FESTIVAL PROGRAMME CONCERTS MASTERCLASSES WEDNESDAY 1 MAY WEDNESDAY 1 MAY 6 pm Hellens For All Times 9.30 am—1.30 pm Much Marcle School Choir Violin, viola and cello Great Barn at Hellens Music Room 10.30 am—1.30 pm 8 pm Hani Mojtahedy: Piano. Great Barn Melodies from the Middle East 9.30 am–1.30 pm St Bartholomew’s Church Chamber music. Dining room THURSDAY 2 MAY THURDSAY 2 MAY 8 pm Schubert, Weber, Brahms 9.30 am–1.30 pm Great Barn at Hellens Clarinet, violin and viola FRIDAY 3 MAY Music Room 7 pm Christian Blackshaw 10.30 am–1.30 pm Solo Piano Piano. Great Barn St. Bartholomew’s Church 9.30 am–1.30 pm Chamber music. Dining room 9.30 pm Pub Concert The Walwyn Arms, Much Marcle FRIDAY 3 MAY 9.30 am–1.30 pm SATURDAY 4 MAY Viola, violin, cello and clarinet 8 pm Fantasy and fairytale: Music Room Strings, clarinet and piano 9.30 am–1.30 pm ensemble Piano. St Bartholomew’s Church Great Barn at Hellens 9.30 am–1.30 pm SUNDAY 5 MAY Chamber music. Dining room 11.30 am & 3.30 pm SATURDAY 4 MAY Masterclass Students 9.30 am–1.30 pm Finale I & II Piano. Great Barn Great Barn at Hellens 9.30 am–1.30 pm Chamber music. Dining room WELCOME TO HELLENSMUSIC 2019 Our seventh Hellensmusic has become the time for us to check on our progress. We know how music enlarges and enriches life –scientists have discovered how the disciplines of music improves attention span, concentration, expands the cortex, develops pulse and rhythm! So you’ll see more variety this year, more concentrated work in local primary and secondary schools, and a 3-5 year pilot project in Much Marcle Primary School. And of course, the gift of world-class musicians returning again to inspire, teach, share, and perform! Thank you Christian, Máté, Maya, Markus, Bruno, Matthew, Julien, Hani, Elisabeth, Bridget, and all the team at Hellens. Our first concert Wednesday afternoon is brought to us by Danish violinist Elisabeth Zeuthen Schneider with Bridget Snasdell and Much Marcle Primary School, in what is the start of our project –Music For All Times– introducing musical training and singing to young children for long-term results. This is followed in the evening by a coup for us! Hani, singer and musician revered in Europe, The States and in the Middle East, has accepted to play with our ‘classical’ musicians in a concert that will have you in tears. On Thursday we have the rest of our chamber concerts and Christian Blackshaw playing with our international musicians. On Friday Christian Blackshaw gives a solo recital by candlelight at the historic church at Much Marcle, followed by an uproarious night at the Walwyn Arms when the classicists let their hair down. On Saturday Julien Quentin joins Matthew Hunt and our Chamber Ensemble for an evening full of beloved music, a little risk, and considerable variety! Inspirational education remains at the heart of what we do, and we’re proud to have thirteen talented students from the best colleges in Britain and abroad. They will be working with the pros, and playing with them at the festival’s closing concerts on Sunday to underline the importance of a shared, non-hierarchical approach to music-learning and making –for me a Hellensmusic highlight. Join us, I do recommend, for our first concert on Wednesday 1st May in the afternoon. Perhaps it might inspire you to work with your own children or grandchildren. Adam Munthe Festival Chairman DEAR FRIENDS, It is a tremendous joy to welcome all lovers of music to our Seventh Hellensmusic Festival, reuniting as it does musicians and listeners from far and wide to participate and share the wonder of this great international language. Since the inauguration of our festival in 2013 we have PROGRAMME striven to bring to rural Herefordshire great works of art to life through performances and the ability to work with young performers who we hope will continue the quest to find truth, meaning and fulfilment in their chosen path. We musicians are indebted to Nelly and Adam Munthe for opening once again their magical home to us and to all the members of the wonderful management team without whose help Hellensmusic could not exist. We look forward very much to seeing you. Christian Blackshaw and Máté Szücs Artistic Directors HELLENS FOR ALL TIMES HANI MOJTAHEDY: MUCH MARCLE SCHOOL CHOIR MELODIES FROM THE MIDDLE EAST Wednesday 1 May, 6 pm Wednesday 1 May, 8 pm Great Barn at Hellens St. Bartholomew’s Church, Much Marcle Hellensmusic aims to motivate and that ‘music belongs to everybody’ Each year Hellensmusic brings an world music scene. Very recently, inspire local children with the val- and that the best starting point is exceptional artist and musician the Middle East Sustainable Peace ue of music. Our opening concert through the instrument accessible from a different genre to open Organisation (MESPO) chose Hani this year celebrates this with our to all –the human voice. up our ears to new sounds. Hani as their “symbol of peace in the very first showcase event for our A selection of folk songs including: Mojtahedy is a well-known Kurdish Middle East” during the Kurdis- new music education programme Summer is a Cumin’In, Shalom, singer-songwriter from Sanandaj, tan International Peace Carnival in Hellens For All Times –working The Sky Boat Song, The Sofa Song a small city in the Iranian province which she performed a great con- with the children from Much Mar- exploring tempi, moods, colours, of Kurdistan. With her charisma, cert in Sulaimaniah with other in- cle primary school. The programme performed by the Much March she has been a voice for women, ternational artists. focuses on the dynamic collabo- Primary School, led by Bridget and for her people for years. She is Hani will be joined by four great rative practice of the Kódaly ap- Snasdell, accompanied and inspired now a household name in her na- classical musicians, well-known proach, developed from the belief by Elisabeth Zeuthen Schneider. tive country and a rising star in the to Hellens’ audiences through the years, in a novel challenge for Diltengi, A song about nostalgia Hellensmusic. She combines tradi- and the feelings of homesickness tional Persian vocals and Kurdish Xoshawisti, A complaint of love lyrics and will perform themes from and disappointment her work, passing from women’s Chawarwani, Passionate rights to the misfortunes of history, anticipation to meet from love and happiness to tragedy the one who is gone again and mourning. Gulbarin, Nature and spring and This will be truly a romantic evening the connection which they have for anyone of any age who loves to with women and creation hear a haunting melody, a gorgeous Shapoli shet, A rebellious woman voice and an outstanding artist tak- who can’t be harnessed even though ing delight in sharing her gifts. she is in love Ashyaneh, An old Persian love song Barun, An improvisation based on HANI MOJTAHEDY old Persian songs VOICE Mirage, An ultimate reflection of JULIEN QUENTIN the paradoxes of growing up in the PIANO contemporary world for a Middle SCHUBERT, WEBER, BRAHMS MARKUS DÄUNERT Eastern woman Thursday 2 May, 8 pm VIOLIN Cham Sia, A journey to ancient Great Barn at Hellens MÁTÉ SZÜCS Kurdish music’s origins, with a new VIOLA interpretation BRUNO DELEPELAIRE Schubert, Quarttetsazt, D. 703 CHRISTIAN BLACKSHAW CELLO Weber, Clarinet Quintet PIANO in B flat major, Op. 34 MAYA IWABUCHI Brahms, Piano Quintet VIOLIN in F minor, Op. 34 MARKUS DÄUNERT VIOLIN MÁTÉ SZÜCS VIOLA BRUNO DELEPELAIRE CELLO MATTHEW HUNT CLARINET SCHUBERT (1797-1828) creative spark that brought them and exuberant melody. The Given the outstanding quality of Quartettsatz in C minor D 703 into being. However, the catalyst following Fantasia is aptly named, his surviving compositions in this Allegro assai for some of the greatest works for the clarinet, with its long most intimate of genres, one can It is a mystery why this wonderful in musical history has been the drawn-out ethereal melody, weaves only wonder at what posterity has movement, composed in 1820, composer’s acquaintance with a shadowy path through seemingly lost. The chamber works that have stands on its own and did not wonderful soloists. Certainly the unknown regions, a feeling only come down to us include seven become the first movement of a repertoire for clarinet is all the richer intensified by an unexpected for strings alone: two string sex- full-blown quartet. This had surely for it. Mozart composed his Clarinet ascending scale, played fortissimo, tets, two string quintets and three been Schubert’s initial intention as Quintet and Clarinet Concerto, then pianissimo. Extraordinarily, string quartets. His great Piano he composed around forty bars of in 1789 and 1791 respectively, for Weber composed the Menuetto Quintet was created between 1861 an Andante to follow it. However, the virtuoso clarinettist Anton in a single day. This unique and and 1864 and one would never it has become a jewel in the piano Stadler; around 100 years later witty movement is characterised guess from the enormity of the miniature repertoire. What is Brahms was moved to compose by the flamboyant upward flourish piano part that it started life as a remarkable about the Quartettsatz a series of chamber masterpieces, of its opening and the vacillating string quintet (with two cellos). is the way in which the composer including his Clarinet Quintet, on clarinet writing: contrast is afforded From this, there emerged a version integrates the work’s opening being transported by the playing of by a Trio full of sentiment.