Saturday, 9 November 2019, 7.30pm
Revolution and Romance - Sacconi Quartet (pictured)
Ben Hancox, violin
Hannah Dawson, violin
Robin Ashwell, viola
Cara Berridge, cello
The renowned Sacconi presents a programme by four composers, each inventing and revolutionising the medium of string quartet. Beethoven’s Serioso Quartet is a mastery of form and precision where drama is maximised using a minimum of notes. Mendelssohn’s mastery of Romantic lyricism and emotional drama is epitomised perfectly in his opus 12 quartet, paving the way for later Romantic quartet writing. Helen Grime takes up the string quartet mantle and takes the form to new extremes of sound and emotion, lyricism ever abounding.
Programme
Schubert, Quartettsatz in C Minor D703
Helen Grime, String Quartet
Beethoven, String Quartet No. 11 in F minor Opus 95 Serioso
Mendelssohn, String Quartet No. 1 Opus 12
Saturday, 1 February 2020, 7.30pm
Cello and Piano: Beyond the Score
Adrian Brendel, cello
David Dolan, piano
Cellist Adrian Brendel and pianist David Dolan return to further explore the performer’s role as creator over different musical styles. In a programme providing the performers with scope for extemporisations and following seventeenth and eighteenth centuries performance practice, the duo will embellish repeats and improvise preludes and interludes to create the setting for the pieces performed and to connect between movements and works.
Programme
Marcello, Sonata for cello and piano
Boccherini, Sonata for cello and piano
Schumann, Five Pieces in Folk Style Opus 102
Beethoven, Sonata No. 3 for cello and piano in A major Opus 69
Fauré, Élégie for cello and piano Opus 24
Saturday, 14 March 2020, 7.30pm
String Orchestra: Contemplation and Drama - Symphonova Orchestra
Shelley Katz, conductor
Abigail Dolan, flute
Composers reach for the string-orchestra when they want the emotional purity of the string-quartet coupled by the power and drama of an orchestra. The innovative Symphonova Orchestra presents a programme including some of the greatest works written for strings alongside a premiere of a new work for strings and solo flute by the Politzer Prize-nominated composer Tamar Muskal.
Programme
Barber, Adagio for strings Opus 11
Tamar Muskal, Concerto for Flute and Orchestra (Premiere)
Arensky, Variations on a theme by Tchaikovsky Opus 35a
Mahler, Adagietto from Symphony No. 5
Holst, St Paul’s Suite
Saturday, 9 May 2020, 7.30pm
The Sonata Tradition
Ronan O’Hora, piano
During the period from the middle of the 18th century for the next hundred years, the Piano Sonata was the favoured form of the greatest composers writing for the instrument. Ronan O’Hora presents an overview of this canon, from the extraordinary range and versatility of Haydn, Brahms using the form as a vehicle to announce his youthful genius, a mystical and unfinished utterance by Schubert and an example of one of Beethoven's supreme examples of how to display the capacity of the Sonata for declamatory drama.
Programme
Haydn, Sonata in F major Hob. XIV:23
Brahms, Sonata No. 3 in F minor Opus 5
Schubert, Sonata in C major D840 Reliquie
Beethoven, Sonata No. 23 in F minor Opus 57 Appassionata
Booking
£15.00, £10.00 Clare Hall Members, £5.00 Students
Reservations
music@clarehall.cam.ac.uk; (01223) 332360 or at the Porters’ Lodge
