Waldegraveensemble
Waldegraveensemble
Waldegraveensemble
Clarinet, Strings and Piano
Recital Programme
Friday 24th February 2012Schott Music Recital Room, 7:00pm
After their public debut in 2009, the Waldegrave Ensemble has continued to give recitals in and around London, playing works from Baroque and Classical through to 21st Century and Jazz.
The ensemble consists of woodwind, brass, strings, piano, harp and percussion, which allows them to perform a wide variety of works for different instrumental combinations.
Aside from performing, the players are passionate about outreach work and promote musical development within schools through workshops and educational recitals.
We are also enthusiastic about exploring new works and welcome interest from composers wishing to write for any combination of instruments.
This evenings performers include:
the WaldegRave enSemble
Clarinets - Elliott DeVivo
Violin - Anna Ovsyanikova
Violin - David Wallace
Viola - Zami Jalil
Cello - Sean Knox
Piano - Matthew Lee Knowles
2012 ReCital SeRieS highlightS
2012 sees the start of our first recital series featuring a number of instrumental combinations from the Waldegrave Ensemble
march - Wind Quintet Recital
Damase, Dix-Sept Variations
april - Brass Quintet Recital
- Spring Chamber Orchestra Concert Copland, Appalachian Spring
may - Flute, Clarinet, Strings and Harp Recital
Ravel Introduction et Allegro
June - Piano & Winds Recital
Poulenc, Piano Sextet
- Children’s Chamber Orchestra Concert Prokofiev, Peter and the wolf Saint-Saens, Carnival of the animals
July - Wind Dectet Recital
Françaix, Neuf Pièces Charactéristiques
- String Sextet Recital Tchaikovsky, Souvenir de Florence
September - Mixed Winds & Strings Recital
Beethoven Septet
- Summer Chamber Orchestra Concert Mozart Bassoon Concerto
October - An Afternoon at the Opera
A selection of great operatic solos
november - Mixed Winds, Brass and Strings
Martinů, Revue de Cuisine
december - Christmas Chamber Orchestra Concert
Wolfgang amadeus mozart
‘Clarinet Quintet in A major’ K581
Allegro - Larghetto - Menuetto - Allegretto con variazioni
Mozart wrote the clarinet quintet in 1789 for the clarinetist Anton Stadler, the principal clarinetist of the court orchestra in Vienna. Stadler had a keen interest in the lower registers of the clarinet, which lead him to patent the basset clarinet; an extension to the standard clarinet reaching down to even lower darker tones and colours than the more traditional clarinet used today. Mozart wrote many noteable works for this new instrument, the Clarinet Concerto and Clarinet Quintet being the more renowned and two of his last works for clarinet written before his death in 1791.
The clarinet quintet captures a sense of serenity which contrasts the troubled life Mozart was leading at this time fraught with financial problems and his failure to establish himself as an independent artist amongst other great composers such as Beethoven and Haydn.
The first movement utilises the sonata form, Mozart generously treats us to three of his themes, which are developed, shared among the players and repeated in the recapitulation. The beautiful and serene second movement, Adagio was greatly admired by the composer Maurice Ravel, so much so that he based the slow movement of his G Major Piano Concerto on this movement. The third movement, minuetto is unusual in that it contains two trio sections, here Mozart makes a feature of the strings before returning the focus to the clarinet. The last movement consists of a theme and six variations featuring great leaps through the clarinet registers and bursts of virtuosic flourishes.
Sergei Prokofiev
‘Overture on Hebrew Themes in C minor’ Op. 34
During his travels to the United States, Sergei Prokofiev was commissioned to write the Overture in 1919 by a Jewish ensemble, Zimro, who performed regularly with this unusual combination of instruments. Prokofiev worked using a notebook of Jewish folksongs which they had provided and completed the work quickly, ready for its premiere in New York in 1920, with Prokofiev at the piano.
Jewish folk music has a paradoxically happy-yet-tragic and festive quality that many, including Dmitri Shostakovich, found very powerful. The first theme, un poco allegro, has a jumpy and festive rhythm, resembling those of gypsy airs. It also has a very characteristic use of semitone intervals, which recur throughout the whole work. The second theme, piu mosso, is a very songful cantabile theme, well suited to the cello’s upper range, that is then treated imitatively by all the other instruments.
The piece follows the structure of a traditional overture, in C minor and prominently features the clarinet and the cello, which introduce the first and the second themes respectively. However, all instruments are balanced well, and each instrument plays both themes, often in imitation.
ReCital PROgRamme
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If you would like to be kept informed about the Waldegrave Ensemble’s future concerts and projects then why not email us at [email protected] to join our mailing list or even invest in the ensemble by becoming a friend through our website address below.
SeaSOn PaSS FRiend Donation £50 per annum
1 free ticket to all concerts during the year - Regular news about the ensemble - Advanced schedules of Waldegrave performances - Invitations to post concert receptions to meet other Friends and the musicians - Listing in all Waldegrave programmes
dOnOR FRiend Donation £100 per annum
2 free tickets to all concerts during the year - Regular news about the ensemble - Advanced schedules of Waldegrave performances - Invitations to post concert receptions to meet other Friends and the musicians - A complimentary programme for all concerts - Listing in all Waldegrave programmes
COmmiSSiOning FRiend Donation from £200 per annum
Assign your contribution to a particular work or concert of your choice - 4 free tickets to the chosen concert - Advanced schedules of Waldegrave performances - Regular news about the ensemble - Invitations to post concert receptions to meet other Friends and the musicians - A complimentary programme for all concerts - Listing in all Waldegrave programmes
CORPORate FRiend Donation From £2,500 per annum
4 free tickets for all Waldegrave concerts - Acknowledgement including company logo in all Waldegrave programmes and other printed material as appropriate - Advanced schedules of Waldegrave performances - Opportunities for advertising in conjunction with Waldegrave concerts in the UK and abroad - Opportunities for bespoke entertaining for corporate events
