Concert Saturday 21st January 2012 at 7:45pm
Note change of venue
Hector Berlioz
Walton ‘Crown Imperial’ 
Elgar ‘Sospiri’
Arnold Clarinet Concerto No. 2
Soloist Hale Hambleton
Berlioz ‘Symphonie Fantastique’
For 2012, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee year, we open with Walton’s 1937 coronation march. The poignant ‘Sospiri’ (sighs) cools the mood, ready to be revived by Arnold’s jazzy concerto, originally written for Benny Goodman. In 1830 Berlioz took the musical world into new realms with his vivid picture of passionate but unrequited love that eventually turns into a wild nightmare.
Saturday 12th November 2011 at 7:45pm
 Franz Liszt |
Elgar ‘Pomp & Circumstance March No. 4'
Barber ‘Adagio for Strings’ Liszt Symphonic Poem ‘Tasso’ Elgar ‘Violin Concerto' We celebrate Liszt’s 2011 bicentenary with one of his great tone poems. Barber’s well-loved Adagio was originally part of his second string quartet. But we begin and end with Elgar. This march is less familiar than the famous No 1, but no less memorable. The Violin Concerto, premiered in 1910, gained immediate popularity and has remained a firm favourite on concert programmes ever since. |
Saturday 21st May 2011 at 7:45pm
 Jean Sibelius |
Schubert ‘Symphony No. 8’ (Unfinished)
Paul Creston ‘Marimba Concertino’ Sibelius ‘Symphony No.2' This Schubert symphony has remained one of the most well loved in the concert repertoire in what seems a perfect unfinished state, though others have tried to complete it. Creston’s Concertino is distinctly tonal in the modern American idiom and possessed of a strong rhythmic sense. Sibelius’s Second is by far the most popular of his symphonies. Its style is characteristic Sibelius, with marvellous dark-hued sonorities, expansive brass chorales, passionate expressiveness, and at the end, with screwed up tension leading to a glorious triumphant conclusion. |
Saturday 19th March 2011 at 7:45pm
 Carl Nielsen |
Walton ‘Spitfire Prelude and Fugue’ Sibelius ‘Violin Concerto’ Soloist Anna-Liisa Bezrodny Nielsen ‘Symphony No.5’ The opening item comes from Walton’s music written for the 1942 film ‘The First of the Few’. Sibelius’s only concerto, in turn stormy and tense, quiet and lyrical, and with a dazzling dancing finale, demands forceful dramatic playing from the soloist. Nielsen’s Fifth, widely regarded as his greatest masterpiece, portrays conflict with disturbing but exhilarating power: the contrast between darkness and light, ominous militarism and peace, evil and good, which eventually leads to an affirmative conclusion. |
Saturday 22nd January 2011 at 7:45pm
 Igor Stravinsky |
Rimsky-Korsakov ‘Capriccio Espagnol’
Richard Strauss ‘Oboe Concerto’ Stravinsky ‘Petrushka’ Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol captures the warmth and exuberance of Spain in brilliant technicolour, a free rhapsody based on folksong tunes. The Strauss concerto uses only a small orchestra and provides a wonderful showcase for our principal oboist. Stravinsky’s charming ballet depicts the colourful atmosphere of the Shrovetide Fair and draws on Russian folk melodies to tell the story of a puppet unsuccessful in love. |
Saturday 13th November 2010 at 7:45pm
 Gustav Mahler |
Beethoven Overture ‘Coriolan’
Berlioz ‘Reverie et Caprice’ Mahler Symphony No. 5 After Beethoven’s tensely dramatic overture and Berlioz’s elegant romance, we celebrate Mahler’s 150th anniversary year with the vast musical canvas and emotional scope of his Fifth Symphony. Its moods include grim and funereal, savage and angry, ebullient and dancing, lyrical and romantic, and finally radiant and triumphant. Its famous adagietto has become particularly well known through its use in Visconti’s classic film ‘Death in Venice’. |
Sunday 13th June 2010
| Day Workshop at Bishop Justus School BR2 8HZ
Richard Strauss Symphonia domestica Adrian introduced the work at 6pm, followed by an informal performance at 6.30pm. The session was free, but donations were welcome; no tickets were issued. |
Saturday 22nd May 2010 at 7:45pm
 Sergei Prokofiev  Masa Tayama |
Kabalevsky Overture ‘Colas Breugnon’
Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1 Prokofiev ‘Romeo and Juliet’ (Selection from suites 1 & 2) Kabalevsky’s sparkling overture brilliantly captures the carefree moods of an exuberant hero in the mould of Till Eulenspeigel and Robin Hood. The Tchaikovsky concerto was famously rejected by its original dedicatee Nikolai Rubinstein as being worthless, unplayable and vulgar. How very wrong this has proved to be! Ever since its premiere in 1875 it has been overwhelmingly popular with audiences – and a challenge for pianists. Prokofiev’s celebrated ballet is so full of the most wonderful tunes and orchestral colour that it is a pity that time does not allow us to play it all, but only a generous selection. |
Saturday 20th March 2010 at 7:45pm
 Claude Debussy  Emilien Hamel |
Bridge ‘The Sea’ Chausson ‘Poeme de l’amour et de la mer’ Britten ‘Sea Interludes’ Debussy ‘La Mer’ Our theme for this concert is the sea in all its moods. The ‘Sea Interludes’ and ‘La Mer’ are well known concert favourites and make attractive partners for Chausson’s evocative ‘Poème’ and Bridge’s orchestral suite, which Britten heard as a boy of 10 and was "knocked sideways" by what he heard. Bridge subsequently became Britten’s teacher and profoundly influenced his musical development. |
Saturday 23rd January 2010 at 7:45pm
 Antonin Dvořák  Janice Watson |
Elgar ‘In the South’
Strauss ‘Four last Songs' Dvořák Symphony No.8 Elgar’s most luxuriant and expansive concert overture shows his facility with music on both the grandest scale and the most intimate. Strauss’s final completed work deals with death, but with a wonderful sense of calm acceptance, and features soaring melodies for the soloist against full orchestra. Dvořák’s symphony has a warm and optimistic tone, full of tunes inspired by the Bohemian folk music that he loved. |
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