cratfield concerts at mailing list 20 bo tr Concer long-ter committed concer Geof Dukes, JulianGar season, thedeathofWilfred the endofpreceding We since regret torecord, patrons today. at theendofconcert table, duringtheintervalor Pauline attheBoxOffice bought orreservedfrom the Tickets forotherconcertsin concerts future 2016 ustees 1 x frey Kirkham:all 6 ts atCratfield. m office & season canbe supporters of tgoers and dner and www.concertsatcratfield.org.uk email telephone the endof Alan McLeanandPeterBaker(ConcertOrganisers–to Philip Britton(Chairman);ClareWebb (Treasurer); MrsS.Whitney-Long. Mr & MikeNott, Tony Collinge,MichaelTaylor & Alan Swerdlow&JeremyGreenwood,CharlesTaylor & CarolineStanley, Christine&JackStephenson, John Sims,Paul& Jill Sawdon,Lesley& Anthony &SarahPlatt,RuthPlowden,Gar John & Judith Har David Heckels,Andr T Daunton,PaulFincham,JudithFoord,ShirleyFry, CHG Dr & Tom Southern,Mr&MrsRoger Cooper, Prof.MJ ClareWebb, PhilipBritton& Lady Blackham,RachelBooth& KateHutchon,SirJeremy& PeterBaker& Mr T.E.Allen, Webern, Schoenberg,Brahms 11 Bach, Chopin,Liszt,Ravel 28 Mendelssohn, Fauré,Beethoven 14 Haydn, Beethoven 31 Mozart, Bartók,Beethoven 17 on o fie PaulineGraham Box office: Michael Taylor. Christine Stephenson, JackStephensonand Quarrell, Richard registered charity Presented byBlythValley ChamberMusic n eshre&Gl rcy aoe&SimonHaskel, ony Gelsthorpe&GillBracey,Carole & Alasdair Beatson Sundays at September: August: August: July: July: [email protected] lraNtae uihPye oad&JeanPeacock, Gloria Nottage,JudithPayne,Donald& Quartetto Rossi Heath Quartet 01728 603077 2017 rad, David & Deirdre Mintz,Dr&MrsIvanMoseley, Deirdre David& rad, Charles Owen André Trio 3.00 Callino Quartet,AnnaDennis ); GillBracey, DavidMintz,KathrinPeters, 1019300 pm piano ew Johnston,JuliaJosephs,SusanKodicek& Barry Shooter, Derek&RosemarySimon, piano trio piano th &LucyPollard, soprano & CARDUCCI STRINGQUARTET NICHOLAS DANIEL Matthew Denton,MichelleFleming This concertissupported byagiftfromPatron Blyth V St Mary’s Church,Cratfield Eoin Schmidt-Martin alley Chamber Music Concer oboe Emma Denton Sunday and ts atCratfield 3 cor anglais July violins 2016 viola cello with

Linda Holmes since last Many concertgoers will know that in December 2015 thieves Shostakovich, String quartet no 11: the obvious choice is our season stole about four tonnes of lead from the roof of St Mary’s, mostly own Carducci on Signum Classics, who recorded nos 4, 8 and from above the North Aisle. None has been recovered, but good 11 in 2014 in readiness for their ‘Shostakovich year’. An detective work may lead to a prosecution against at least some of interesting alternative is the Pacifica Quartet from the usa, who the gang. The bill for repair, however, was far beyond the level of on a two-disc set couple Shostakovich nos 9-12 with the Quartet insurance and the limited resources of the church itself. Many no 6 by his Soviet contemporary Mieczslaw Weinberg – at generous supporters stepped in, including Concerts at Cratfield, medium price from Cedille. with individual donations and a superb fundraising concert at Mozart, Oboe quartet: at budget price from Hyperion Helios, The Cut in Halesworth in April 2016. At that concert, we heard the always reliable Gaudier Ensemble also offer Mozart’s Horn Don Peacock announce on behalf of St Mary’s pcc that the quintet k407, the wonderful Quintet for piano and winds k452 restoration work would all be completed – and in lead, the best (with Susan Tomes piano) and a seldom performed Quintet material – by the start of our 2016 season. Both the parish and movement in f k580b; but this may soon be available only for Concerts at Cratfield have also benefitted greatly from the selling download. exhibition Jack Stephenson organised, in Saxmundham, of wood engravings by our much missed Founder Patron Linda Holmes. David Matthews, The Flaying of Marsyas: an all-Matthews cd Today therefore marks a happy conclusion to all these efforts and from Metronome by the Brindisi Quartet (with Nicholas Daniel) a church fully restored. also includes two of his string quartets. elena langer To mark the occasion – and profiting from having Nicholas Beethoven, String quartet op 95 (‘Serioso’): there are many b 1974 Daniel with us for the first time – we had the idea of starting our recommendable sets of recordings of Beethoven quartets, of which season with a newly composed fanfare for solo oboe, which can recent frontrunners include the Takács at full price on Decca and Fanfare for a new roof do celebratory just as well as it can do plangent or seductive. the Belcea (recorded in live performances at Snape) at medium (2016) Given our happy and long-standing relationship with composer price on Zig-Zag Territoires. The Takács treat op 95 as the earliest About 2 minutes Elena Langer, she was the obvious choice. In less than two days, of the ‘late quartets’ on three discs; the Belcea mix quartets from we had the score. all periods in each four-disc volume, with op 95 in vol 1. About the work, the composer adds: In our experience, two companies offer a good range of stock, The piece is lively and virtuosic. It starts in the oboe’s lowest keen prices and efficient service for buying classical cds online register and gradually climbs up to the very top (the roof!). I in the uk: www.mdt.co.uk worked a very short quotation from Beethoven's overture The www.prestoclassical.co.uk Consecration of the House (1822) into one of the fast passages! The fastest delivery to Suffolk may come from Prelude Records This is therefore the fanfare’s very first public performance. in Norwich: www.preluderecords.co.uk,who are equally helpful on the phone: 01603 620 170. our new We open our new season with a concert featuring the fourth season visit to Cratfield of the Carducci. They are joined by Nicholas Daniel, whom we are delighted to welcome to Cratfield for the first time. cds on sale From the Box Office table you can buy the new cd of music by Elena Langer, Landscape with Three People. Its title Three further concerts this season feature a string quartet: the work is the song cycle commissioned by Concerts at Heath, the Quartetto Rossi on gut strings (replacing the London Cratfield and first performed at St Mary’s in 2013. Richard Haydn Quartet) and the Callino in the final concert, joined by Morrison in The Times gave the disc four stars, specially Anna Dennis soprano and Alasdair Beatson piano. The remaining mentioningAnna Dennis soprano, William Towers two offer a young piano trio from France (but with Suffolk countertenor and Nicholas Daniel oboe. connections) and an ingeniously constructed solo piano recital We also hope to have other cds on sale, featuring Nicholas from a Cratfield regular, Charles Owen. 2 7 Daniel and the Carducci. Marsyas’ blood becoming a river, ‘on the banks of which grew today’s The Carducci String Quartet, long established as one of the reeds, from which men made oboes; so his music continues’. performers finest quartets based in the uk, are Cratfield regulars, last playing for us in 2013. In September 2015 they offered a rare Edited extracts from a note for the Leicester International chance to hear all the Shostakovich quartets at the Jubilee Hall Music Festival © Mike Wheeler 2013. in Aldeburgh, as part of their international celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the composer’s death. They even ludwig van Although some commentators treat this quartet as one of performed all fifteen quartets in one day at the Sam Wanamaker beethoven Beethoven’s ‘late quartets’, it actually sits on its own – more Theatre in London: a rare feat of concentration and endurance. 1770-1827 than a decade before op 127 and one year after another ‘singleton’ among quartets, op 74 in e flat (‘The Harp’). The Nicholas Daniel launched his musical career by becoming BBC String quartet in F minor bilingually titled Quartett serioso therefore fits between his Young Musician of the Year at 18; he is now the doyen of British op 95 (‘Serioso’) (1810) major works of 1809 – the Piano concerto no5 (‘The Emperor’) oboists, playing as soloist with orchestras and chamber groups Allegro con brio and three piano sonatas opp 78, 79 and 81a (‘Les Adieux’) – internationally and also increasingly active as a conductor (he Allegretto non troppo – and the ‘Archduke’ piano trio of 1811, followed in turn the next plays and directs the Britten Sinfonia in his recent cd of the year by the Seventh and Eighth symphonies. Perhaps because of Vaughan Williams and MacMillan concertos, Editor’s Choice in Allegro assai vivace ma the bleakness of the piece – Misha Donat calls it ‘terse and Gramophone and winner of a bbc Music Magazine Première serioso austere’ – the composer withheld publication for six years and Award). He is also Artistic Director of the Leicester Larghetto espressivo – said that it was never to be performed in public. International Music Festival and is featured on the new allegretto agitato – Harmonia Mundi cd of music by Elena Langer, Landscape with The quartet does at moments sound like ‘Beethoven’s private allegro Three People, on sale at the concert today; its title work is a workshop’ (Joseph Kerman), opening with an initial unison Cratfield-commissioned song cycle from 2013. About 20 minutes outburst, a rest, and then a completely contrasting idea; conventional linking passages are absent, and the exposition is wolfgang The background and date of this standalone slow movement for not repeated. The second movement opens with a famous amadeus four instruments are both murky, but there is no doubt that it is unaccompanied cello scale downwards which introduces d mozart authentic Mozart, inhabiting the same hushed and intense major – in traditional terms an extreme contrast to the f minor 1756-1791 sound-world as his later motet Ave Verum Corpus k 618. The of the first movement, but the movement moves chromatically top line may have been intended for the cor anglais, the tenor in more directions than any conventional slow movement ever Adagio in C K 580a member of the oboe family, as played today. Some suggest that would, including a central fugue. In this hard-to-fathom (?1788) this designation was the work of an editor who completed the personal world, the only movement actually marked serioso is About 8 minutes piece. What instruments were intended for the lower parts the equivalent of a scherzo, which Kerman calls ‘a serious, remains unclear: some suggest three basset horns (a lower three-legged, tough little quick-march’ with a contrasting and register early version of the clarinet) or two French horns and a awkward trio. The final movement opens with eight bars of bassoon. Today they are played by a string trio. This is certainly slow introduction leading into the main body of the movement, the first time this work has been heard at Cratfield (if not in the Programme text © 2016 which combines sonata and rondo elements; the coda at the whole of East Anglia). Philip Britton and Blyth very end changes the mood entirely, suggesting the finale of an Valley Chamber Music opera buffa and bringing a sunny major-key conclusion. in case of emergency music on cd If hearing any of the works in today’s concert makes you want to Use the door marked exit which is nearest to you and move today’s performers and have your own recording, here are some personal into the churchyard, away from the church. If the church works recommendations: needs to be evacuated, one of the Trustees will make an announcement and individual stewards close to where you Mozart, Adagio K 580a: no commercial recording available (but are sitting will then assist you towards the appropriate exit. Nicholas Daniel plays the work with Camerata Pacifica on 6 YouTube). 3 dmitri Shostakovich’s fifteen string quartets – inventive and varied as interval shostakovich they are in purely musical terms – seem also to be a record of his As thanks for the support from concertgoers towards the costs 1906-1975 own emotional and internal journey. Even so, relating specific of the roof repair, the parish is very kindly offering everyone quartets to specific events in his life is dangerous. Of no 11 we free tea, coffee or water and a cake in the interval today. String quartet no 11 in do know something solid. He wrote it between his thirteenth F minor op122 (1966) and fourteenth symphonies in memory of Vassily Shirinsky, david According to Greek mythology, Marsyas was a satyr (half-goat, Introduction: andantino – second violin of the Beethoven Quartet, which gave the first matthews half-human) who rashly challenged the god Apollo to a contest Scherzo: allegretto – public performances of all Shostakovich’s quartets from no 2 b 1943 of musical skill, Apollo playing his lyre and Marsyas the aulos onwards. Shirinsky was a great supporter of the composer and (a kind of oboe). Predictably, he lost and was punished for his Recitativo: adagio – Concertino for oboe and his music; he died suddenly of a stroke while chopping wood at presumption by being hung upside-down and flayed alive. string quartet The Etude: allegro – his dacha in 1965. Humoresque: allegro – Flaying of Marsyas This is the grim subject depicted by the Venetian artist Titian Wendy Lesser in her study of the quartets, Music for Silenced op 42 (1987) (Tiziano Vecelli, c 1488 or 1490-1576) as his last completed Elegie: adagio – Voices, calls no 11 ‘the quietest, most broken, most passively work. When composer David Matthews saw it, he considered it About 18 minutes Finale: moderato depressive quartet he ever wrote’. Its seven movements – some ‘a horrifying painting, but … also full of compassion’. He noted About 15 minutes barely more than a minute in length – are played without a break, that the figure of Apollo in the top left-hand corner, playing the so the work’s structure looks to the suite as well as to sonata lira da bracchio (an early violin) has a miraculously calming form. And many movements seem to resist melody and to convey effect on the torture being enacted in his presence. ‘Looking at a mood absolutely opposed to their titles, except the Elegy, the the painting, I imagined I could hear the music Apollo was longest movement and the work’s heart. The quartet ends on a playing, and realised it offered me a fortuitous starting point for barely perceptible top-of-its range note from the first violin, the piece’. marked ‘morendo’ (dying) – literally as well as musically, it seems. The work opens with an extended passage for the second violin, viola and cello, ‘deliberately primitive music suggesting the state mozart In early November 1780 Mozart was invited to Munich by the of the world before Apollo brought enlightenment.’ It becomes Elector Karl Theodor, in order to fulfil the Elector’s commission Oboe quartet in F K 370 gradually more energised, until the sudden calm when the first for the opera Idomeneo. Mozart struggled with the lengthy and (1781) violin, representing Apollo, enters. The rising scale which is the rather static libretto and had to work feverishly (beset by a first thing he plays becomes his identifying motif. Allegro persistent heavy cold) to complete the music, but he conducted the opera’s first performance there in January 1781. In parallel The oboe makes its appearance as Marsyas in a cadenza-like Adagio he renewed a friendship with the oboist Friedrich Ramm (1744- passage, beginning tentatively – ‘at first, each note is a Rondeau: allegro ?1811), who had been in the world-famous court orchestra at discovery’. Gaining confidence, he leads the strings in a About 16 minutes Mannheim. Like many other orchestra members, Ramm had rhythmically incisive dance (the first violin momentarily steps left Mannheim for Munich when the Elector made the same out of character to become part of the ensemble). At the height move. of the excitement Apollo plays his rising scale and after a moment Marsyas copies it, challenging the god on his own It was for Ramm that Mozart somehow found time in early 1781 ground. The contest that follows sees each in the spotlight in to compose his only Oboe quartet, for oboe, violin, viola and turn, as they constantly exchange ideas. Apollo finally cello. In ambition and scale, despite having only three challenges Marsyas in a virtuoso cadenza, with Marsyas making movements, it prefigures the Clarinet quintet K581; at moments, little two-note comments marked ‘scornful’. The climax comes it resembles a small-scale concerto for the oboe (with even a as Marsyas tries to play two notes simultaneously, failing where mini-cadenza in the d minor slow movement). The rondo-finale Apollo succeeds. Marsyas’ cries of pain in the following section contains an unusual passage where the three strings are in 6/8, do not need spelling out. The music that opened the piece while the oboist has figurations above in 4/4, returning to join returns, but then Matthews bring the oboe and violin together the strings’ time-signature in the end. 4 5 ‘in a postlude which offers reconciliation’. The short final section suggests one version of the myth, which ends with