X 7.10.95 Belfast Music Society Celebrity Concerts

As part of the Diamond Jubilee of the National Federation of Music Societies we have organised a ballot, the proceeds of which will go to the Cancer Relief Macmillan Fund in Northern Ireland. Tickets will be sold during the interval and prizes drawn after the concert. CANCER RELIEF MACMILLAN FUND IN NORTHERN IRELAND Cancer Relief Macmillan Fund was founded in 1911 to bring care and support to cancer patients. Today, our aim is to help improve the lives of people with cancer, at any stage of their illness, whether in hospital or their own home. One of the main ways in which we help is through the funding of specialist cancer care nurses. Macmillan Nurses are specialists trained in pain and symptom control and skilled in all aspects of emotional support for the patient and family. At present, in Northern Ireland, there are a number of Macmillan Home Care Nurses working in community settings providing the care and support necessary to enable people to stay in their own homes. We are now developing new Macmillan Nurse posts in County District hospitals throughout the Province to ensure that cancer patients and their families receive care and support right from the moment of diagnosis and throughout their illness. For example, in the Belfast area we are currently funding new posts in the Ulster, City and Belvoir Park hospitals and the most recent appointments elsewhere have been in Daisy Hill in Newry and South Tyrone Hospital in Dungannon. We fund all new posts for the first three years at a cost of £90,000 to include salary, training and related expenses. One in three people in the Province will suffer from cancer sometime in their life. Happily, many will be totally cured, but throughout the course of their illness they will need support. They will need care which encompasses the whole person and the whole family. This is the sort of care which Macmillan is helping to provide for people in Northern Ireland.

PROGRAMME JOHN O'CONOR - piano Polonaise-Fantasie Op. 61 Sonata in A, D664 From the Crest of a Green Wave Nocturne No. 6 in F Nocturne in E flat, Op. 9 No. 2 Nocturne in D flat (left hand) Three Argentinian Dances, Op. 2 Supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Interval Saturday, 7th October 1995 Elmwood Hall at 7.30pm opo CITY ELF OUT UNCIL Chopin Schubert Jane O'Leary Field Chopin Scriabin Ginastera NATIONAL FEDERATION OF MUSIC SOCIETIES NEMS

Polonaise-Fantasie Op. 61 Fryderyk Chopin (1810-49) Of the 17 Polonaises - stately Polish dances (16 for piano solo, plus the Grand Polonaise with orchestra of 1831) - listed in Grove, only nine were published in his lifetime, the first when he was just seven years old! Chopin's earlier works tend to be uncomplicated in form and concept, but the later ones are much more ambitious, leading some writers to see them as miniature symphonic poems. Certainly this last Polonaise (1845/6) is full of rich and interesting (and at the time, new) textures and harmonies. Sonata in A, D664 allegro moderato andante allegro Franz Schubert (1797-1828) The A major sonata, also sometimes known as 'op 120', dates, it is thought, from 1819, the same year as the Trout quintet. It is a compact work, with none of the expansive- ness, even discursiveness, of the later piano and chamber works. Not only are the movements shorter, but there are only three of them, with no scherzo. Yet all the essence of Schubert's style is encapsulated in this attractive work. The main theme of the first movement is, as in many of Schubert's works, gently paced, and very simply stated at the opening, so that its true potential is not immediately obvious. The movement is predominantly lyrical, but there is an unexpectedly aggressive outburst in the short development section. The central movement is marked andante - i.e. it is not very slow-again with a simple chordal theme, attractively spiced with Schubert's favourite alternations of major and minor and some rich harmonies. The sonata's liveliest music is reserved for the finale which structurally is in formal Sonata Form, but thematically continues the work's springtime lightness of touch. From the Crest of a Green Wave Jane O'Leary (b 1946) Although American born and trained (she studied at Princeton with the composer Milton Babbitt), Jane O'Leary has lived in Ireland since the 1970s and is now a key figure in the contemporary music scene; she is director of the Concorde Ensemble and chairperson of the Contemporary Music Centre in Dublin. This short piano piece was written for the 1994 Dublin piano competition, and takes its title from Brendan Kennelly's poem, A Music:

It is not a music that will live alone Or be acquired For good by any man. It was taken from the crest of a green wave By a man among rocks Who thought it sweet enough to beat the grave And shaped it to the heartbeat that he knew..... Nocturne No. 6 in F Nocturne in E flat op 9/2 Nocturne in D flat op 9/2 John Field (1782-1837) Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849) Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) The use of the word nocturne to refer to a short Romantic piano piece was probably the invention of John Field (though not all the pieces by him we now refer to as nocturnes were originally so called). Field received his early musical training from his father and grandfather in his native Dublin. His public piano-playing debut at the age of nine was described as 'really an astonishing performance .. had a precision and execution far beyond what could have been expected'. Field joined Clementi's piano- building firm, where it was his task to demonstrate the instruments. In 1802 he and Clementi embarked on a continental tour that ended in Russia, where Field settled, dying prematurely from the effects of severe alcoholism. The genre was taken over most famously by Chopin and elevated to a higher artistic level. He had made his first contribution to the nocturne repertoire by 1827, but his first published pieces in this genre were the three of opus 9. The E flat shows clearly Field's influence, with a simple melody that becomes increasingly decorated. Other composers of the Romantic era contributed to the genre, perhaps most notably Fauré. Scriabin, one of the early 20th century's greatest composer-pianists (he was a fellow student with Rachmaninov) only contributed a couple of isolated examples, the first, one of two pieces he wrote in 1894, not long after graduating, and after he had damaged his right hand with over- practising. Three Argentinian Dances, op 2 Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983) The music of Argentina's leading 20th century composer shows a close affinity with that of Bartók - there are the same driving rhythms and percussive sonorities, though the rhythms are South American, rather than Hungarian, of course. This is particularly a characteristic of the outer movements of these dances, Ginastera's earliest published piano work (1937). In contrast, the central dance is a very beautiful lullaby with highly spiced harmonies. Alec Macdonald.

Tonight's Artist Born in Dublin, John O'Conor studied at the College of Music there and subsequently at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna with Dieter Weber, graduating with the top prize for piano in 1975. He also made a special study of Beethoven with Wilhelm Kempff. His success in winning First Prize at both the International Beethoven Competition in 1973 and the Bösendorfer Piano Competition in 1975 launched his international career. He has played extensively throughout Europe and the Far East in recitals and with many famous orchestras including the Vienna Symphony, Czech Philharmonic, Orchestre Nationale de France, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra and NHK Orchestra of Tokyo. Since his New York debut in 1983 he has become a regular visitor to North America and has played with many orchestras there. He records exclusively for the American company Telarc for whom he has recorded the complete sonatas of Beethoven, Mozart Piano Concertos with Sir Charles Mackerras and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, chamber music with the Cleveland Quartet as well as the piano music of Schubert, the complete sonatas and nocturnes of John Field and some recordings of shorter piano pieces. He is co-founder and artistic director of the GPA Dublin International Piano Competition and has served on the juries of other international piano competitions, including Sydney, Vienna and Leeds. John O'Conor has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the National University of Ireland and has been decorated by the Polish and Italian governments. NEXT CONCERT Saturday, 18th November 1995 ENSEMBLE BASH Elmwood Hall - 7.30pm Tickets at Festival House 25 College Gardens, Belfast.

JEAN O'NAHONY 715.