BMS 3 2 1


The British Music Society of York, BMS 3 2 1

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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

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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

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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.

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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).

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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

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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 (

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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X DORTHWICA INSTITUTE SMS 3/2/1 (1) HISTORICAL RESEARCH OF

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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

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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

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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.

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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]

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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-

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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

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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

24 The British Music Society of York, BMS 3 2 1, Page 24

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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.