Tag: Kenneth Woods

St John Passion at Leominster Priory

This concert is all about bridging the gap between eras, taking inspiration from the past to create something compelling and new.

The programme opens with a collaboration between the ESO and local partners Academia Musica Choir, who will perform Bob Chilcott’s interpretation of the Passion, using text from St John’s Gospel. Following in a similar setting to J S Bach’s story of the Passion, where the story is narrated by a tenor Evangelist, Chilcott’s creative process took time to unfold given the mixture of excitement and apprehension of retelling such an iconic work. However, the music is direct and accessible and is a very fitting piece to welcome the upcoming Easter celebrations.

The Adagio part of Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue in C minor K.546 was a late addition to an earlier work, his Fugue in C minor K.426, written for two pianos in 1783. He later revisited the work in 1788 whilst writing his final three symphonies and transcribed the fugue for strings. It’s not clear why he did this but one theory is he wanted to refresh his old counterpoint studies before starting work on the counterpoint section that concludes his final symphony, ‘Jupiter’.

In a bid to reestablish a national voice by returning to music of the past and preservation of native folk music, Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis is a stunning and poignant tribute to English composers of the Tudor era, such as William Byrd and of course Thomas Tallis. The premiere of the work took place in 1910 as part of the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester Cathedral, a fitting acoustic for such a sonorous piece.

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April Fredrick at Great Malvern Priory

Tonight’s programme features April Fredrick, who is the ESO’s first Affiliate Artist, to perform Dvořák’s Song to the Moon from Rusalka, arranged by Tony Burke.

The Adagio part of Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue in C minor K.546 was a late addition to an earlier work, his Fugue in C minor K.426, written for two pianos in 1783. He later revisited the work in 1788 whilst writing his final three symphonies and transcribed the fugue for strings. It’s not clear why he did this but one theory is he wanted to refresh his old counterpoint studies before starting work on the counterpoint section that concludes his final symphony, ‘Jupiter’.

The first performance of Tony Burke’s arrangement of Strauss’ Morgen! was filmed and recorded in 2020 at Wyastone Concert Hall near Monmouth. It was the first time since lockdown that the ESO had gathered together for a series of innovative recording projects that would later become ESO Digital.

Mozart’s final three symphonies: numbers 39, 40 and 41, are a trilogy of works that stand apart from his own symphonic output and are a regular occurrence in many a concert hall and orchestra’s repertoire. It might be slightly less familiar than the two that followed, however “taken in its entirety, the symphony [no.39] is refreshing to the ear, its pleasure is only intensified by the fact that it is not much performed. Here is a work of inspiration that, due to its rarity, can still surprise and delight” Elizabeth Schwarm Glesner.

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Fiddles, Forests and Fowl Fables – The Motion Picture

A new musical setting of Hans Christian Andersen’s masterpiece by Kenneth Woods is narrated by Hugh Bonneville, star of Downton Abbey, the Paddington films and W1A. Beautiful and evocative illustrations by Polish-American artist and musician, Wanda Sobieska, brings an additional level of emotion to this poignant melding of music, word and image.

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Tchaikovsky String Quartet

Tchaikovsky was a composer with a pragmatic outlook to arrangements . Tchaikovsky composed relatively little chamber music, but his First String Quartet yielded a huge hit, the Andante Cantabile, based on a folk song Tchaikovsky had heard while visiting his sister. Tchaikovsky quickly saw the commercial potential of this movement as a stand-alone item when Leo Tolstoy burst into tears at the work’s première: “Probably never in my life have I been so moved by the pride of authorship as when Lev Tolstoy, sitting by me and listening to the Andante of my Quartet, burst into tears.”

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