Summer in the Square Southbank Sinfonia at St John’s Smith Square www.southbanksinfonia.co.uk www.sjss.org.uk Fri 23 Jul Sat 24 Jul Sun 25 Jul Principal Partner Summer in the Square 23 | 24 | 25Supporters July 2021 Welcome to St John’s Smith Square for the inaugural Summer in the Square festival. We’re thrilled to have you with us at the new home of Southbank Sinfonia and hope you thoroughly enjoy the music and summer atmosphere, as well as the odd glass of wine! Next year will be the twentieth anniversary of The festival usually welcomes distinguished guest Southbank Sinfonia and also of the Anghiari Festi- performers and also offers concerto opportunities val where - in normal times - the orchestra is resi- to current members of the orchestra with our col- dent in a small Italian village for a week of intense leagues David Corkhill and Eugene Lee directing music making, punctuated with pizzas and Pro- concerts. All of those features are to be enjoyed secco in a very sociable atmosphere. this weekend with our dear friend Ruth Rogers opening the festival playing Beethoven’s Violin Shared by a few hundred supporters, visiting for Concerto in an all-Beethoven concert, compensat- their annual fix of glorious music in a beautiful set- ing for the pandemic denying his due celebration ting, the festival is an opportunity for players and last year; and our long-term collaborator, pianist supporters to get to know each other, both from Tom Poster brings events to a celebratory close the stage, which is placed in the middle of a piaz- with the jazz-infused Piano Concerto by Ravel. za, as well as in the surrounding bars afterwards. From personal experience, it’s never too long be- We recurringly tell our musicians to embrace all fore conversation with Italians turns to the subject that comes their way and to make the most of their of food or wine. The Anghiari Festival is certainly experiences during their annual fellowship with co-fuelled with music and food, so we have ex- Southbank Sinfonia, so when the pandemic pre- tended the portico of St John’s for Summer in the vented us from going to Italy this year, we sought Square and hope you will join us at a reception to make a virtue out of necessity. around one of the concerts. Happily, in April this year, Southbank Sinfonia Let’s hope we can reconvene again next year merged with St John’s Smith Square, so we de- in Tuscany and London to celebrate in style the cided to bring the ‘mountain to Mohammed’ and twentieth anniversaries of the Anghiari Festival create a mini festival in this extraordinary corner and of Southbank Sinfonia. of London, so near the beating heart of the capital yet so tranquil. We will also be streaming the per- Please do enjoy the festival, and if it moves you, formances online so that our friends in Italy (and we would be incredibly grateful for your support. elsewhere around the world) can enjoy them too. Without which none of this would be possible. Simon & Richard Simon Over & Richard Heason Co-Directors Southbank Sinfonia at St John’s Smith Square Summer in the Square What’s on Friday 23 July 2021 7pm | £15 Ludwig van Beethoven Violin Concerto in D Simon Over conductor Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No.5 Ruth Rogers violin Saturday 24 July 2021 1pm | £10 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings Eugene Lee director/violin Astor Piazzolla ‘Spring’ from Four Seasons of Buenos Aires Joseph Haydn Poco adagio - Cantabile from String Quartet in C ‘Emperor’ Saturday 24 July 2021 7pm | £15 Felix Mendelssohn Overture David Corkhill conductor to ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ Catherine Hare flute Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Flute Concerto No.2 Guillermo Ramasasa Mortimer clarinet in D Major Carl Nielsen Clarinet Concerto Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Symphony No.32 in G Major Saturday 24 July 2021 3pm | £15 Maurice Ravel Pavane pour une infante défunte Simon Over conductor Maurice Ravel Piano Concerto in G Major Tom Poster piano Felix Mendelssohn Symphony No.4 ‘Italian’ Double Bee- thoven Summer in the Square 2021 Friday 23 July 7pm | £15 Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven Violin Concerto in D Violin Concerto in D I. Allegro ma non troppo Ludwig van Beethoven II. Larghetto Symphony No.5 III. Rondo. Allegro −− − − − 1806 was a year of extraordinary productivity for Simon Over conductor Beethoven. In addition to the Violin Concerto, this Ruth Rogers violin year also saw the creation of his Fourth Piano −− − − − Concerto, the three Razumovsky String Quartets, and the Leonore Overture No.3. Today, alongside other highly popular violin concertos from the likes of Brahms and Mendelssohn, Beethoven’s Violin Concerto is eloquent, thrilling and rich with mem- orable melodies. However, like many other works now celebrated as masterpieces, Beethoven’s Violin Concerto received a mixed reception at its premiere. The fortunes of the concerto improved consider- ably after the composer’s death. In fact, the work did not receive its proper due until a concert in London in 1844, conducted by Felix Mendelssohn, where young protégé Joseph Joachim stunned 4 Summer in the Square Double Beethoven audiences with his rendition of Beethoven’s Violin scherzo. The tension builds over these movement Concerto. Joachim wrote his own cadenzas and towards the brilliant finale. Full of invention, triumph played the piece without music – all just one and skill, the finale twists and turns before con- month before his 13th birthday! Now regarded cluding with an exuberant coda that brings all of as a true staple in violin repertoire, Beethoven’s Beethoven’s ideas together. fiery Violin Concerto is a marvel to behold. −− − − − −− − − − ©Alex Burns 2021 Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No.5 I. Allegro con brio II. Andante con moto III. Scherzo: Allegro IV. Allegro Beethoven began sketches of his iconic Fifth Symphony in 1804, although the symphony was not fully completed until 1808. Alongside some of the composer’s other big works, Symphony No.5 was premiered at an all-Beethoven concert in December 1808. A marathon of Beethoven works, the concert also included his Mass in C, Piano Concerto No.4, Symphonies 5 & 6 and the entire Choral Fantasy, a some five-hour concert. By 1808, Beethoven’s deafness was impending, Post-concert event: money was tight, Emperor Napoleon was march- Summer in the Square Launch Party ing over his homeland, and he was feeling lost. −− − − − Music was his only route out, and so, through the 8.30pm trials and tribulations of Symphony No.5, we hear Free to audience members some of his anguish and despair. If you have a ticket to our Friday night concert, we The opening begins with the iconic ‘da da da invite you to join us after the performance and to daaaa’ that is marked fortissimo. As momentum raise a glass in celebration of our first Summer in builds, this movement shows off Beethoven’s ge- the Square festival! nius, taking a small kernel of music and creating a whole symphonic movement from it. This power- ful movement is tight in orchestration and suitably challenged by a lyrical second theme. The second and third movements take us through a series of themes and variations and then a perky 5 String Cele- bration Summer in the Square 2021 Saturday 24 July 1pm | £10 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings Serenade for Strings I. Pezzo in forma di sonatina Astor Piazzolla II. Valse. Moderato ‘Spring’ from III. Elegia Four Seasons of Buenos Aires IV. Finale (Tema Russo) Joseph Haydn During the autumn of 1880, Tchaikovsky made Poco adagio - Cantabile from headway on his popular Serenade for Strings. String Quartet in C ‘Emperor’ The private premiere took place in December of −− − − − the same year at the Moscow Conservatory, while the public premiere took place a year later in Eugene Lee director/violin October 1881, in St. Petersburg. Undoubtedly, −− − − − Serenade for Strings was inspired by the music of Mozart, whom Tchaikovsky admired greatly. The first movement, ‘Little Sonata’, opens with a chordal sequence that becomes the central figure for the whole work. The rich chorale that opens the piece creates a powerful insight into Tchaik- ovsky’s classic style at the time of composition. As the strings unite at the end of the movement, the central chorale returns, and the movement ends as it began – with the strings together again. 6 Summer in the Square String Celebration A waltz second movement lightens the mood Franz Joseph Haydn before Tchaikovsky bares his signature lyrical writ- Poco adagio - Cantabile from ing in the third movement: Elegy. The finale brings String Quartet in C ‘Emperor’ together many themes, including the chorale, tying everything together at the end of the work. The third of six quartets that ended up being The quick changes of theme in the finale trick Haydn’s last, the Emperor Quartet was completed the ear, which makes it all the more satisfying in 1797. The nickname for this quartet derives from when the final bars are resolved. the second movement’s set of variations based on −− − − − ‘Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser’ (‘God save Emperor Francis’) – a hymn that served as the Austrian anthem for over a century. For this concert, our musicians will be performing the second movement ‘Poco adagio cantabile’. Ambitious in style and laden with rich harmony, it is an ideal way to conclude this string-centric concert. −− − − − Astor Piazzolla ©Alex Burns 2021 ‘Spring’ from Four Seasons of Buenos Aires Although originally intended as four standalone pieces, Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas (Four Seasons of Buenos Aires) became a quartet of pieces representing the various moods, landscapes, and times of Buenos Aires.