Archive

These pages contain programmes and recordings of most of our recent performances. In addition, a list of every piece we have performed since 1960 is on the repertoire page and a history of the orchestra is on the about page.

Many of the sound recordings in this archive were recorded by students on the Tonmeister course at the University of Surrey, for which we are very grateful. Note that explicit approval is required for any photography or recordings, since we must have the consent of everyone involved and pay any extra fees incurred.

Click the programme covers to download the complete programme in PDF format. You can use a browser plugin such as Video & Audio Downloader to download audio and video recordings (start playing the recording to make it appear in the list).

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Saturday 21st May 2011 at 7:45pm

Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius

Programme May 2011Schubert ‘Symphony No. 8’ (Unfinished)

Paul Creston ‘Marimba Concertino’
Soloist Alexander Main-Ian

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
Carl Nielsen
Complete programme in PDF formatWalton ‘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
Igor Stravinsky
Programme Jan 2011Rimsky-Korsakov ‘Capriccio Espagnol’

Richard Strauss ‘Oboe Concerto’ 
    Soloist Caroline Marwood

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
Gustav Mahler
Programme Nov 2010Beethoven Overture ‘Coriolan’ 

Berlioz ‘Reverie et Caprice’ 
    Soloist Bernard Brook

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’.

Beethoven: Overture ‘Coriolan’

Berlioz: ‘Reverie et Caprice’

Mahler: Symphony No 5 
Funeral March

Second Movement

Scherzo

Adagietto

Rondo Finale

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
Sergei Prokofiev

Masa Tayama
Masa Tayama

Programme May 2010Kabalevsky Overture ‘Colas Breugnon’ 

Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1
    Soloist Masa Tayama

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.

Kabalevsky: Overture ‘Colas Breugnon’

Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No.1
Movement 1

Movement 2

Movement 3

Prokofiev: ‘Romeo and Juliet’
Montagus and Capulets: Dance of the Knights

The Young Juliet

Scene

Madrigal

Minuet

Masks

Romeo and Juliet: Love Scene

Death of Tybalt

Romeo at Juliet’s Grave

Saturday 20th March 2010 at 7:45pm

Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy

Emilien Hamel
Emilien Hamel

Programme Mar 2010Bridge ‘The Sea’

Chausson ‘Poeme de l’amour et de la mer’ 
Soloist Emilien Hamel

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
Janice Watson

Programme Jan 2010Elgar ‘In the South’

Strauss ‘Four last Songs’
Soloist Janice Watson

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.

Elgar: ‘In the South’

Strauss: ‘Four last Songs’
Frühling (Spring)

September

Beim Schlafengehen (Falling Asleep)

Im Abendrot (At sunset)

Dvořák: Symphony No.8
Allegro con brio

Adagio

Allegretto grazioso – Molto vivace

Allegro ma non troppo

Saturday 14th November 2009 at 7:45pm

Sir Edward Elgar
Sir Edward Elgar

Laura Samuel
Laura Samuel

Programme Nov 2009Berlioz Overture to ‘Benvenuto Cellini’ 

Bruch Violin Concerto No.1
Soloist Laura Samuel

Wagner Prelude and Liebestod from ‘Tristan and Isolde’  

Elgar ‘Enigma’ Variations

Our season opens with this brilliant overture, full of imaginative orchestral colour, vitality and melody. The Bruch concerto, justifiably one of the most popular in the orchestral repertoire is followed by Wagner’s powerful picture of doomed love, death and ultimately transfiguration. We end with Elgar’s well known portrait of “my friends pictured within” which was the piece which really secured his international reputation.

Berlioz – Overture to ‘Benvenuto Cellini’

Bruch – Violin Concerto

Wagner – Prelude and Liebestod from ‘Tristan and Isolde’  

Elgar – ‘Enigma’ variations

Sunday 14th June 2009

Day Workshop at Ravens Wood School BR2 8HP

Dmitri Shostakovitch Symphony No. 7 (‘Leningrad’)

Adrian introduced the work at 5.50pm, followed by an informal performance at about 6.15pm.

The session was free, but donations were welcome; no tickets were issued.