament to the respect with which he is held.

Find out more. 

BOHEMIAN QUARTETS

Ensemble 360

Upper Chapel, Sheffield
Friday 18 November 2022, 7.00pm

£20 
£14 Disabled / UC and PIP recipients
£5 Under 35s & Students 

Past Event
String players of Ensemble 360
Home› What's on› BOHEMIAN QUARTETS

SUK Meditation on an Old Czech Chorale (7’)
SMETANA String Quartet No.1 From My Life (31’)
Arr. BURLEIGH  (adapted for string quartet by Jeremy Birchall)
   I’ve been in the storm
Oh Lord, what a morning (7′)
DVOŘÁK String Quartet No.12 American Quartet (26’) 

Opening with Suk’s Meditation on the Chorale St Wenceslas and including the African-American composer Burleigh’s quartet settings of I’ve been in the storm and Oh Lord, what a morning, this sumptuous evening of music concludes with Dvořák’s most famous quartet.  

This turbulent and thrilling selection of music tracks the relationship between nineteenth century quartet writing in eastern Europe and the musical conversations that played a decisive role in the evolution of chamber music.  

SMETANA Bedřich, String Quartet No.1 in E minor ‘From my Life’

Allegro vivo appassionato
Allegro moderato à la Polka
Largo sostenuto
Vivace

In 1874 Smetana fell ill with an infection that led within months to total deafness. For peace and quiet he moved to the village of Jabkenice in Central Bohemia, and it was here that he produced this overtly autobiographical quartet in 1876. Smetana supplied his own commentary on the work. It opens with ‘the call of fate (the main motif, first heard on the viola) into the struggle of life. The love of art in my youth; inclination towards romanticism in music as well as in love and life in general; a warning about my future misfortune – that fateful ringing of the highest tones in my ears which told me of my coming deafness.’

The second movement (à la Polka) brings back, according to Smetana, ‘memories of the merry time of my youth’, while the third ‘reminds me of the beauty of my first love for the girl who later became my faithful wife. The struggle with unhappy fate, the final achievement of my goal.’ For the fourth movement Smetana wanted to depict: ‘the recognition of a national awareness of our beautiful art, the pleasure derived from it and the happiness of success along the way until a terrible-sounding high tone starts ringing in my ear (in the quartet a high E) … as a warning of my cruel fate.’

The first performance took place in Prague on 29 March 1879. During his last years, Smetana’s behaviour became increasingly erratic. Early in 1884 he was moved to an asylum in Prague where he died a few months later.

© Nigel Simeone 2015

BURLEIGH Henry Thacker, I’ve been in the storm & Oh Lord, what a morning

Henry (Harry) Burleigh was born in Pennsylvania in 1866 – his grandfather had been emancipated from slavery in the 1830s and his father fought for the Union Navy during the American Civil War. As a child, Burleigh’s grandfather taught him the melodies that were commonly sung by enslaved African-Americans. In his teenage years he developed into a fine classical singer, making regular solo appearances at churches and synagogues.

At the age of 26 he moved to New York to study at the National Conservatory of Music, which coincided with the arrival of the Conservatory’s new director, Antonín Dvořák, who’d been brought to America with the specific role of laying the foundations of an authentic national musical style. Dvořák was thrilled by Burleigh’s voice, and there’s some evidence to suggest that it was Burleigh who introduced certain melodies to Dvořák which would find their way into the ‘New World’ Symphony and ‘American’ String Quartet.

Burleigh’s long career was centred around performing and publishing his arrangements, helping to popularise Swing Low, Deep River and Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen. He died at the age of 82 and his body is interred in Erie, the town where he was born and which celebrates his music and wider legacy with a week-long annual festival.

© Tom McKinney

DVOŘÁK Antonin, String Quartet in F Op.96 ‘American’

Allegro ma non troppo
Lento
Molto vivace
Finale. Vivace ma non troppo

Dvořák was teaching in New York in 1893, and for his summer holiday he travelled over a thousand miles westwards, to the village of Spillville in Iowa, set in the valley of the Turkey River. It had been colonized by Czechs in the 1850s and in these congenial surroundings Dvořák quickly wrote the String Quartet in F major. On the last page of the manuscript draft, he wrote: ‘Finished on 10 June 1893, Spillville. I’m satisfied. Thanks be to God. It went quickly.’

Coming immediately after the ‘New World’ Symphony (which was to have its triumphant première in New York later in the year), the quartet has a mood that suggests something of his contentment in Spillville. Dvořák’s assistant Josef Kovařík recalled the composer’s routine: walks, composing, playing the organ for Mass and talking to locals, observing that he ‘scarcely ever talked about music and I think that was one of the reasons why he felt so happy there.’

Just how ‘American’ is the quartet? While remaining completely true to himself, Dvořák admitted that ‘as for my … F major String Quartet and the Quintet (composed here in Spillville) – I should never have written these works the way I did if I hadn’t seen America’. The first performance was given in Boston on New Year’s Day 1894 by the Kneisel Quartet.

© Nigel Simeone

About the Artists

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

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

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

 

THE LARK ASCENDING

Ensemble 360

Upper Chapel, Sheffield
Friday 4 November 2022, 7.00pm

£20 
£14 Disabled / UC and PIP recipients
£5 Under 35s & Students 

Past Event
Five classical musicians from Ensemble 360 pose together, seated and smiling. They are our resident musicians in Sheffield and nationally.
Home› What's on› THE LARK ASCENDING

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS The Lark Ascending (15’)
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Concerto for Oboe and Strings (19’)
RAVEL Sonatine for piano (12’)
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Piano Quintet in C minor (30’) 

Celebrating the 150th birthday of the celebrated composer who embodies the sound of English music. The evening opens with Vaughan Williams’ most famous work, The Lark Ascending, recently voted No.1 in the Classic FM Hall of Fame for a record 12th time, in its original version for piano and violin. This is followed by his Concerto for Oboe and Strings, the compact Sonatine by the composer’s friend and mentor Maurice Ravel, and the evening concludes with his expansive Quintet. 

***Tickets for this event have now sold out. Please check with box office for returns.****

Tickets are still available for the same concert at Cast in Doncaster on Saturday 5 November at 7.00pm. Book here. 

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Ralph, The Lark Ascending

Vaughan Williams began The Lark Ascending before the outbreak of the First World War, taking his inspiration from George Meredith’s 1881 poem of the same name. But he set this ‘Romance’ aside during the war and only finished it in 1920. The violinist Marie Hall gave the first performance of the original version for violin and piano in Shirehampton Public Hall (a district of Bristol) on 15 December 1920. Vaughan Williams dedicated the work to her, and she went on to give the premiere of the orchestral version six months later, when it was conducted by the young Adrian Boult at a concert in the Queen’s Hall in London. Free, serene and dream-like, this is idyllic music of rare and fragile beauty.

© Nigel Simeone

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Ralph, Concerto for Oboe and Strings

Rondo pastorale
Minuet and Musette
Finale (Scherzo)

Vaughan Williams started to compose his oboe concerto in 1943, immediately after the Fifth Symphony, and it was completed in 1944. His friend and biographer Michael Kennedy wrote that ‘a discarded scherzo from the symphony was turned into part of the oboe concerto’, and he described it as a ‘satellite work’ to the symphony. It was written for the oboist Léon Goossens and the premiere was planned for the 1944 Proms. That concert was cancelled due to the risk of flying-bombs over London and Goossens gave the first performance in Liverpool on 30 September 1944.

The bucolic first movement – an unconventional rondo – is marked Allegro moderato and it uses both the oboe’s spiky agility and its lyrical capabilities, with short cadenzas near the start and finish. In his book on Vaughan Williams, Frank Howes noted that the Minuet and Musette was ‘wayward in its key scheme’ and described the whole movement as ‘pseudo-classical’ in character. The central ‘Musette’ section is based on drones, played by the oboe. Headed ‘Finale (Scherzo)’, the last movement is predominantly very fast, but perhaps the highlight of the whole Concerto is the slower central section, the soloist musing over richly-harmonised string chords, before a return of the fast material and a quiet, sustained close.

© Nigel Simeone

RAVEL Maurice, Sonatine

Modéré
Mouvement de menuet
Animé

Ravel composed his Sonatine in 1903–5, just after finishing the String Quartet and the song-cycle Shéhérazade. After several fruitless attempts to win the Prix de Rome, Ravel finally decided that he should pursue his own musical path, and the Sonatine was one of the first results – a work of great refinement, on a much smaller scale than the piano cycle Miroirs that he worked on at the same time.

Ravel’s title evokes something of the elegance of the Classical period, though from the very start it is obvious that Ravel is not attempting any kind of pastiche. Even so, the first movement is in a clearly defined sonata form. The opening presents a singing theme in octaves with a shimmering accompaniment in the inner parts. The second theme is gentler, supported by typically luminous harmonies. The Minuet is a graceful dance, and the finale is driven by the almost omnipresent rapid notes heard at the start of the movement. There are moments of repose, but the movement surges to a flamboyant conclusion.

Ravel dedicated the Sonatine to his friends Ida and Cipa Godebski. The premiere was given in Lyon on 10 March 1906 by Mme Paule de Lestaing, and first performed in Paris on 31 March 1906, by Gabriel Grovlez.

© Nigel Simeone

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Ralph, Quintet in C minor for violin, viola, cello, double bass and piano

Allegro con fuoco
Andante
Fantasia, quasi variazioni

This Quintet in C minor, scored for the same instrumentation as Schubert’s Trout, was composed in 1903 and revised twice before the first performance at the Aeolian Hall on 14 December 1905, but after a performance in 1918 it was withdrawn by Vaughan Williams. It was finally published in an edition by Bernard Benoliel a century after its composition. Vaughan Williams’s friend and biographer Michael Kennedy speaks of ‘the shadow of Brahms looming over’ the work, and this seems especially true of the expansive first movement. The expressive, romantic melody of the Andante second movement is more characteristic of its composer at this stage in his career, and it has some similarity to the song Silent Noon, composed the same year. The finale is a set of five variations, ending with a beautiful bell-like coda.

As Michael Kennedy observes, what matters with an early work such as this is not whether it anticipates Vaughan Williams’s later masterpieces (for the most part, it doesn’t), but that it is impressive in its own right. He does, however, make an intriguing observation: ‘Vaughan Williams may have withdrawn the Quintet but he did not forget it, for in 1954 he used the theme of the finale, slightly expanded, for the variations in the finale of his Violin Sonata.’

© Nigel Simeone

About the Artists

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

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

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

 

BACH CELLO SUITES

Ensemble 360

Upper Chapel, Sheffield
Friday 28 October 2022, 3.00pm / 7.00pm

£15 
£10 Disabled / UC and PIP recipients
£5 Under 35s & Students 

Past Event
Home› What's on› BACH CELLO SUITES

BACH
Cello Suite No.2 (21’)
Cello Suite No.4 (24’) 

Ensemble 360’s cellist, Gemma Rosefield presents two more of Bach’s well-loved and intimate works for unaccompanied cello, following her warmly-received recital in spring 2022. These Suites are some of the most frequently performed and recognisable solo compositions ever written for cello, and regularly feature in film and television soundtracks. They are presented together with a short, informal conversation about Bach’s celebrated works between Gemma and Tom McKinney, BBC Radio 3 presenter and Music in the Round’s Programme Manager.   

BACH Johann Sebastian, Cello Suites No.2 & No.4

Cello Suite No.2 in D minor, BWV 1008

Prelude
Allemande
Courante
Sarabande
Minuet I / II
Gigue

Cello Suite No.4 in E flat, BWV 1010

Prelude
Allemande
Courante
Sarabande
Bouree I / II
Gigue

Bach’s Cello Suites were probably composed in about 1720 during Bach’s time in Cöthen. It isn’t known for whom Bach wrote them, though there are at least two likely candidates working in Cöthen at the time: Christian Ferdinand Abel (1682–1761), a great friend of the composer for whom Bach wrote the three sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord (BWV 1027–9), and Carl Berhard Lienicke (d. 1751), the leading cellist of the Cöthen orchestra. Whether either of them was the player Bach had in mind is a matter of pure speculation since no documentary evidence has come to light. Equally uncertain is why Bach wrote them. The likeliest explanation is that they were intended – like much of his keyboard music – for private performance.

© Nigel Simeone

About the Artists

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

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

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

 

MOZART, SCHUMANN, RACHMANINOV & LISZT

Llŷr Williams

Upper Chapel, Sheffield
Friday 21 October 2022, 7.00pm

£20 
£14 Disabled / UC and PIP recipients
£5 Under 35s & Students

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 Amadeus, Fantasia in C minor K475

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.

© Nigel Simeone

SCHUMANN Robert, Fantasy in C Op.17

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.

© Nigel Simeone

RACHMANINOV Sergei, Variations on a Theme of Corelli

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.

© Nigel Simeone

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

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.

© Nigel Simeone

LISZT Franz, Mephisto Waltz No.1

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.

© Nigel Simeone

ROMANTIC PIANO TRIOS

Leonore Piano Trio

Upper Chapel, Sheffield
Friday 14 October 2022, 7.00pm

£20 
£14 Disabled / UC and PIP recipients
£5 Under 35s & Students 

Past Event
Home› What's on› ROMANTIC PIANO TRIOS

HAYDN Piano Trio in F sharp minor Hob.XV:26 (14’)
HUW WATKINS Piano Trio No.2 (c.25’)
Music in the Round co-commission with Presteigne Festival and Wigmore Hall for Leonore Piano Trio
MENDELSSOHN Piano Trio No.1 in D minor (30’)  

The Leonore Trio – Tim Horton, Benjamin Nabarro and Gemma Rosefield – are now firmly established as one of the finest piano trios performing today. This concert continues their theme of the great 19th century works for trio, alongside those of the father of the piano trio, Joseph Haydn, and a brand-new commission created by the inimitable Huw Watkins. Mendelssohn’s first foray into the medium produced a masterpiece of passion, energy and lyricism.  

 

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

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.

© Nigel Simeone

WATKINS Huw Thomas, Piano Trio No.2

Although my second piano trio runs continuously without a break for around quarter of an hour, it divides into four main sections which correspond roughly with a more traditional four movement scheme. Two slow movements are followed by two fast movements. The music was co-commissioned by Presteigne Festival, Music in the Round and Wigmore Hall for the Leonore Trio, and is dedicated to George Vass.

© Huw Watkins 2022

MENDELSSOHN Felix, Piano Trio No.1 in D minor

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.’

© Nigel Simeone

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. 

SOUNDS OF NOW: CYBORG SOLOIST

Zubin Kanga

Upper Chapel, Sheffield
Saturday 8 October 2022, 8.00pm

£10
£8 Disabled / UC and PIP recipients
£5 Under 35s & Students 

Past Event
Home› What's on› SOUNDS OF NOW: CYBORG SOLOIST

NINA WHITEMAN cybird cybird (world premiere) 
ALEX GROVES Single Form (Swell) (world premiere) 
ZUBIN KANGA Steel on Bone
LUKE NICKEL hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess 
ALEXANDER SCHUBERT WIKI-PIANO.NET 

Pianist, composer and inventor Zubin Kanga has worked with world-leading technology researchers to create the Cyborg Soloists project. Zubin performs on piano, newly invented digital instruments and interactive devices, to create a bewildering world of new sounds in works synchronised with film and choreographed movement.

The composers all use technology that physically responds to Zubin, from the subtle movements of his fingers using motion-sensitive gloves, to huge gestures that trigger explosive sequences of music and lights. You’ll be taken to brave new worlds of Artificial Intelligence, then plunge vertically in sound and video on a wild rollercoaster ride, and there’s even the chance to participate in composing a piece for Zubin in real time via Wikipedia.

Prepare to be hurled into a breath-taking multimedia extravaganza of an evening.

Find out more about Zubin Kanga and the Cyborg Soloisits project.

WHITEMAN Nina, cybird cybird

Nina Whiteman uses Movesense sensors and Holonic Systems software alongside AI-manipulated field recordings from her daily commute to create a work in which alien sonic environments are explored through gesture.

http://ninawhiteman.com/

Nina’s own programme note:

Research tells us that birds find it harder to learn their songs against a backdrop of traffic noise, and that their songs tend to occupy a narrower and higher bandwidth as a result of these stresses. I began to imagine birds as hybrids of technology, flesh, feather, and imposing chaotic environment. The Birds Aren’t Real conspiracy claims (satirically) that all birds have been replaced by robot drones. I began to wonder what it would be like if they had.

 

The Cybird Trilogy of multimedia works with live performers has grown from this engagement with machine learning, artificial intelligence and the natural world, and charts the ‘adventures’ of a cybird character that is inhabited and portrayed differently in each work. Its concerns are ecological, musical, and technological.

 

Holonic Systems (via the Holonist app) allows Movesense motion sensors to communicate with various software. The motion sensors are used to convert bird-like performer wing movements into audible phenomena, through control of playback speed (MaxMSP) and of a modular synthesiser app (MiRack)

https://www.holonic.systems/about

GROVES Alex, Single Form (Swell)

Alex Groves’ new work for LUMI keyboards comes from his Curved Form series, exploring gradually shifting loops building into mesmerising textures.

https://www.alexgroves.co.uk/

 

Alex’s programme note:

As part of his Cyborg Soloists project, pianist Zubin Kanga has commissioned a series of new works that bring his practice into conversation with cutting edge technology. For Single Form (Swell), I’ve created a piece for pressure-sensitive keyboards that envelopes the audience in swirling noise and oceanic depths.

 

LUMI keyboards https://playlumi.com/

KANGA Zubin, Steel on Bone

As a pianist, moving away from the keys and into the body of the piano feels like touching the bones, flesh and sinew of the instrument. It feels both more delicate and precise, and also more violent (for both player and piano) than interfacing with the keyboard. Steel on Bone is inspired by two types of films: medical documentaries and the samurai films of Akira Kurosawa. Steel is the material of both the scalpel and the katana, used for healing and for fatal duels. Using steel implements in the body of the instrument, the pianist draws delicate and violent sounds, transmogrifying them using MiMU’s multi-sensor gloves.

MiMU gloves https://mimugloves.com/

NICKEL Luke, hhiiddeenn vvoorrttiicceess

Luke Nickel uses Soundbrenner’s haptic metronomes alongside dreamlike roller-coaster visuals, an accelerometer, electronics and strobe lights in a play of vertiginous tempi across limbs.

About + Contact

https://www.soundbrenner.com/pulse/

SCHUBERT Alexander, WIKI-PIANO.NET

Alexander Schubert explores the nature of internet culture, using a website to allow the audience to co-compose the work especially for each performance – the audience can link to sound files, youtube videos, change text and instructions, just like a Wikipedia page, creating a work that reflects the memes and internet obsessions at the time of each performance.

http://www.alexanderschubert.net/index.php

 

Alexander’s own note:

Wiki-Piano.Net is piece for piano and the internet community. It is composed by everyone. At every time. The composition is notated as an editable Wiki internet page and is subject to constant change and fluctuation. When visiting the website wiki-piano.net everybody can see the current state of the piece and make alterations. The website allows the visitor to place media content, comments, audio and picture in the piece as well as traditional score editing. The concert performances of the piece take the current state of the website as the score. Hence no

performance will ever be the same. Through the editing process of the community new versions of the piece will constantly evolve.

 

Videos of Zubin’s previous performances of Wiki-Piano http://www.alexanderschubert.net/works/Wiki.php

About the Artist

Zubin Kanga

London and Sydney-based pianist and composer, Zubin Kanga has worked with many of the world’s leading composers and premiered more than 120 works. His projects are focussed around expanding the possibilities of the piano through interactive multimedia.

He is the director and principal investigator of Cyborg Soloists, a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship facilitating 4 years of innovative new work in collaboration with world leading composers, performers, researchers and industry partners.

MOZART, BRUCH & MORE

Ensemble 360

Upper Chapel, Sheffield
Friday 23 September 2022, 3.00pm / 7.00pm

£15 
£10 Disabled / UC and PIP recipients
£5 Under 35s & Students 

Past Event
Home› What's on› MOZART, BRUCH & MORE

BRUCH Selection from 8 pieces Op.83 (c.20’)
ALBERGA Duo from ‘Dancing with the Shadow’ (5’)
VIEUXTEMPS Capriccio Hommage à Paganini (4’)
MOZART Kegelstatt Trio K498 (20’) 

Pianist Tim Horton is joined by the two newest members of Ensemble 360, Rachel Roberts on viola and Robert Plane on clarinet, for a varied programme. Opening with a selection of Bruch’s elegiac, lush fragments and concluding with Mozart’s innovative ‘Kegelstatt’ Trio, combined with two lesser-known works, this is the perfect introduction to these fabulous musicians.  

BRUCH Max, Eight Pieces Op.83 for clarinet, viola and piano (extracts)

Bruch composed these pieces in 1908 for his son, Max Felix, who was a clarinettist. Three of the pieces were originally written with an additional harp part, but by the time the work was published in 1910, Bruch had settled on a trio of clarinet, viola and piano. Discussing publication with Simrock in February 1910, Bruch wrote that the pieces had been ‘met with great approval where they were played from the manuscript’ and it’s easy to see why. Bruch always intended separate performances of individual pieces (indeed, he advised against playing all of them together), and selections can be used to make an effective suite.

© Nigel Simeone

ALBERGA Eleanor, Duo from ‘Dancing with the Shadow’

Eleanor Alberga was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and she continued her musical studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London. In an interview she singled out the influence of Caribbean rhythms on her music, alongside the works of European contemporary composers. In Dancing with the Shadow another inspiration was modern dance – something Alberga got to know at first-hand when she became pianist for the London Contemporary Dance Theatre in 1978.

Dancing with the Shadow was completed in 1990, commissioned jointly by the ensemble Lontano and Sue MacLennan’s dance company. The first performance was given at The Place in London on 21 March 1990, played by Lontano under Odaline de la Martinez. The ‘Duo’, for clarinet and piano, is taken from the longer work. Notable for its athletic exuberance, this exciting piece opens with the clarinet alone, soon joined by the piano in a constantly animated dialogue.

© Nigel Simeone

VIEUXTEMPS Henri, Capriccio for solo viola, ‘Hommage à Paganini’

Like other nineteenth-century violinists, the Belgian virtuoso Henri Vieuxtemps liked to play the viola, particularly in chamber music. The Capriccio is the last of a set of six posthumously published pieces (the first five are for solo violin), probably composed in the last decade of Vieuxtemps’ life, after his playing career was ended by a series of strokes. It was composed as a tribute to Paganini (whose viola playing had inspired Berlioz to compose Harold in Italy).

‘Capriccio’ might suggest something rather whimsical, but Vieuxtemps’ work is marked Lento, con molta espressione (slow with much expression) and it is rooted in the key of C minor. The effect is rather sombre and elegiac, in spite of the virtuoso demands of Vieuxtemps’ writing, and the piece ends with two, quiet pizzicato chords.

© Nigel Simeone

MOZART Amadeus, Trio in E flat K498 Kegelstatt

Andante
Menuetto
Rondo. Allegretto

This is Mozart’s only trio for his three favourite instruments: clarinet, viola and piano. The nickname ‘Kegelstatt’ means ‘skittle alley’, and legend has it that Mozart wrote the work during a game of skittles. This may be far-fetched, especially given the rather noble character of the music, but what is certain is that he wrote the trio in Vienna, and entered it in his own thematic catalogue on 5 August 1786. The first movement is a marvellous example of Mozart’s invention at its most concentrated and unforced: every element in this sonata-form movement derives from the ornamental turn that is such a distinctive feature of the opening. The Minuet surprises by its almost grand character – no mere courtly dance, but something more imposing – and this is followed by an unhurried Rondo that brings this radiant work to a lyrical conclusion.

© Nigel Simeone

About the Artists

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

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

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

 

MUSIC FOR PIANO AND WIND

Ensemble 360

Upper Chapel, Sheffield
Saturday 17 September 2022, 7.00pm

£20 
£14 Disabled / UC and PIP recipients
£5 Under 35s & Students 

Past Event
Home› What's on› MUSIC FOR PIANO AND WIND

BEETHOVEN National Airs for flute and piano Op.105 and Op.107 (selection) (c.15’)
FARRENC Sextet in C minor Op.40 (23’)
DANZI Wind Quintet in B flat Op.56 No.1 (14’)
BEETHOVEN Quintet for piano and wind in E flat Op.16 (25’)

A joyful showcase of Beethoven and more from the wind players of Ensemble 360. Beethoven’s Quintet for piano and wind is one of the great pieces in the wind repertoire, hugely enjoyable to both listen to and play. Writer of numerous wind quintets, Danzi’s knowledge of the instruments shines through in his melodic writing.  

Inspired by Beethoven’s Quintet, Louise Farrenc’s Sextet adds the flute and is set in the style of a chamber concerto for piano and wind. A brilliant 19th century composer, she is now starting to achieve the recognition her outstanding music deserves. 

BEETHOVEN Ludwig van, National Airs for flute and piano Op.105 & Op.107

The Scottish publisher and folksong collector George Thomson (1751–1851) – a friend of Robert Burns and Walter Scott – first approached Beethoven for some arrangements of Scottish songs as early as 1803, and eventually 25 of them (Beethoven’s Op. 108, for which the composer was well remunerated) were published by Thomson in 1818. Two years earlier, Thomson had written asking for some instrumental variations ‘in an agreeable style, not too difficult’. When he formally commissioned them in June 1818, Thomson also requested ad lib. flute parts, explaining that ‘we have a large number of flautists but alas, our violinists are few’, reminding Beethoven that the music should be ‘in a familiar, easy and slightly brilliant style.’

Thomson received the variations from Beethoven on 28 December 1818, and the National Airs with variations for the piano-forte and an accompaniment for the flute were published in July 1819, in a handsome edition that included a portrait of Beethoven on the title page. As musicologist and museum archivist Pamela Willetts has observed, they were not a commercial success. In 1820, Thomson wrote to Beethoven, grumbling that ‘the variations were not selling and that his outlay was a complete loss.’

© Nigel Simeone

FARRENC Louise, Sextet in C minor Op.40

Allegro
Andante sostenuto
Allegro vivace

The composer of three symphonies and an impressive body of chamber music as well as an extensive catalogue of works for piano (her own instrument), Louise Farrenc has thankfully been rediscovered after a century of neglect. Born Jeanne-Louise Dumont, she came from an artistic family and was encouraged to develop her gifts as a pianist and composer. She studied the piano with Moscheles and Hummel, and her composition teacher was Anton Reicha. In 1821 she married the flautist Aristide Farrenc who subsequently established a publishing business. After a successful career as a travelling virtuoso, Louise Farrenc was appointed professor of piano at the Paris Conservatoire in 1842, a post she held for thirty years. The Sextet for piano and wind quintet was written in 1851–2, immediately after the successful premiere of her Nonet for strings and wind (in which Joseph Joachim was one of the performers).

The first movement – the longest of the three – opens with a dramatic theme, decorated by elaborate piano writing, while the second theme is more lyrical. Broadly-conceived, this movement ends in grand style. The main theme of the slow movement is introduced by the wind alone before the being taken up by the piano, then by the whole ensemble with several short wind solos. The finale begins with an urgent and uneasy theme on the piano which gives way to a delicate second idea. But dramatic intensity is maintained throughout the movement, right up to the turbulent ending.

© Nigel Simeone

DANZI Franz, Wind Quintet in B flat Op.56 No.1

Allegretto
Andante con moto
Menuetto allegretto
Allegretto

Danzi was brought up in Mannheim, where he joined the orchestra run by the Elector Karl Theodor while still a teenager, as a cellist. His father was principal cellist in the orchestra (which moved, with Karl Theodor, to Munich) and he was praised by Mozart for his playing in the first performance of Idomeneo in 1781. In 1784, he was succeeded by his son, who later became an assistant Kapellmeister in Munich, before taking on the role of Kapellmeister in Stuttgart and later Karlsruhe. Though Danzi was a fine cellist, his fame as a composer rests largely on his nine woodwind quintets – works which show a consistent understanding of idiomatic wind writing.

The Quintet in B flat was one of a set of three first published in 1821, with a dedication to Anton Reicha – Danzi’s most important predecessor as a composer of wind quintets. After an amiable and well-crafted first movement in B flat major, Danzi reveals a more pensive side to his nature in the short Andante con moto, in D minor, its main thematic material being heard first on the oboe, then the bassoon. The Minuet is sturdy, while in the Trio section Danzi creates a witty dialogue between all five instruments. The last movement is a jaunty rondo.

© Nigel Simeone

BEETHOVEN Ludwig van, Quintet for wind and piano in E flat Op.16

Grave. Allegro ma non troppo
Andante cantabile
Rondo. Allegro ma non troppo

Beethoven completed his Quintet for Piano and Wind in 1797, five years after his arrival in Vienna, taking Mozart’s quintet for the same instrumental combination as his model. It’s probably no coincidence that one of Beethoven’s closest friends – Nikolaus Zmeskall von Domanovecz – owned the autograph manuscript of Mozart’s work at the time. Yet despite some obvious parallels in terms of structure and even some of the thematic material, the Beethoven Quintet sounds very individual. As the Canadian musicologist Cliff Eisen has written: ‘Beethoven [remained] true to his own voice, some obvious modellings of his quintet on Mozart’s notwithstanding: their keys and unusual scoring are identical, and both begin with elaborate slow introductions. At 416 bars, however, the first movement of Beethoven’s quintet far exceeds Mozart’s in scale: as in so many of his chamber and solo works, Beethoven aspires to the symphonic, something that is alien to Mozart’s greater intimacy and concision.’

© Nigel Simeone

About the Artists

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

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

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

 

BEETHOVEN STRING QUARTETS

Ensemble 360

Upper Chapel, Sheffield
Saturday 10 September 2022, 7.00pm

£20
£14 Disabled / UC and PIP recipients
£5 Under 35s & Students

Past Event
String players of Ensemble 360
Home› What's on› BEETHOVEN STRING QUARTETS

BEETHOVEN 
String Quartet Op.18 No.3 (25’)
String Quartet Op.95 Serioso (21’)
String Quartet Op.59 No.1 (41’) 

A chance to hear quartets from Beethoven’s early and middle periods, both marked by wit and invention, formal control and deft construction. The monumental first ‘Rasumovsky’ quartet follows, an intense work that marked a sea-change in Beethoven’s writing and is passionate, defiant and deeply moving.  

(Rescheduled from 5 February 2022.)

BEETHOVEN Ludwig van, String Quartet in D Op.18 No.3

Allegro
Andante con moto
Allegro
Presto

The Quartet Op.18 No.3 is a landmark in Beethoven’s career: it’s his first string quartet. He began it in the Autumn of 1798, finishing it early the following year, and eventually placed it as the third of the Op.18 set. As a preparation, Beethoven immersed himself in quartets by other composers, especially Mozart and his teacher Haydn – he copied out two of Mozart’s Haydn quartets just as he was beginning work on his Op.18.

The first movement opens with an arching theme (characterised by a leap of a minor seventh between the first two notes). The slow movement, in B flat major, begins with a luxuriant presentation of the main theme, but the texture soon becomes more spare and fragmented, with numerous dramatic contrasts. The Scherzo-like third movement has a minor key Trio section, while the final Presto is notable for its unquenchable energy. Composer Robert Simpson wrote that this music ‘flies at once into the sky, alighting when and where it wishes’ – from the stormy development section to the unexpectedly quiet ending.

© Nigel Simeone

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

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

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

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

© Nigel Simeone

BEETHOVEN Ludwig van, String Quartet in F Op.59 No.1 Razumovsky

Allegro
Allegretto vivace e sempre scherzando
Adagio molto e mesto – attacca
Thème Russe. Allegro

The first of Beethoven’s three quartets written for Prince Razumovsky was composed in 1806 and performed the next year. 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 musicologist Lewis Lockwood describes as ‘opening up a musical space of seemingly unbounded lyricism and breadth.’ The Scherzo, in B flat major, is an unusual 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 Razumovsky was the Russian Ambassador to Vienna at the time.

© Nigel Simeone

About the Artists

Ensemble 360 musicians

Ensemble 360

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

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

 

SOUNDS OF NOW

Psappha

Upper Chapel, Sheffield
Friday 29 April 2022, 8.00pm

Tickets: £10  
£8 Disabled & Unemployed 
£5 Students & Under 35s 

Past Event
Home› What's on› SOUNDS OF NOW

NINFEA CRUTTWELL-READE Three Études for Piano and Flower Pots  
HARRISON BIRTWISTLE The Axe Manual  
JOANNA WARD Translucent  
SIMON HOLT The Sower 

“…their enterprise and dedication are breathtaking.” The ArtsDesk 

Sounds of Now continues in April when musicians from Psappha perform intoxicating works for eclectic instruments including tuned plant pots and the hypnotic cimbalom, an instrument at the heart of Hungarian folk music. 

Since their first performance three decades ago, the musicians of Psappha have become a vital presence in this country’s new music scene. In their Music in the Round debut, these outstanding musicians will also perform Harrison Birtwistle’s The Axe Manual, an extraordinary musical battle that pits the piano against an enormous range of percussion, and a beguiling, ethereal recent work by Joanna Ward for solo cello.  

Sounds of Now is a platform for musicians who are creating and exploring some of the most exciting artistic ideas today, nurturing talent, inspiring new thinking and provoking debate. This new live music series from Music in the Round is your invitation to engage and connect with music in new ways. 

A bar will be open before the advertised start time.

Find out more and join the conversation online.

 

About the Artists

Psappha

Psappha is the North West’s only stand-alone professional contemporary classical music ensemble. Founded in 1991 by Artistic Director Tim Williams, the group is dedicated to commissioning, performing and promoting new music – particularly by living composers and emerging musicians.

Throughout its 30-year career, Psappha has commissioned and premiered music by more than 500 composers and has performed across the UK and worldwide on five continents. In the process, it has worked with the likes of Aldeburgh Music, the BBC Philharmonic, the BBC Proms, BBC Radio 3, Glyndebourne Festival and many others.

Find out more.