7:30pm Tuesday 8th February 2005

Conductor Adrian Brown Soloist Nadia Wijzenbeek

C20th English Music

Rawsthorne Street Corner

Alan Rawsthorne was born in 1905 – the same year as Michael Tippett (and William Alwyn and Constant Lambert). The concert overture Street Corner is a view of London conceived when Rawsthorne was in the army during WWII. It was first performed in Leamington Spa in 1945, conducted by Constant Lambert, adding to the centenary theme to tonight's music.

Tippett Concerto for Orchestra

The Concerto was first performed by the LSO conducted by Colin Davis on 5th August 1963 at the Usher Hall, having been commissioned by the Edinburgh International Festival. It is dedicated 'To Benjamin Britten with affection and admiration in the year of his fiftieth birthday'.

Excerpts from Richard Whitehouse' review of this performance:

'That by the Salomon Orchestra was notable for security of balance (which, in the difficult acoustic of St John's, is no mean feat) – enabling one to savour the ingenuity with which, in the first movement, the composer alternates and superimposes contrasting instrumental groups.'

'In Brown's hands, moreover, the analogy with the 'jam session' precept, such as Tippett imported from modern jazz, was made startlingly and engrossingly apparent.'

See the complete review at www.classicalsource.com.

Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending Violin Nadia Wijzenbeek

Nadia Wijzenbeek is a recipient of the Philip & Dorothy Green Award for Young Concert Artists

The Romance for Violin and Orchestra takes its title from a poem by George Meredith, and is descriptive of the lark 'In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake...', 'And ever winging up and up'.

Elgar Falstaff

Commissioned for the 1913 Leeds Festival, this 'Symphonic Study in C minor' features characterisations from Shakespeare's Henry IV and Henry V. It is composed of 4 sections with 2 interludes.
I. Falstaff and Prince Hal
II. Eastcheap, Gadshill, and the Boar's Head
Interlude
II. Battle of Shrewsbury
Interlude
IV. King Henry V's progress; Repudiation of Falstaff; His Death.

Orchestration (wind/perc. details)