Lunchtime Concerts Online - Thursdays at 1pm - www.leicesterinternationalmusicfestival.org.uk - Leicester International Music ...
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Lunchtime Concerts
Online
Thursdays at 1pm
15th October – 3rd December
www.leicesterinternationalmusicfestival.org.uk
Welcome to the fifth in our series of eight lunchtime concerts between now and December. As with our festival, this concert is free to watch on our YouTube Channel, partly as a result of the generous response to our Crowdfunder campaign, but also because of the support for these young artists from the Countess of Munster Musical Trust. We are also grateful for a donation from the Cavatina Chamber Music Trust. LIMF was not eligible for support from the Culture Recovery Fund and we would ask you to consider donating for watching these concerts in order to fund our continuing mission to give work to musicians and bring concerts to our loyal audience who are unable to go to live events this winter. The help of staff at the Leicester Museum and Art Gallery during recording sessions was invaluable and we would also like to thank Crosscut Media for their hard work and expertise in producing these videos.
Lunchtime Concert 5
Elizabeth Bass - harp
Katherine Bryer - oboe
Elizabeth and Katherine are supported by the Countess of Munster
Musical Trust
Joseph Boulogne, le Chevalier de Saint-Georges:
Sonata for Harp with Flute accompaniment in E
flat major
Sophia Dussek: ‘My ain kind Deary-o!’ from
Favourite Airs, Book 7, for harp and flute
accompaniment
Fanny Hensel née Mendelssohn: Four Songs for
Piano, Op. 6, No. 1 in Ab major
Clara Schumann: Romance No. 1 from Three
Romances for Violin and Piano, Op. 22
Bartók: Three Folksongs from the County Csík
Saint-Saëns: Romance for Flute, Op. 37
William Grant Still: Incantation and Dance
Elizabeth Bass - harp Elizabeth Bass enjoys a varied life as a professional harpist working as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral and ensemble player and recording artist across the U.K. and beyond. Elizabeth has won both national and international prizes – most notably, becoming the first British person to reach the final of the USA International Harp Competition, 2016, winning the Silver Medal – and enjoys performing for major music festivals and societies across the U.K. Other international and national awards include first prize in the 2014 Camac Harp Competition, an International Lyon &Healy Award in 2013, and the Skaila Kanga Harp Prize and Lady Theodore Holland Prize at the Royal Academy of Music. Elizabeth has been fortunate to study with incredible teachers both privately (Eleanor Turner, Sivan Magen) and at the Royal Academy of Music (Skaila Kanga). In September 2020 Elizabeth will commence her Master's course at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris studying with Isabelle Moretti. This has been a long held dream of Elizabeth's and to gain one of the extremely highly coveted and rarely awarded places on this programme is a huge honour.
Elizabeth freelances as an orchestral and ensemble player throughout the UK and Europe and has performed with orchestras including the BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Orchestra, Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and for recording sessions at all the major London studios. She has performed at venues including Vienna’s Musikverein, New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s Royal Albert Hall and for radio and live television broadcasts. Elizabeth has a keen interest in Contemporary music and has also worked with dedicated contemporary ensembles including the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and Lontano. Elizabeth is a 2020-22 PDGYA Making Music winner; Making Music’s prestigious Philip & Dorothy Green Young Artists Awards recognise the finest young musical talent in the UK today, offering performance platforms with Making Music's 3,700+ group members. Elizabeth is Live Music Now artist - a scheme founded by the legendary violinist, Yehudi Menuhin, which seeks to bring high quality music to those who might otherwise never experience live music. Elizabeth has taken the harp into SEN Schools, care homes and Psychiatric Hospital Schools, using the warmth and versatility of the instrument to connect with others. Elizabeth has also been an artist on the Countess of Munster Recital Scheme since 2018 and has taken bookings with many leading music festivals in the U.K. Elizabeth has become the most recent member of the pioneering Harp Quartet, 4 Girls 4 Harps, and enjoys performing original works, commissions and arrangements, showcasing the incredible potential and verve of four harps combined. Elizabeth enjoys teaching and has tutored on residential courses for the National Children’s Orchestra of GB, for classes and workshops at leading higher education institutions such as King’s College, London and as a private teacher at her home in North East London. Elizabeth recently became the owner of a rare 1930s Lyon & Healy Harp, made possible by the generous support of the Countess of Munster Musical Trust.
Katherine Bryer - oboe
Katherine Bryer began
playing the oboe at the
age of fourteen in
Northamptonshire before
moving to Edinburgh in
2010 to study with Joe
Houghton at St Mary’s
Music School.
After completing her
Bachelor’s degree at the
Royal Academy of Music
in 2017, Katherine
continued her studies on
the Academy’s MA
course. During her
studies she learnt with
Christopher Cowie, Ian
Hardwick and Celia
Nicklin, and cor anglais
with Sue Bohling and Jill
Crowther.
Alongside her
postgraduate degree
Katherine was also keen
to expand her
opportunities outside of
study, and she successfully auditioned for the 2017 London
Philharmonic Orchestra’s Foyle Future Firsts Development Programme
and then the Philharmonia Orchestra’s Martin Musical Scholarship Fund
Instrumental Fellowship Programme in 2018.
An active orchestral musician, Katherine has appeared with orchestras
including BBC Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra and
London Philharmonic Orchestra and has enjoyed performing in concert
halls across the country and abroad.
Joseph Bologne, le Chevalier de Saint-Georges:
Sonata for Harp with Flute accompaniment in E
flat major
US President John
Adams called him “the
most accomplished man
in Europe”: fencing-
master; revolutionary
soldier; abolitionist; music
tutor to Marie Antoinette;
violinist and conductor.
Joseph was born in 1745,
the son of George de
Bologne, a married
plantation owner in
Guadalupe, whilst his
mother a was a 16 year
old slave of Senegalese
origin. Remarkably,
Joseph was fully acknowledged by his father and educated at great
expense after George, his wife AND Joseph’s young mother returned to
France.
From the age of 13, when Joseph left home to study at the Académie
royale polytechnique des armes et de l'équitation, there are numerous
reports of his handsome appearance, his educational progress and his
expertise with the foil.
Over the next few years, Joseph gained quite a reputation, not just as a
swordsman, but in a variety of sporting pursuits:
“Never did any man combine such suppleness with so much strength.
He excelled in every physical exercise he took up, and was also an
accomplished swimmer and skater … He could often be seen swimming
across the Seine with only one arm, and in skating his skill exceeded
everyone else’s. As to the pistol, he rarely missed the target. In running
he was reputed to be one of the leading exponents in the whole of
Europe.”
As if this wasn’t enough for one young man, Joseph was also developing his musical skills: although this was normal for one of his class at the time, his exceptional talent, combined with his father’s patronage of music and musicians led to the young man developing into a renowned violin soloist. In 1769, he joined the Concert des Amateurs, probably the finest orchestra in Paris at the time. As leader, he played new works by the leading composers, Lolli and Gossec, and subsequently took over as director, conducting the first performances of Haydn’s symphonies in France. Over the next few years, Joseph’s own compositions were enthusiastically received and it seemed probable that he would be appointed artistic director of the Royal Academy of Music at the l’Opéra. In a manoeuvre which was not, disgracefully, the last of its kind, this was vetoed by two of the opera’s leading ‘artistes’, who: “……. at once addressed a petition to the Queen to beg Her Majesty that their honour and the delicacy of their conscience made it impossible for them to be subjected to the orders of a mulatto.” Recovering from this setback, Joseph founded the Concert de la Loge Olympique, the orchestra for whom Count d’Ogny commissioned Haydn to compose his set of six ‘Paris’ symphonies. It seems likely that he travelled to Austria to meet the composer before directing the triumphant premières in 1787. It was during this period that he also tutored Marie- Antoinette at Versailes. Joseph’s next move was to London, where he was a favourite of the Prince of Wales, whilst also becoming involved with Wilberforce, Wilkes and Clarkson in the abolitionist movement. However, trouble was brewing in France and when conflict began he joined the revolutionary forces, becoming colonel of his own regiment, the Légion Saint- Georges, the first all-black regiment in Europe. During the conflict Joseph was imprisoned, narrowly escaping the guillotine. In the years that followed, he continued his involvement in the campaign to end slavery and took up a musical post as director of a new musical organization, the Cercle de l’Harmonie. He soon became aware that he was suffering from a disease of the bladder and died on 12 June 1799: only two close friends attended the funeral of a man who, at one time, had gained almost legendary status throughout Europe.
The Sonata for Harp with Flute accompaniment in E flat major is an early
work in three movements and conceived for the salon rather than the
concert hall. The opening Andante begins with a charming melody
played on the harp – notice that it is cited as the main instrument in this
piece – before it is taken up by the flute (or oboe in our case).
Throughout the movement, the harp has the showier passages,
including a short cadenza which leads into the concluding repeat.
By contrast, it is the flute (oboe) which has a chance to shine in the
middle section of the ensuing minuet. The sonata’s cheerful conclusion
- march-like and marked ‘rondeau’ – confines itself to just one
contrasting middle section.
Sophia Dussek: ‘My ain kind Deary-o!’ from
Favourite Airs, Book 7, for harp and flute
accompaniment
Sophia Dussek was born in
Edinburgh in 1775, part of
an Italian/Scottish musical
family. She played in public
when only four years old,
and after her father
brought her to London, she
appeared in the
famous concerts of 1791,
when the music-promoter,
Salomon, brought Haydn
to the capital. Indeed, the
London Symphonies were
once known as the
‘Salomon Symphonies’.
Sophia was a soloist in the
first and very successful
performance of ‘The
Storm’, Haydn’s ‘madrigal’
for four voices, chorus and
orchestra.Before she was twenty, Sophia married the pianist, Dussek, and became an accomplished keyboard player and harpist, travelling throughout the British Isles to give performances. She appeared in opera and also sang the soprano solo part in the first London performance of Mozart’s Requiem. When the music business run by her father and her husband failed in 1800, the former was imprisoned and the latter fled from his creditors, never to see his wife or daughter again. It seems that Sophia retired from concert appearances and devoted herself to teaching. After hearing of her husband's death in 1812, she married a viola-player, John Alvis Moralt, with whom she lived in Paddington, where she established a music academy. In addition to her performing career, Sophia wrote a considerable amount of music; many of her sonatas, concertos, and less important pieces for harp, piano, and stringed instruments were published in the early 1800s. The date of her death is unknown, but is thought to be around 1831. Sophia Dussek produced seven books of favourite airs for harp, with sometimes flute or violin accompaniment. These were typically arrangements of British folksongs. ‘My ain kind Deary O!’ comes from the last one, published in 1815, drawing upon a melody which had appeared in the 'Scots Musical Museum', itself the most important of the numerous eighteenth and nineteenth century collections of Scottish song. When the engraver James Johnson started work on the second volume of his collection in 1787, he enlisted Robert Burns as contributor and editor. Burns enthusiastically collected songs (including this one) from various sources, often expanding or revising them, whilst also including much of his own work. 'Will ye gang o'er the leerigg, my ain kind deary-o! And cuddle there sae kindly wi' me, my kind deary-o! At thornie dike, and birken tree, we'll daff, and ne'er be weary-o; They'll scug ill een frae you and me, mine ain kind deary-o!' 'Leerigg' or 'Lea-rig' is an unploughed grass field. 'Scug' is to shelter or take refuge. It can also refer to crouching or stooping to avoid being seen.
Fanny Hensel née Mendelssohn: Four Songs for
Piano, Op. 6, No. 1 in Ab major
Fanny was born in Hamburg in
1805, part of a prosperous family
who could afford to give their
children a musical upbringing, but
who had strong ideas about the
suitability of music as a career for
their daughter. Fanny and Felix
studied together and visitors to
the Mendelssohn house were as
impressed by Fanny as by her
brother. In 1816, in a letter
describing Abraham
Mendelssohn’s offspring to the
poet, Göthe, their music teacher,
Zelter, wrote:
"He has adorable children and
his oldest daughter could give
you something of Sebastian
Bach. This child is really
something special."
Fanny could already play Das wohltemperierte Klavier from memory and
had begun to compose.
Sadly, their father believed that:
‘Music will perhaps become Felix's profession, while for you it can and
must be only an ornament’
and so her early works were published under her brother's name. When
Felix was introduced to Queen Victoria, she enthusiastically told him
how much she loved the song Italien and he was forced to admit that it
had been written by his sister.
Most of Fanny’s 460 compositions, which included an overture, four
cantatas, chamber works, songs and, of course, a large number of piano
pieces went unpublished in her lifetime and she gave just three knownpublic performances: in the first of of these, she played her brother’s first
piano concerto.
In 1929, Fanny married the artist Wlhelm Hensel, whom she had known
for several years. He was supportive of her composing and she
published a collection of songs in 1846, at a time when she was working
with Clara Schumann. Sadly, she died suddenly of a stroke the
following year at just 41 years old and Felix suffered the same tragic fate
a few months later.
Fanny’s Songs for Piano were written in 1836-37: Number One is
marked Andante Espressivo and, listening to its beguiling melody, we
should not be surprised to learn that her brother was producing his
Songs without Words Op. 30 and 38 (including the wonderful Venetian
Gondola Song and Duetto) at the same time. It is also extremely fitting
to hear Fanny’s own ‘Song Without Words’ in today’s arrangement with
wordless soloist.
Clara Schumann: Romance No. 1 from Three
Romances for Violin and Piano, Op. 22
It is fitting that we follow Fanny
Mendelssohn, whose musical
career was hampered by family
expectations, with her near
contemporary, Clara
Schumann. Clara was born in
1811, the daughter of a
professional pianist and
teacher, Friedrich Wieck, and
the singer, Marianne Tromlitz.
Taught and encouraged by her
father, she made her debut at
the Leipzig Gewandhaus in
1821. In the same year she
met, for the first time, Robert
Schumann, twenty years old
and studying law.Inspired by the young girl’s playing, he devoted himself to music and took a room in the Wieck family home. Over the next few years, Clara toured Europe, but it was a series of concerts in Vienna when she was eighteen that propelled her to fame. Her performances of Beethoven’s Sonatas led Chopin to encourage Liszt to hear her, and a contemporary critic wrote: ‘The appearance of this artist can be regarded as epoch-making... In her creative hands, the most ordinary passage, the most routine motive acquires a significant meaning, a colour, which only those with the most consummate artistry can give.’ In the same year, Robert proposed, but the union was opposed by her father: it was three years later, after a court case, that they were finally married. For fourteen years they were inseparable, until Robert suffered a mental breakdown in 1854 and attempted to take his life. Confined to an institution, Clara was only allowed to visit him just before his death. One of Clara’s most fruitful and long-lasting collaborations was with the violinist, Joachim, and she developed a close musical and personal relationship with Brahms. Over the next thirty years, she toured Europe (including England, where she was appalled by the standard of performance). In the 1870s, she was forced to take a break due to what we would now describe as an RSI injury to her arm. Clara’s final public concert was in Frankfurt on 12th March, 1891, when she played Brahms's Variations on a Theme by Haydn, in a version for two pianos. Although Clara was primarily a performer, she also enjoyed composing: ‘Composing gives me great pleasure... there is nothing that surpasses the joy of creation, if only because through it one wins hours of self- forgetfulness, when one lives in a world of sound.’ Most of her works date from her childhood (a piano concerto at 14) and the early years of her marriage, with the majority being for piano alone or with a singer or violin. The Three Romances for Violin and Piano, Op. 22 (1853), were inspired by her husband's birthday and were dedicated to Joachim. They performed the Romances to George V of Hanover, who declared them a "marvellous, heavenly pleasure". Number One is a lilting and passionately lyrical piece, tender and somewhat sentimental. It is sad that these were some of Clara’s final works, having lost confidence in her ability:
‘I once believed that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this
idea; a woman must not desire to compose – there has never yet been
one able to do it.’
The Romances are now amongst her most popular compositions.
Bartók: Three Folksongs from the County Csík
Béla Bartók was born in 1881 in
Hungary (although he grew up in
what is now Romania). Bartók
was an infant prodigy, but a very
sickly child and his father died
when he was only seven years old.
He moved first to the Ukraine and
then to Slovakia, where he gave
his first public recital (including one
of his own compositions).
During Bartók’s studies in
Budapest, he admired Brahms,
Strauss (whom he met) and
Debussy, but it was his friendship
with fellow-student, Zoltán Kodály,
which led him down the path
towards originality.
Both young men began to travel
into the countryside to collect folksongs which might inspire their
compositions. It was in 1907, on a trip to Transylvania, that he notated
three melodies in Gyergyótekerőpatak, Csík. He was in the area – a
young man in love - visiting the young violinist Stefi Geyer, to whom he
would dedicate his first violin concerto. The story goes that he had first
heard the songs played by an old man on a peasant flute.
Bartók’s arrangements retain the rustic charm of the originals. The set
begins in declamatory fashion, marked rubato: the second song
continues in the same style, with another plaintive but more decorated
melody over simple chords. The third and final song is far more
energetic, march-like, with a vigorous, guitar-like accompaniment.Saint-Saëns: Romance for Flute, Op. 37
Camille Saint-Saëns was
born in Paris in 1835. His
father, a government minister,
died shortly afterwards having
contracted TB and young
Camille moved to the
countryside for safety with his
mother and grandmother.
From a very young age, it
was clear that the child was
exceptionally talented and his
first public performance, at
ten years old, included
Mozart’s Piano Concerto No
15 K450 and Beethoven’s
Concerto No 3 in C minor Op
37. Three years later, Saint-
Saëns began studying at the
Paris Conservatoire, where
his contemporaries included César Franck and Georges Bizet.
The Conservatoire believed that learning to play the organ would bring
employment in the wider world and when he completed his studies, the
young Saint-Saëns was able to take up a prestigious appointment at La
Madeleine. He was described by Liszt as ‘the greatest organist in the
world’ shortly afterwards. Saint-Saëns’ financial security was also
ensured by a teaching post at the École de Musique Classique et
Religieuse, where he introduced pupils, including Gabriel Fauré, to
recent music by Schumann, Liszt and Wagner.
However, Saint-Saëns was soon forced to think again about his
championing of Germanic music, with tensions leading ultimately to the
Franco-Prussian War of 1870. In the ensuing political turmoil, he was
forced to flee to England: on his return he was a founder member of the
pro-French music group, la Société Nationale de Musique, ‘Ars Gallica’,
whose members included Franck, Fauré, Duparc and Massenet.The experience of war affected Saint-Saëns profoundly (one of his
closest friends had been killed) and he composed a number of works
which reflected his mood at the time. One of these was the Romance
for flute and piano (later orchestrated), which was given its first
performance at one of the first Société Nationale concerts on April 6,
1872 in the Salle Pleyel, with renowned flutist Paul Taffanel
accompanied by the composer.
The Romance is, like Clara Schumann’s works of the same name,
deeply sentimental, its melody singing over a rippling accompaniment
reminiscent of The Swan, but this is a piece with much more forward
momentum. The mood is more relaxing and pastoral in the central
section, whereas the opening is altogether more animated. After this
interlude, the passinate opening section returns, before the piece
concludes with the gentle sound of birdsong in its final bars.
William Grant Still: Incantation and Dance
William Grant Still acquired
the title ‘Dean of African-
American composers’ during
his lifetime, producing over
150 compositions, including
operas, ballets, symphonies,
chamber works, and
arrangements of folk themes,
especially spirituals, plus
instrumental, choral and solo
vocal works.
Still was the first African-American in the United States to have a
symphony performed by a major orchestra (1931): his First Symphony
was, until 1950, the most performed by an American composer. In
addition, he was the first to conduct a major symphony orchestra in the
United States when, in 1936, he directed the Los Angeles Philharmonic
Orchestra in his compositions at the Hollywood Bowl; he was the first
Afro-American to conduct a major symphony orchestra in the Deep
South in 1955, when he directed the New Orleans Philharmonic at
Southern University; he was the first of his race to conduct a white radio
orchestra in New York City; he was the first to have an opera producedby a major company in the United States, when in 1949, his Troubled
Island was done at the City Centre of Music and Drama in New York City
and he was the first to have an opera televised over a national network.
Still’s Incantation and Dance for oboe and piano (1945) is dedicated to
Lloyd and Betty Rathbun. Lloyd Rathbun was a leading oboist and
teacher at the University of Southern California, who published ‘The
Oboe Manual, A Handbook for Music Educators and School Oboists:
Common Sense Information about the Oboe for Everyone who Needs it’.
In addition to his work in education and classical music, Rathbun can be
heard in many Warner Brothers films of the period and in bands
supporting artists such as Frank Sinatra and Doris Day. He was
intimately involved in developing a new style of reed, the Western
American, which made long recording sessions less tiring for the player.
Incantation and Dance was the only work Still wrote specifically for oboe,
although many of his works were frequently performed by oboists rather
than on the specified instrument. The piece begins with a gentle and
melancholic melody, interspersed by a number of plaintive cries.
Suddenly, the mood changes and we move on to a joyful pentatonic
dance. After this lively episode, there is a temporary lull, before the
accompaniment strikes up a march-like rhythm, leading to a spirited
ending, replete with oboe trills.
Kevin Rush, November 2020You can also read
