Autumn Concert 2009

Saturday 21 November 2009

St Marys Church, Banbury
Music by Elgar, Hindemith and Bartk

Programme 1

Welcome to our concert!

Hello and welcome to our autumn 2009 concert.
Our programme this evening comprises some wonderful 20th-century
symphonic music by Elgar, Hindemith and Bartk:

Elgar Overture In the South

In the South (Alassio), Op.50 is a concert overture composed by Edward
Elgar during a family holiday in Italy in the winter of 1903 to 1904.
Hindemith Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes of Weber (1943)
Hindemith has been called the twentieth-century Bach. Like the great
Baroque composer, Hindemith was a master of counterpoint on which all his
music is based.
Interval
Bartk Concerto for Orchestra
The concerto is a five-movement musical work for orchestra composed by
Bla Bartk in 1943. It is one of his best known, most popular and most
accessible works.
Thanks again for being with us, and please make a note In your diary to join
us again at St Marys on Saturday 12 December 2009 at 4.30pm for our
traditional Christmas concert and on 27 March 2010 at 7.30pm for our
concert including Waltons Spitfire Prelude and Fugue, Elgars Nursery suite
and Symphony by Arnold.

Paul Willett Conductor

Paul Willett studied violin, singing and piano as
a student but his main instrument was the
French horn. When Paul was 16, he gained his
Performance Diploma from The Royal College
of Music playing French horn. Paul then went
on to read music on scholarship at The Queens
College, Oxford, and studied for his teaching
certificate in Music and Physical Education at
Reading University.
For several years Paul combined teaching and freelance playing. He has given solo
recitals and performed concertos throughout the country. He was a member of The
Five Winds, a group that performed both at home and abroad, and also on BBC
radio. Paul also worked as a brass teacher for Oxfordshire Music Service and was
director of a Saturday Music School of 200 students.
Paul now combines class teaching with conducting various ensembles, both adult
and youth. He is also in demand as an adjudicator for both adult and student
competitions. Paul is currently Acting Assistant Head Teacher at Didcot Girls School.
Anna Fleming - Leader
Anna was born in South Africa where she started
playing the violin at the age of ten. While studying
music at secondary school, Anna became a member of
the South African National Youth Orchestra. After
successfully completing her music degree, majoring in
orchestral studies, Anna joined the Cape Philharmonic
Orchestra in 1992.
Anna moved to England in late 1996. Keen to continue
her orchestral playing, Anna joined the Banbury Symphony Orchestra in 1997 and
became the leader of the orchestra in 2000, a post that she has held ever since. As a
committed Christian, Anna plays an active role in church music. Focusing primarily
on private violin tuition, Anna particularly enjoys helping adults to learn to play and
she can be contacted on 01295 780017.

Elgar's In the South (Alassio), Op.50 is a concert overture composed by Edward

Elgar during a family holiday in Italy in the winter of 1903 to 1904.
The subtitle "Alassio" is a town on the Italian Riviera where Elgar and his family
stayed. He strolled around during the visit, while buildings, landscape and history of
the town provided him the sources of inspiration. He later recalled:
Then in a flash, it all came to me - streams, flowers, hills; the distant snow
mountains in one direction and the blue Mediterranean in the other; the conflict of
the armies on that very spot long ago, where I now stood the contrast of the ruin
and the shepherd and then, all of a sudden, I came back to reality. In that time I
had composed the overture the rest was merely writing it down.
The premire of the work was conducted by the composer with the Hall in 16
March 1904 in the last of three festival concerts of his own work at the Royal Opera
House of Covent Garden.
Perhaps the best known part of the piece is the central melody "Canto Populare",
played by solo viola. In July of the same year, Elgar took the "Canto Populare"
section from the piece and fitted it to a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley as a song
under the title In Moonlight, and later he made several instrumental versions.
The piece is about 20 minutes long and does not have separate movements. The
main descending theme is echoed throughout the sections of the orchestra all
through the piece. The viola solo is of particular note due partly to its length, being
on such an underused instrument, but also because of the contrast it creates with
the rest of the piece which is very bold. There are large legato passages between the
strings and French horns, and the rest of the brass add tremendous excitement in
the middle of the piece with loud chords separated by large intervals

Alassio Vintage Postcard

The orchestral work Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes of Weber was

composed by Paul Hindemith in 1943.
The idea of composing a work based on Carl Maria von Weber's music was first put
forward to Hindemith by the choreographer and dancer Lonide Massine, who
originally suggested that Hindemith compose a ballet based on Weber's music. After
studying Weber's music, Hindemith watched one of Massine's ballets and disliked it,
so he wrote the Symphonic Metamorphosis instead.
The Symphonic Metamorphosis is in four movements:
1. Allegro
2. Scherzo (Turandot): Moderato - Lively
3. Andantino
4. March
The Weber themes are taken from incidental music Weber wrote for a play by Carlo
Gozzi based on the same Turandot legend that later inspired Giacomo Puccini and
others. Hindemith and his wife used to play Weber's music for two pianists, and
Hindemith used some of these little-known pieces Op. 60/4 (first movement) (no.
253 in the Jhns catalog of Weber's works), Op. 10/2 (third movement) (J. 10), and
material from the two piano duets Op. 60/2 and 60/7 (J. 242 and 265) for the
themes for the other movements. Weber's piano duets were written around 1801
and 181819, his Turandot music in 1809.
The work was first performed on 20 January 1944 in New York City (Artur Rodzioski
conducting).

Bartk Concerto for Orchestra

The work was written in response to a commission from the Koussevitzky
Foundation (run by the conductor Serge Koussevitzky) following Bartk's move to
the United States from his native Hungary, which he had fled because of World War
II. It has been speculated that Bartk's previous work, the String Quartet No. 6
(1939), could well have been his last were it not for this commission, which sparked
a small number of other compositions, including his Sonata for Solo Violin and Piano
Concerto No. 3. Bartk revised the piece in February 1945, the biggest change
coming in the last movement, where he wrote a longer ending. Both versions of the
ending were published, and both versions are performed today.
Bartk makes extensive use of classical elements in the work; for instance, the first
and fifth movements are in sonata-allegro form. The work combines elements of
Western art music and eastern European folk music, especially that of Hungary, and
it departs from traditional tonality, often using non-traditional modes and artificial
scales. Bartk researched folk melodies, and their influence is felt throughout the
work; for example, the second main theme of the first movement, as played by the
1st oboe, resembles a folk melody, with its narrow range and almost haphazard
rhythm. The drone in the horns and strings also indicates folk influence (see
example).
The piece is scored for 3 flutes (one doubling piccolo), 3 oboes (one doubling cor
anglais), 3 clarinets (one doubling bass clarinet), 3 bassoons (one doubling
contrabassoon), 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, side drum, bass
drum, cymbals, triangle, tamtam, 2 harps and strings.
First movement
The first movement, called Introduzione by Bartk, is a slow introduction of night
music type that gives way to an allegro with numerous fugato passages. This
movement is in sonata allegro form.
Second movement
The second movement, called "Giuoco delle coppie" or "Game of the pairs" by
Bartk (but see note below), is in five sections, each thematically distinct from each
other, with a different pair of instruments playing together in each section. In each
passage a different interval separates the pairbassoons are a minor sixth apart,
oboes are in minor thirds, clarinets in minor sevenths, flutes in fifths and muted

trumpets in major seconds. The movement prominently features a side drum which
taps out a rhythm at the beginning and end of the movement.
While the printed score has the second movement as Giuoco delle coppie (Game of
the pairs), Bartk's manuscript had no title at all for this movement at the time the
engraving-copy blueprint was made for the publisher. At some later date, Bartk
added "Presentando le coppie" (Presentation of the pairs) to the manuscript, and
addition of this title was included in the list of corrections to be made to the score.
However, in Bartk's file blueprint the final title is found, and because it is believed
to have been the composer's later thought, it is retained in the revised edition of the
score. The original 1946 printed score also had an incorrect metronome marking for
this movement. This was brought to light by Sir Georg Solti as he was preparing to
record the Concerto for Orchestra and the Dance Suite. Solti writes:
When preparing these two works for the recording I was determined that the
tempi should be exactly as Bartk wrote and this led me to some extraordinary
discoveries, chief of which was in the second movement of the Concerto for
Orchestra. The printed score gives crotchet equals 74, which is extremely slow, but I
thought that I must follow what it says. When we rehearsed I could see that the
musicians didn't like it at all and in the break the side drum player (who starts the
movement with a solo) came to me and said Maestro, my part is marked crotchet
equals 94, which I thought must be a mistake, since none of the other parts have a
tempo marking. The only way to check was to locate the manuscript and through
the courtesy of the Library of Congress in Washington we obtained a copy of the
relevant page, which not only clearly showed crotchet equals 94, but a tempo
marking of "Allegro scherzando" (the printed score gives "Allegretto scherzando").
Furthermore Bartk headed it "Presentando le coppie" (Presentation of the pairs)
not "Giuoco delle coppie" (Game of the pairs). I was most excited by this, because it
becomes a quite different piece. The programme of the first performance in Boston
clearly has the movement marked "Allegro scherzando" and the keeper of the
Bartk archives was able to give us further conclusive evidence that the faster
tempo must be correct. I have no doubt that thousands of performances, including
my own up to now, have been given at the wrong speed!
Third movement
The third movement, called Elegia by Bartk, is another slow movement, typical of
Bartk's so-called "night music". The movement revolves around three themes,
which primarily derive from the first movement.

Fourth movement
The fourth movement, called Intermezzo interrotto by Bartk, consists of a flowing
melody with changing time signatures, intermixed with a theme parodying and
ridiculing the march tune in Dmitri Shostakovich's "Leningrad" Symphony (No. 7).
The theme is itself interrupted by glissandi on the trombones and woodwinds. In
this movement, the timpani are featured when the second theme is introduced,
requiring 12 different pitches of the timpani over the course of 20 seconds. The
general structure is "ABAinterruptionBA."
Fifth movement
The fifth movement, called Finale by Bartk and marked presto, consists of a
whirling perpetuum mobile main theme competing with fugato fireworks and folk
melodies. This is also written in sonata allegro form.

All programme notes taken from Wikipedia

Banbury Symphony Orchestra

Management Committee:
Jonathan Rowe (Chair), Kathryn Hayman (Secretary), Jenny Maynard (Treasurer)
Emma Callery, Estevan Ellul, Anna Fleming, Helen Payne, Andrew Waite
Conductor - Paul Willett
Violin I
Anna Fleming (Leader)
Jenny Maynard
Geoff Kent
Heidi Robertson
Penny Tolmie
Marianne Robinson
Trish Evans
Clare Trivett
Corrie Ricardo

Cello
Miranda Ricardo
Sarah Turnock
Peter Button
John Pimm
Ruth Mankelow
Mary Martin
Paul Morley
Alice Hill
Jennifer Hubble

Violin II
Emma Callery
Rachel Sansome
Rachel Saunders
John Thomson
Andrew Waite
Sue Christie
Christine Morley
Bryony Yelloly
Joanne Butler
Gill Walker

Double Bass
Robert Gilchrist
Jo Hammond
Jane Martin

Piccolo
Rachel Hawes

Trombone
Paul Macey
Gary Clifton
Malcolm Saunders

Viola
David Bolton-King
John Maksinski
Jonathan Rowe
Alison Packer
Sue Wightman

Oboe
Estevan Ellul
Corinne Ellul
Lyn Gosney

Tuba
James Bolton-King

Cor Anglais
Lyn Gosney

Percussion
Justin Rhodes
Sue Woolhouse
Dave Martin

Flute
Rachel McCubbin
Nick Planas

Clarinet
Helen Payne
David Rule
Bass clarinet
Alice Palmer

Bassoon
Ian McCubbin
Rachel James
Contra bassoon
Ian White
Horn
David Settle
Richard Hartree
Simon Mead
Edward Bolton-King
Helen Barnby-Porritt
Trumpet
Tony Chittock
Ron Barnett
Terry Mayo

Harp
Karina Bell

Website
Please visit our website for more information
www.banburysymphony.org

Patrons of Banbury Symphony Orchestra

S. E. Corsi, Esq.

Mrs H. M. W. Rivett

Lady Saye and Sele

We are very grateful to our patrons for their financial support.

If you would like to make a donation, please send a cheque made payable to
Banbury Symphony Orchestra to the treasurer Jenny Maynard, The White House,
Hill, Leamington Hastings, Rugby, CV23 8DX or email her on
j.maynard@coventry.ac.uk
Please also fill in a Gift Aid declaration that can be obtained from Jenny, which
enables the orchestra to claim an additional 25p for every 1 donated by taxpayers.

Our Sponsors

Banbury Symphony Orchestra has welcomed Spratt Endicott as sponsors since the
start of 2006. Spratt Endicott is pleased to be associated with Banbury Symphony
Orchestra.
We place particular emphasis on delivering effective legal solutions to the
problems faced by businesses and private clients alike. Our approach is proactive
and we listen to our clients and take pride in our efforts to achieve their objectives.
Spratt Endicott
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If you would like to become a friend or would like to know more, please visit our
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emma@caller.demon.co.uk.
Are you interested in joining the orchestra?
If you play an instrument to a standard of Grade 7 or above and would like to play
with the orchestra, find out more by contacting Anna Fleming on 01295 780017. All
rehearsals take place at Banbury School during term time on Tuesday evenings,
7:309:30pm.

Dates for your diary

St Marys Church, Banbury. Saturday 12 December 2009, 4.30pm 6pm
A Family Christmas Festival of Music in association with The Rotary Club
of Banbury. A Programme of Seasonal Music and Christmas Carols.
St Marys Church, Banbury. Saturday 27 March 2010 at 7.30pm
Banbury Symphony Orchestra concert including Waltons Spitfire Prelude and
Fugue, Elgars Nursery suite and Symphony by Arnold.