Our 2009/10 Season
The Cambridge Series: Romantic Embers
Saturday March 13th 2010, 8pm, Trinity College Chapel
Programme:
Debussy Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune arr. Beno Sachs
Mahler Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen ('Songs of a Wayfarer') - Gareth John, baritone, arr. Arnold Schoenberg
Reger Romantic Suite arr. Arnold Schoenberg
Conductor: Daniel Hill
Baritone: Gareth John
"Hear'st thou not the brooklets streaming Where sweet spring her blossom strewed, Where the woodland lakes are dreaming, By the marble icons gleaming In sweet nature's solitude?"
The opening concert in our 2009/10 Cambridge Season is an exploration of the Second Viennese School and its glorious transcriptions for Arnold Schoenberg's Society for Private Musical Performances. All three works are incredible journeys: Debussy's Faune journeys to a dream world of erotic fantasy and sensuality; Mahler's protagonist - perhaps Mahler himself - leaves behind his previous life of happiness to embark on a solitary journey to come to terms with his lost love; and Reger takes us on a journey into nature inspired by the poetry of Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff, to a world not unlike Debussy's Faune, "Rise, O Sun on high! Trembling in the sky, Earth quivering with ecstasy. Boldly from the night The wooded splendour bright Is drawn in dreams still stirring."
The Cambridge Series: Expanding Horizons
Saturday May 8th 2010, 8pm, Trinity College Chapel
Programme:
Sibelius The Swan of Tuonela
Poulenc Concerto for two Pianos - Robin Green and Antoine Françoise, pianos
Beethoven Symphony no. 5
Conductor: Daniel Hill
Pianos: Robin Green and Antoine Françoise
Although each of these three works is distinct in period, nationality and musical tinta they all share a wonderful joy of breaking boundaries and exploring new horizons. The score inscription of Sibelius's The Swan of Tuonela sets forth "Tuonela, the Kingdom of Death, the Hades of Finnish mythology, is surrounded by a broad river of black water and rapid current, in which the Swan of Tuonela glides in majestic fashion and sings." The majestic but intensely sad, swan-like melody soars and escapes. The Concerto for Two Pianos combines Maurice Chevalier with Mozart, music hall buffoonery with Balinese gamelan and lilting melodies, all with a touch of innocent hedonism. The work is cast in the traditional three movements: The outer two brim with saucy melodies and unbridled exuberance, never lapsing into vulgarity or mawkish sentimentality; the middle slow movement is neoclassical in spirit (Poulenc has invoked his beloved Mozart), with a central section more Romantic in inspiration. Poulenc heard a Balinese gamelan at the Colonial Exposition of Paris in 1931, and he has incorporated bits of that music as well, most tellingly at the end of the first movement, where, after a pianissimo clack of the castanets, the two pianos commence an extraordinary passage of mysterious and hypnotic reverie. Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is one of the greatest monuments in Western music: its sonic impact still has a powerful influence on audiences, and the shear joy expressed in the final movement has rarely been paralleled.
The Cambridge Series: Folk Song and Dance
Saturday May 29th 2010, 8pm, Trinity College Chapel
Programme:
Ligeti Romanian Concerto
Beethoven Violin Concerto - Arisa Fujita, violin
Sibelius Symphony no. 3
Conductor: Daniel Hill
Violin: Arisa Fujita
The final concert in our Cambridge Series is a celebration of folk song, dance and merriment. Ligeti's Romanian Concerto inspired by his native Hungarian music, begins as if a rambler has stumbled upon a village fate with the fife and drums, gypsy fiddler and brass band out in full force. From there the listener is taken on a ten-minute whirlwind tour of the rich musical sounds of Hungary. Beethoven's Violin Concerto is one of the most soulful and joyful of all the violin concertos (though Sibelius's is close) - the third movement Rondo erupting in a great dance. Influences from Finnish folk music are discernible in the very first chords of the Sibelius's Third Symphony. There were also some programmatic notions behind it. In Paris in January 1906, after a period of lively celebrations, Sibelius played three themes to the painter Oscar Parviainen: Funeral March, A Prayer to God and A Great Feast. The Symphony is more classical than his first two, arcing back to a Beethovenian style, both musically and in orchestration.
Our 2008/9 Season
Saturday 2nd May 2009, 8pm, Trinity College Chapel
Programme:
Beethoven 4th Piano Concerto
Saint-Seans 2nd Symphony
Beethoven Choral Fantasy (as heard at the last night of the proms)
Conductor: Daniel Hill
Piano: Cordelia Williams
Saturday 28th February 2009, 8pm, Trinity College Chapel
Programme:
Mozart Don Giovanni Overture
Beethoven Triple Concerto
Mendelssohn Symphony No. 3
Conductor: Daniel Hill
Violin: Max Baillie
'Cello: Matthijs Broersma
Piano: Ceri Owen
Tickets: Click here to book!
During the 18th century, "concertante" pieces were popular, especially in France. These are works featuring two or more solo instruments, or even a small ensemble acting as a solo group against the larger orchestra. Even Mozart had composed a Symphonie concertante. This type of composition had waned by Beethoven's lifetime, however, making this "Triple Concerto" unusual for its era. Throughout the work, the piano trio is the star; the orchestra‘s role is mainly accompaniment. Thus, we have an orchestral piece with some of the intimacy of chamber music. Beethoven composed this work in 1803-1804--about the same time he was working on his Symphony no. 3 (below)--perhaps for his young pupil, the Archduke Rudolf. When it was published in 1808, however, it was dedicated to Prince Lobkowitz, to whom Beethoven also dedicated the "Eroica" Symphony.
On July 30, 1829, Felix Mendelssohn and his friend and traveling companion Karl Klingemann, an amateur poet and attaché at the German embassy in London, wrote to his family from Edinburgh about the sightseeing he and Klingemann had done, with a particular account of their visit to the palace of Holyrood, closely associated with the romantic figure of Mary Queen of Scots. Here the ill‑fated queen had apparently succumbed to an infatuation for an Italian lutenist named David Rizzio, for which real or imagined affair the king apparently had poor Rizzio murdered. Mendelssohn was touched by the romantic tale associated with the spot. He wrote:
We went, in the deep twilight, to the palace where Queen Mary lived and loved. There is a little room to be seen there, with a winding staircase leading up to it. That is where they went up and found Rizzio in the little room, dragged him out, and three chambers away is a dark corner where they killed him. The adjoining chapel is now roofless; grass and ivy grow abundantly in it; and before the ruined altar Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland. Everything around is broken and moldering, and the bright sky shines in. I believe I found the beginning of my Scotch Symphony there today.
Saturday 8th November 2008, 8pm, Trinity College Chapel
Programme:
Wagner Siegfried Idyll
Finzi Clarinet Concerto
Beethoven Symphony No. 3 – "Eroica"
Conductor: Daniel Hill
Clarinet: Alice Gledhill
Tickets: Click here to book!
The opening concert in our 2008/9 Season perfectly captures the spirit of the year. The intimate opening of Wagner's Siegfried Idyll, written to wake his wife on her birthday, will be intimate and tender awakening of Trinity Chapel — the perfect acoustic for this music. Alice Gledhill, playing Finzi's Clarinet Concerto, is one of the most talented and promising young musicians around, and we're delighted to be able to perform this work with her. The concert concludes with Beethoven's Eroica Symphony, both triumphant and melancholic, performed with the raw energy and excitement that it demands, in a venue where every detail can be heard.
Thursday 20th/Friday 21st/Sunday 23rd November 2008, 9pm, Trinity College Chapel
Programme:
Puccini Suor Angelica
Tickets: Click here to book!
This is one of Puccini's most beautiful and intimate operas. Written as the middle act of his Il Trittico, Suor Angelica was Puccini's personal favourite of the three. Set in a convent in the latter part of the 17th Century, it tells the story of Sister Angelica who was sent from her family in disgrace some years earlier. The opera begins with the day-to-day life of the nuns, interrupted by the arrival of The Princess, Sister Angelica's Aunt. The Princess has come to inform Sister Angelica that her sister is to be married and that she must renounce her claim to the inheritance. Sister Anglica asks after her son, only to be told he is dead. Overcome with grief, Sister Angelica kills herself; the opera ends with a vision of her son appearing before her surrounded by light.
The cast is the very best young singers from the Cambridge Chapel Choirs and London Conservatories.
Saturday 31st January 2009, 8pm, Trinity College Chapel
'The beauty of spring'
Programme:
Mozart Symphony No 31 'Paris'
Bruch Double Concerto
Beethoven Symphony No. 8
Conductor: Daniel Hill
Viola: Rosie Ventris
Violin: Thomas Gould
Tickets: Click here to book!
In the spring of 1778, Mozart was in Paris, actively seeking a new position. Although he had caused a sensation in the French capital as a six-year-old prodigy, in 1778, he was just another 22-year-old musician looking for work. One of the few highlights of this expedition was a request for a new work from Joseph Le Gros. Le Gros was a composer and singer, who had recently taken over management of the Concerts Spirituel, Paris's most successful and prestigious concert series. Though Mozart and Le Gros seemed to have butted heads, the impresario offered invaluable help - among other things, Mozart spent hours each day at Le Gros's home, using his piano - and the offer for a premiere at the Concerts Spirituel was a real coup for a composer hoping to attract attention from Paris's cultural elite. His well-known "Paris" symphony was the result, a work drawn from the Parisian spring.
Although Bruch's Double Concerto demands virtuoso skills from its performers, it is not flamboyant so much as it is reserved and introspective. It is hardly ever performed, and this is a shame for it contains some truly beautiful moments and is perfectly crafted to show the mellow timbre of both instruments. The orchestral accompaniment contains moments of drama and expression, but the focus is clearly on the interplay between the soloists. As with all Bruch's concerti, there are moments when each soloist sings as if in solitary contemplation but there are also times when the effect is exuberant and extroverted. Bruch excels at both extremes, and the work captures the listener. This is truly a rare treat.
Beethoven composed the Seventh and Eighth symphonies during a critical period in his life, and concentrated on the latter during the summer of 1812. Due to primitive sanitary conditions then in Vienna, summers were a dangerous time to be in the city and Beethoven always tried to relocate, which had the added benefit of getting him closer to nature that he loved so much. In 1812 he traveled to Bohemian spas.
Beethoven completed the Eighth Symphony in October while in Linz, where he had gone to visit his brother Johann. His health was poor and one can only speculate at the repercussions of the disappointing termination of his relationship with his mystery woman.
The Eighth was premiered in Vienna on February 27, 1814, on a concert that also included the Seventh Symphony and Beethoven's popular "Wellington's Victory." The leading periodical of the time, the Leipzig "Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung" remarked that the audience was extremely interested in hearing Beethoven's latest symphony but that a single hearing was not enough: "The applause that it received was not accompanied by the enthusiasm which distinguishes a work that gives universal delight. ... The reviewer is of the opinion that the reason does not lie by any means in weaker or less artistic workmanship (for here as in all of Beethoven's work of this kind there breathes that peculiar spirit by which his originality always asserts itself); but partly in the faulty judgment which permitted this symphony to follow the [Seventh in] A major. ... If this symphony should be performed alone hereafter, we have no doubt of its success."
'He clearly has bags of talent, including a splendidly equalised scale across the whole range, a clear, luminous tone and an appealing cantilena'
- The Strad on Thomas Gould
'two distinct cantabile lines emerged and her high-energy schezo was strongly characterised, with its jazzy cross-rhythms surprising the listener'
- Varsity on Rosie Ventris