Ocr'd Text:
BS
YORK
THE CHILINGIRIAN
STRING QUARTET
Friday, 19 November 1993
Programme: 50p
Presented by the British Music Society of Yorkdava
in association with the Department of Music
Ocr'd Text:
B'S
YORK
It was in 1918 that the colourful Dr Arthur Eaglefield Hull, organist of
Huddersfield Parish Church, writer and modern music enthusiast, founded
the British Music Society.
The new society was a national body whose aims were: to bring together
professional and amateur musicians, to promote British music and music-
ians, to develop the appreciation of music by means of lectures and
concerts, and to campaign for the recognition of the place of music in
education. The Society expanded quickly, with about forty regional
centres being established.
So unwieldy an organisation, though, was in constant financial difficulty
and, despite the generosity of patrons, went into liquidation in 1933. Yet
many of the regional centres remained viable and continued to function as
concert-giving societies.
The York centre of the original Society was opened in 1921, with an
inaugural concert given by the soprano Isobel Baillie, then in her debut
year. In 1933, when the parent society went into liquidation, the centre
reconstituted itself as an autonomous organisation under the name British
Music Society of York.
Since then the Society has continued to give an annual season of chamber
music concerts. The present season is the 73rd in succession to be given
in York under the title British Music Society.
The BMS concert season takes the form of a subscription series. A full
subscription ticket entitles its holder to membership of the Society and to
attend six concerts for less than the price of four.
Registered Charity No.700302
Ocr'd Text:
BRITISH MUSIC SOCIETY of YORK
73rd Season
Friday, 19 November 1993
Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall
THE CHILINGIRIAN QUARTET
Levon Chilingirian violin
Charles Stewart violin
Simon Rowland-Jones viola
Philip de Groote 'cello
String Quartet in G minor, Op.74 No.3 (Rider)
String Quartet No.4
INTERVAL
String Quartet in E flat, Op.74 (Harp)
Haydn
Hugh Wood
Beethoven
For the sake of others in the audience,
please turn off all alarms on watches, calculators etc.
before the concert starts,
and use a handkerchief when coughing.
Ocr'd Text:
THE CHILINGIRIAN STRING QUARTET
The Chilingirian String Quartet was formed in London in 1971, and BBC
broadcasts were rapidly followed by invitations to the Edinburgh, Bath and
Aldeburgh Festivals and appearances at major centres throughout Western
Europe. The Chilingirian is quartet-in-residence at the Royal College of
Music in London, but has toured exceptionally widely and is in demand in
every corner of the globe.
The Quartet's recordings range across the classical, romantic and modern
repertory. Most recently the Chandos label has released their versions of
the complete quartets of Dvorák, Bartók and Prokofiev, with a Haydn disc
and Schumann to follow. Recordings of Panufnik for Conifer and
Tavener/Pärt for Virgin are due out this season.
PROGRAMME NOTES
Quartet in G minor, Op.74 No.3 (Rider)
Allegro
Largo assai
Menuetto: Allegretto
Finale: Allegro con brio
Joseph Haydn
(1732 - 1809)
Joseph Haydn wrote a lot of string quartets. Different authorities will
give you different totals, but whichever you choose, we are looking at a
large number, into the 70s at least.
Before the daylong classical music radio station and the LP then CD set
created a knowledgeable and omnivorous audience, only a few of the Haydn
quartets had a secure place in the repertory. And because players (even
more than audiences) prefer names to numbers, these more popular pieces
gradually acquired nicknames. Some of the names were logical (the
Emperor Quartet uses Haydn's Emperor's Hymn as the theme of its
variational slow movement) others based on anecdote, however spurious or
trivial (the Razor Quartet).
Ocr'd Text:
But most nicknames came about through what amounts to a poetic
description of the most conspicuous part of any piece of music the
opening. As soon as you hear the opening bars of the G minor Quartet
from Op.74, you will realise how it got its name the Rider.
-
In Haydn's day string quartets were commissioned and paid for by the half
dozen. The Rider is the last of six quartets written in 1793 and published
in 1795 in two volumes of three (Op.71 and Op.74) with a dedication to
Count Apponyi, the music-loving nobleman who had sponsored Haydn's
entry into the freemasons.
In 1791-2, Haydn had made his first, spectacularly successful and financi-
ally lucrative visit to London, brought over by a former colleague, the
violinist Johann Peter Salomon. It was Salomon who staged the concerts
for which Haydn wrote his 12 London Symphonies, events at which
Haydn's string quartets were also played, including some from the recent
Op.64 set. 1793 saw Haydn back in Vienna writing more new music for
his planned London visit of 1794-5. (Perhaps this is why he had so little
time to spare for his new young pupil from Bonn, Ludwig van Beethoven.)
Amongst these pieces were six new quartets for Salomon to play in his
concerts. It is noticeable in them how Haydn is writing on a more
symphonic scale, both in the working of his material and in the sonorities
he demands from the four players. Like most of the quartets for Salomon,
the G minor begins with an arresting call-to-attention, designed to silence
the Georgian chattering classes. The intensely slow Largo assai is in the
magically distant key of E major. The G major Minuet shows just what
Haydn could get from teasing a simple idea, and is contrasted with the
darker, more chromatic G minor Trio. The tense and energetic Finale
begins once more in G minor, but changes to the major just over halfway
through some maintain it is the bouncing opening rhythm of this
movement that earned the Quartet its name.
String Quartet No.4, Op.34
Hugh Wood
(b.1932)
Introduzione: Risoluto, vigoroso
Scherzo: Vivacissimo
Slow movement: Adagio molto semplice
Finale: Allegro energico
Hugh Wood is one of the large number of Lancashire-born composers. He
Ocr'd Text:
studied at Oxford and then during the late 1950s privately under a number
of teachers, most notably lain Hamilton and Mátyás Seiber. He has taught
at the Universities of Glasgow, Liverpool and Cambridge. His Piano
Concerto was perhaps the most exciting premiere of the 1992 Proms
season.
Paul Griffiths has summarised Wood's style in these words:
Consistently in his music he has used twelve-note serial methods to
create forms of continuous and purposeful development, drawing
strength from the examples of Beethoven and Schoenberg in
particular, though his abundant lyricism and his alert, dancing
rhythms are peculiarly English.
Wood's first three string quartets were written between 1962 and 1978.
The Fourth was written in April and May this year for those doughty
proponents of contemporary scores, the Chilingirian Quartet. They gave
the first performance in a live Radio 3 broadcast of 19 May from the
BBC's Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham.
Hugh Wood's own succinct note on the piece reads:
This Quartet is in four movements. The Introduzione ends with a
cadenza for first violin, which leads straight into the Scherzo and
Trio. Adagio molto semplice ws. The first three movements
lead up to the Finale. There is a new lyrical middle section after
which much of the Introduzione is again to be heard.
A passage
from the violin cadenza then appears in the form of a chorale on
the lower instruments.
The work is dedicated to the Chilingirian Quartet, old friends over
many years.
INTERVAL
Coffee and drinks are available in the foyer. Coffee is 50p a cup: to find
it, go past the bar on to the landing and turn to the left.
If you are interested in becoming a Patron or Benefactor of the BMS, or
1
(
Ocr'd Text:
S
}
J
}
J
have any queries about the Society, come and see us at the Members Desk.
We can be found in the foyer at the opposite end to the bar, to your left
as you leave the auditorium.
Quartet in E flat major, Op.74 (Harp)
Poco Adagio Allegro
Adagio ma non troppo
Presto
Allegretto con Variazioni
-
Ludwig van Beethoven
(1770-1827)
Beethoven didn't write quite so many quartets as Haydn, and their wide
variety of keys and convenient banding into early-, middle- and late-period
groups suffice for identification. Nor have players tended to use
nicknames for them, with one significant exception, the E flat major
Quartet, Op.74. It is known as the Harp Quartet, for the very obvious
reason of all the plucking that goes on in the first movement.
Beethoven wrote the Quartet in the summer and autumn of 1809, three
years after the three Razumovsky Quartets and a year before the F minor
Quartet, Op.95 (which the Kreutzer Quartet played for us in February
1992). It is one of four capital works dating from 1808-1810 in E flat
major, a key which habitually drew from Beethoven some of his most
magisterial music. The other works are the Piano Trio, Op.70 No.2, the
Fifth Piano Concerto (Emperor) and the Piano Sonata, Op.81a (Das
Lebewohl). Lest you should think I am making too much of a mere
coincidence, remember that Beethoven was to write only one other work of
equivalent stature in E flat major, the first of the late quartets, Op.127,
completed in 1825.
The basic pattern for a four-movement symphony, quartet etc., as
Beethoven inherited it, ran as follows: a fast movement in sonata form,
whose propensity for development and manipulation of its melodic material
made it the intellectual pole of the work; a slow or slowish movement, the
lyrical core of the work; a minuet, a backwards glance to the dance
movements of the baroque suite; and a light-hearted finale, usually in
rondo form, a structure largely designed to keep the tunes coming round.
Beethoven brought his own strengths to this plan. He was one of the
Ocr'd Text:
most brilliant developers and manipulators of melodic material, and his
first movements grew enormously in size and importance. He was also one
of the first masters of the profound and very slow slow movement: he
could range easily from serene to passionate which often made his
Adagios and Largos the emotional centre of a work. He also had a
frequently gruff sense of humour and, following an idea of Haydn's, usually
replaced the sedate minuet with the much faster scherzo, literally a "joke".
These developments caused him serious structural problems. First, the
main weight of the piece was thrown forward on to the first two
movements; second, there was a slight identity crisis between a light-
hearted scherzo and a light-hearted finale. Part of the enduring appeal of
Beethoven's middle- and late-period music resides in the wealth of
solutions he found to these basic problems from experiments with fewer,
amalgamated movements (the sonatas) or more numerous, redefined
movements (the late quartets) to the rebalancing he achieves in a work
like the Op.74 Quartet.
Here he saves his greatest emotional intensity for the powerful scherzo
movement in the clearly related, but unexpected key of C minor. The
first movement, while abounding in invention and development, and not
short of its own necessary tensions, is modest in dimensions and relaxed in
its unfolding of melodic material. The slow movement, in preparation for
what is to come, values lyricism and calm over emotional voltage. When
the storm of the scherzo has played itself out, we come to the calmer
waters of the Allegretto finale. In order to counterbalance the intellectual
thrust of sonata-form first movements, Beethoven often extended the finale
by using variation form (as here) or even, later on, fugue. Variation-form
finales were nothing new - Mozart had used them and there is indeed a
Mozartean simplicity about these variations. Until, at least, the end,
which looks forward to the world of the Op.130 Quartet.
I would like to express my thanks to Jane Williams, Composer Manager of
Chester Music Limited, for her generous help with material on Hugh
Wood's Quartet.
Programme notes by David Mather
Floral decorations by Sue Bedford.
Ocr'd Text:
two
of
wer,
ned
work
merzo
The
not
ed in
for
When
lectual
finale
--form
ger of
Hugh
FORTHCOMING CONCERTS
The next concerts in the 73rd Season of the British Music Society,
presented in association with the Department of Music at the University,
are as follows. They take place in the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall,
beginning at 8.00 pm.
§ Thursday, 16 December 1993
AEOLIAN ENSEMBLE
Nichola Hunter (flute)
Howard Rogerson (clarinet)
Jeffrey Snowdon (horn)
Quintet for piano and wind
Kleine Kammermusik
Wind Quartet
5 Pieces for wind trio
Sextet for piano and wind
§ Friday, 21 January 1994
Gabriel Hay (oboe)
Tracey Partridge (bassoon)
Benjamin Frith (piano)
LINDSAY STRING QUARTET
Quartets by Haydn, Tippett (No.5) and Beethoven (Razumovsky No.3)
Also in the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall at 8.00:
§ Wednesday, 24 November 1993
UNIVERSITY ORCHESTRA
Music by Kabalevsky, Mozart and Tchaikovsky
§ Wednesday, 1 December 1993
Mozart
Hindemith
Françaix
Ibert
Poulenc
PETER HILL (piano)
Messiaen's monumental cycle 20 Regards sur l'Enfant Jésus
Ocr'd Text:
BRITISH MUSIC SOCIETY of YORK
OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY
President
Dr Francis Jackson
Vice-Presidents
Joan Whitworth
Jim Briggs
Rosalind Richards
Chairman: Barbara Fox
Vice-chairman: Derek Sutton
Hon. Treasurer: Albert Ainsworth
Hon. Asst. Treasurer: John Petrie
Hon. Secretary: Nigel Dick
Hon. Programme Secretary: Brian & Rosalind Richards
NFMS Representative:
Dr Richard Crossley
Hon. Auditor: Derek Winterbottom
Members of the Committee: Sue Bedford, Margherita Biller, Mavourneen
Burrows, Andrew Carter, Stephanie Kershaw, Peter Marsden, David Mather
and Dick Stanley
BENEFACTORS AND PATRONS
The BMS manages to maintain the high standard of its concerts largely
through the generosity of its Benefactors and patrons. Without their
covenanted gifts to the Society, we could not hope to balance our books.
Our Benefactors(§) and Patrons are as follows:
Mr A. Ainsworth
Mrs F. Andrews§
Dr D. M. Bearpark
Mr R. A. Bellingham
Mr & Mrs D. A. C. Blunt Mr & Mrs J. Briggs
Mrs M. Danby-Smiths
Dr R. J. S. Crossley
Mr N. J. Dicks
Mr D. P. Griffiths
Mr G. Hutchinsons
Mrs E. S. Johnsons
Mr C. G. M. Gardner
Mr A. D. Hitchcock
Dr F. A. Jackson
Mr J. C. Josling
Ocr'd Text:
Professor R. Lawton
Mr P. W. Millers
Mr G. C. Morcoms
Mr B. Richards§
Mrs D. G. Roebuck
Mr J. B. Schofield§
Mr D. A. Sutton
Mr O. S. Tomlinsons
Miss L. J. Whitworth
Mrs H. B. Wright
Mr R. P. Lorrimang
Mrs A. M. Morcom§
Mr & Mrs K. M. Nonhebels
Mr L. W. Robinsons
Mrs I. G. Sargent
Dr & Mrs G.A.C. Summers§
Dr M. J. Thomsong
Mr J. I. Watson
Mr & Mrs A. Wright
If
you would like to become a Benefactor or Patron, or have any queries,
recommendations, criticisms or even praise, please come and see us at the
Members Desk and make your feelings known.
In addition to the generosity of our Benefactors and Patrons, the activities
of the BMS are supported by grants from Yorkshire and Humberside Arts.
AK
Yorkshire & Humberside
ARTS
NATIONAL FEDERATION
OF MUSIC SOCIETIES
NEMS
Compiled by David Mather and published by the British Music Society
of York. Reproduced by WrightDesign of Easingwold.
Ocr'd Text:
X
DORTHWICA INSTITUTE
SMS 3/2/1 (1)
HISTORICAL RESEARCH
OF
Ocr'd Text:
B'S
YORK
THE EOLIAN ENSEMBLE
Thursday, 16 December 1993
Programme: 50p
Presented by the British Music Society of York
in association with the Department of Music
Ocr'd Text:
00
BS
YORK
It was in 1918 that the colourful Dr Arthur Eaglefield Hull, organist of
Huddersfield Parish Church, writer and modern music enthusiast, founded
the British Music Society.
The new society was a national body whose aims were: to bring together
professional and amateur musicians, to promote British music and music-
ians, to develop the appreciation of music by means of lectures and
concerts, and to campaign for the recognition of the place of music in
education. The Society expanded quickly, with about forty regional
centres being established.
So unwieldy an organisation, though, was in constant financial difficulty
and, despite the generosity of patrons, went into liquidation in 1933. Yet
many of the regional centres remained viable and continued to function as
concert-giving societies.
The York centre of the original Society was opened in 1921, with an
inaugural concert given by the soprano Isobel Baillie, then in her debut
year. In 1933, when the parent society went into liquidation, the centre
reconstituted itself as an autonomous organisation under the name British
Music Society of York.
Since then the Society has continued to give an annual season of chamber
music concerts. The present season is the 73rd in succession to be given
in York under the title British Music Society.
The BMS concert season takes the form of a subscription series. A full
subscription ticket entitles its holder to membership of the Society and to
attend six concerts for less than the price of four.
Registered Charity No.700302
Ocr'd Text:
BRITISH MUSIC SOCIETY of YORK
73rd Season
Thursday, 16 December 1993
Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall
THE EOLIAN ENSEMBLE
Nichola Hunter (flute)
Howard Rogerson (clarinet)
has Jeffrey Snowdon (horn)
Gabriel Hay (oboe)
Tracey Partridge (bassoon)
Benjamin Frith (piano)
Quintet for piano and wind instruments, K.452
Kleine Kammermusik, Op.24 No.2
INTERVAL
Quartet for wind instruments
5 Pièces en trio
Sextet for piano and wind quintet
Mozart
Hindemith
before the concert starts,
and use a handkerchief when coughing.
Françaix
Ibert
Poulenc
For the sake of others in the audience,
please turn off all alarms on watches, calculators etc.
Ocr'd Text:
THE EOLIAN ENSEMBLE
The Eolian Ensemble was formed during 1989 and specialises in the
repertory for piano and wind quintet, plus various permutations of this
combination. It is made up of musicians based in the North of England
and managed by its clarinettist, Howard Rogerson. The pianist Benjamin
Frith played for us in March 1989, in a piano duet recital with Peter Hill.
然
Yorkshire & Humberside
ARTS
The Eolian Ensemble's appearance tonight is organised
through Yorkshire & Humberside Arts' Musicians in
Residence scheme.
PROGRAMME NOTES
Quintet for piano, oboe, clarinet, horn
and bassoon in E flat, K.452
Largo Allegro moderato
Larghetto
Allegretto
In 1781 Mozart engineered his own dismissal from the employment of the
Archbishop of Salzburg and left for Vienna. There he hoped to land some
prestigious court appointment, but, as vividly described in the play and
film Amadeus, nothing came of this. Still, it was a busy time for him: in
August 1782 he married and was constantly writing and performing.
Wolfgang Amadé Mozart
(1756 1791)
In February 1784 Mozart began keeping a catalogue of his compositions-
even he was having some difficulty keeping up with his creativity. The
first six entries give some idea of the hectic pace of his life:
9th February
15th March
22nd
30th
12th April
21st April
a Piano Concerto
a Piano Concerto
a Piano Concerto
a Piano Quintet
a Piano Concerto
a Piano Sonata with
[the E flat, K.449]
[the B flat, K.450]
[the D major, K.451]
[K.452]
[the G major, K.453]
violin [the B flat Violin
Sonata, K.454]
Ocr'd Text:
It was a rich seam of creativity he had found, and he was mining it for
all his worth. But he needed to keep the pace up, since his March series
of subscription concerts demanded a steady flow of new material. At the
same time he organised a benefit concert for himself at the Imperial Court
Theatre. He was clearly determined to give good value for money, since
the concert was to include two symphonies (presumably the Linz and the
Haffner) and the first performances of two new piano concertos (K.450 and
K.451) and of the Piano and Wind Quintet, K.452, not to mention three
famous singers bringing along an aria each and Mozart himself contributing
an improvisation.
This concert was planned for 21 March, but at the last minute Mozart had
to postpone because he found it clashed with an opera performance at the
palace of Prince Liechtenstein: not only would Mozart have lost the best
members of his orchestra, but also the nobility from his audience, which
would have represented rather more of a disaster. The re-scheduled
concert took place on 1 April, by which time the Piano Quintet was the
only work on the programme still receiving its first performance.
The Quintet is the first known work of its kind, combining piano and a
quartet of wind instruments oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon. It may well
be that the combination was suggested by passages in the pianos concertos
where wind instruments, singly and in groups, were given prominence. The
technical problems of this quintet combination are complex indeed. There
is no real blend of sound between the wind instruments - one of the
reasons why, in wind music, they are more customarily used in pairs.
Mozart gets round the problem by using them in various permutations with
the piano and by weaving the parts in and out of each other, where the
difference in tone colour is a positive advantage.
On 10 April, just over a week after the first performance, Mozart wrote
to his father:
<
I have done myself great credit with my three subscription concerts,
and the concert I gave in the [Imperial] theatre was most successful.
I composed two grand concertos and then a quintet, which called
vintforth the very greatest applause: I myself consider it to be the best
work I have ever composed. It is written for one oboe, one
clarinet, one horn, one bassoon [note Mozart's emphasis on one] and
And how
the pianoforte. How I wish you could have heard it!
beautifully it was performed! Well, to tell the truth I was really
worn out in the end after playing so much and it is greatly to my
credit that my listeners never got tired.
Ocr'd Text:
Perhaps the greatest compliment paid the Quintet came a dozen years later
when Beethoven used it as the model for his own Piano and Wind Quintet.
The slow
The imposing slow introduction gives on to a moderately-paced first
movement in which flashes of brilliant piano writing serves to remind us
that the Quintet's closest siblings were piano concertos.
movement is a Larghetto in B flat, with the piano emerging only briefly
from the role of accompanist. The final Rondo, with its high-spirited main
theme, includes a Cadenza in tempo yet another reminder of Mozart's
principal preoccupation at this time.
-
Kleine Kammermusik, Op.24 No.2
Lustig, mäßig schnelle Viertel
Walzer
Ruhig und einfach
Schnelle Viertel
Sehr lebhaft
Paul Hindemith
(1895 1963)
Paul Hindemith was born near Frankfurt of mixed Protestant and Catholic
ancestry. He studied violin and composition at the conservatory in
Frankfurt where, as a result of parental opposition, he had to support
himself by playing in cafés and dance bands. In 1915 he became the
leader of the orchestra of Frankfurt Opera, a post he held until 1923.
This was a tough time for Germany: humiliated in the First World War, it
then had to begin the long process of coming to terms with the social,
political and economic consequences of defeat. On the other hand, German
artists, liberated from the cosy smugness of the Wilhelmine period, were
enjoying a new age of freedom, experiment and daring.
Our abiding image of Hindemith is of the staid, rather dry neo-classical
composer of the 1930s, '40s and beyond, and we forget the young hothead
at the forefront of the avant-garde, under the spell of the likes of
Stravinsky and Schoenberg and that new music from America which only
really arrived in Germany after the fall of the Kaiser
jazz..
Hindemith wrote the Kleine Kammermusik [-little chamber music] in 1922
for the Frankfurt Wind Ensemble, who gave its first performance on 12
July 1922 in Cologne. It is scored for the conventional wind quintet of
flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn (though the flautist uses a piccolo
Ocr'd Text:
T
t
1
0
D
0
(
in the second movement). The five movements, full of ironic humour
verging on parody, are: Merry, moderately quick crotchets; Waltz, Calm
and simple; Quick crotchets; Very lively.
INTERVAL
Coffee and drinks are available in the foyer. Coffee is 50p a cup: to find
it, go past the bar on to the landing and turn to the left.
If you are interested in becoming a Patron or Benefactor of the BMS, or
have any queries about the Society, come and see us at the Members Desk.
We can be found in the foyer at the opposite end to the bar, to your left
as you leave the auditorium.
Quartet for flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon
Allegro
Andante
Allegro molto
Allegro vivo
Jean Françaix
(b.1912)
Like our first Plantagenet king, Henry II, Jean Françaix was born in Le
Mans, midway between Normandy and the Loire. He studied first at the
Le Mans Conservatoire, where his father was director and his mother
taught singing, and then at the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied
composition with Nadia Boulanger and graduated from Isadore Philipp's
piano class in 1932 with the Premier Prix.
The forthright, opinionated, but wickedly accurate Norman Lebrecht calls
Jean Françaix:
By name and nature the quintessential French composer, con-
temptuous of foreignness, elegant as a cravat and conservative to
the core His music is at best witty and light as a soufflé.
T
And Françaix is never better than when writing for wind instruments, for
which he had an affinity. The Quartet is an early work, written in 1933
Ocr'd Text:
for members of the staff at Le Mans. Recently, the composer explained
why the piece is for wind quartet, not quintet:
Since the horn tutor who was there at the time was never quite
he was
sure what sound would emerge from the bell of the horn
known as a specialist in playing two notes at once - I preferred not
to awaken the volcano of sound, but to take cover against un--
pleasant surprises by writing a quartet.
The Quartet was first performed three years later in Paris by members of
The
the Paris Wind Quintet, to whom the work is actually dedicated.
music is typical of Françaix' light accessible style, and none of the
movements lasts much beyond three minutes.
Cinq pièces en trio
Allegro vivo
Andantino
Jacques Ibert
1962)
(1890
Allegro assai
Andante
xona Allegro quasi marziales parish sodo atoll 100 s0
Jacques Ibert was born in Paris. Encouraged by his pianist mother, he
studied the piano and while still young decided to become a musician. In
this he was opposed by his businessman father, so it was only in 1911 that
he was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire. In the composition class
there he met both Honegger, who became a lifelong friend, and Milhaud.
Ibert volunteered in the First World War, but was rejected on health
grounds: instead he worked first with the Red Cross and then with the
Marine Intelligence Corps. (ciphers etc.)
After the War, encouraged by Nadia Boulanger, he entered for the Grand
Prix de Rome, which he won at his first attempt, spending the first years
of the 1920s at the Villa Medici, home of the Académie de France in
Rome. He was to return in 1937 as Director the first musician to be
appointed to the post. Alas, his time at the Villa was short: in 1940
Mussolini declared war in France, and Ibert was deported back there.
-
The five Pieces "en trio" belong just before this time: they were composed
in 1935, alongside a ballet on the story of Don Quixote and a Concerto da
camera for alto saxophone and 11 instruments. The "trio" in question is
made up of oboe, clarinet and bassoon. The five Pieces are typical of
Ocr'd Text:
Ibert's light, but sophisticated style, sparkling with virtuosity and wit.
They are arranged in the pattern fast-slow-fast-slow-fast.
Sextet for piano and wind
Allegro vivace: Très vite et emporté*
Divertissement: Andantino*
Finale: Prestissimo*
initial tempo markings only
Francis Poulenc
(1899 - 1963)
Poulenc was one of those rare creatures, an artist born with a silver
spoon in his mouth. His father was the founder of the Rhone-Poulenc
chemicals conglomerate, and young Francis never wanted for anything. He
was a jolly, gregarious man with a wide circle of close friends who clearly
meant a good deal to him his posthumously-published memoirs are
entitled Moi et mes amis [-me and my friends].
His music is a battleground of conflicting sides to his nature: he was a
brilliant melodist
among French composers perhaps second only to Fauré;
he idolised Mozart and loved music of the classical and baroque periods; at
the same time his enthusiasms ranged from the aggressively modern scores
of Stravinsky and Prokofiev to the sentimental kitsch of café music. If
this wasn't enough, the secular, worldly Poulenc was locked in conflict
with religious impulses. The abiding glory and fascination of Poulenc's
music is the way it switches from one style to the other, now sliding
effortlessly, now startlingly juxtaposed.
Outside music for the stage, Poulenc is principally known for his piano
music and incomparable songs. But there are several chamber works,
mostly featuring wind instruments, their sharp, pungent sound admirably
suiting his brittle, pointed style; indeed, the late sonatas for flute, clarinet
and oboe are all cornerstones of those instruments' repertories.
The Sextuor pour piano, flûte, hautbois, clarinette, basson et cor is a
rather earlier work. Poulenc composed it in 1932, but wasn't satisfied
with it and revised it in 1939. The first movement is fast and spiky,
though in the middle it suddenly halves its speed for a long lyrical
passage. The middle movement reverses this plan: it begins and ends
with slow, long-breathed, lyrical music in fact a thinly-disguised
distortion of the opening of a Mozart piano sonata wrapped round a
perkier middle section. The finale is the fastest of all: it starts out high-
Ocr'd Text:
spirited and brittle, but keeps getting side-tracked into mouth-watering
tunes. The piece ends with a sombre and eloquent coda drawing on music
from the first movement.
Programme notes by David Mather
Floral decorations by Sue Bedford.
FORTHCOMING CONCERTS
The remaining concerts in the 73rd Season of the British Music Society,
presented in association with the Department of Music at the University,
are as follows. They take place in the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall,
beginning at 8.00 pm.
§ Friday, 21 January 1994
LINDSAY STRING QUARTET
Peter Cropper & Ronald Birks (violins)
Robin Ireland (viola)
Bernard Gregor-Smith (cello)
Quartet in C, Op.20/2
Quartet No.5
Quartet in C, Op.59/3
Friday, 18 February 1994
ARTUR PIZARRO (piano)
works by Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin and Brahms
§ Thursday, 17 March 1994
MIKE D'ARCY (violin)
NIGEL HUTCHISON (piano)
works by Beethoven, Delius, Prokofiev and Saint-Saëns
Haydn
Tippett
Beethoven
Ocr'd Text:
BRITISH MUSIC SOCIETY of YORK
OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY
President
Dr Francis Jackson
Vice-Presidents
Joan Whitworth
Jim Briggs
Rosalind Richards
Chairman: Barbara Fox
Vice-chairman: Derek Sutton
Hon. Treasurer: Albert Ainsworth
Hon. Asst. Treasurer: John Petrie
Hon. Secretary: Nigel Dick
Hon. Programme Secretary: Brian & Rosalind Richards
NFMS Representative: Dr Richard Crossley
Hon. Auditor: Derek Winterbottom
Members of the Committee: Sue Bedford, Margherita Biller, Andrew
Carter, Stephanie Kershaw, Peter Marsden and Dick Stanley
BENEFACTORS AND PATRONS
The BMS manages to maintain the high standard of its concerts largely
through the generosity of its Benefactors and patrons. Without their
covenanted gifts to the Society, we could not hope to balance our books.
Our Benefactors(§) and Patrons are as follows:
Mr A. Ainsworth
Mrs P. J. Armours
Mr R. A. Bellingham
Mr & Mrs J. Briggs
Mrs M. Danby-Smiths
Mr C. G. M. Gardner
Mr A. D. Hitchcock§
Dr F. A. Jackson
Mr J. C. Josling
Mrs F. Andrews§
Dr D. M. Bearpark
Mr & Mrs D. A. C. Blunt
Dr R. J. S. Crossley
Mr N. J. Dick§
Mr D. P. Griffiths
Mr G. Hutchinsons
Mrs E. S. Johnson
Professor R. Lawtons
Ocr'd Text:
Mr R. P. Lorrimans
Mrs A. M. Morcoms
Mr & Mrs K. M. Nonhebel§ Miss H. C. Randall
Mr B. Richards§
Mr L. W. Robinsons
Mrs D. G. Roebuck
Mrs I. G. Sargent
Mr J. B. Schofields
Mrs E. Sessions
Dr & Mrs G.A.C. Summers§ Mr D. A. Sutton
Dr M. J. Thomsons
Mr O. S. Tomlinsons
Mr J. I. Watson
Mr & Mrs A. Wright
Mr P. W. Millers
Mr G. C. Morcoms
Miss L. J. Whitworth
Mrs H. B. Wright
If
you
would like to become a Benefactor or Patron, or have any queries,
recommendations, criticisms or even praise, please come and see us at the
Members Desk and make your feelings known.
发
Yorkshire & Humberside
ARTS
In addition to the generosity of our Benefactors and Patrons, the activities
of the BMS are supported by grants from Yorkshire and Humberside Arts.
NATIONAL FEDERATION
OF MUSIC SOCIETIES
NEMS
BORTHWICK INSTITUTE
*(BMS 3/2/1 (2)
OF
HISTORICAL
RESEARCH
Compiled by David Mather and published by the British Music Society
of York. Reproduced by Wright Design of Easingwold.