Hereford
	String
	Orchestra

RECENT CONCERTS

Griffin Centre, Hereford Sixth Form College, 29^th June 2002
Royal Forest of Dean College, Five Acres, Coleford, 30^th June 2002

Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756-1791) Overture: La Finta Giardiniera K196

La Finta Giardiniera (The Supposed Garden Girl or Sandrina's Secret) was Mozart's earliest opera buffa and was first performed in Munich in 1775 when Mozart was eighteen. Although a youthful piece, the music gives a delightful foretaste of what was to come in Mozart's later operas.

The plot is, of course, immensely convoluted. The Countess Violante (supposedly dead in a violent quarrel with her lover Count Belfiore before the opera begins) disguises herself as a gardener in the employ of the Mayor, in order to seek out Belfiore, who is in love with the Mayor's daughter. All seven characters in the plot become involved in numerous amorous misunderstandings, and the Count and Countess both descend into madness before being miraculously restored: to health in time for the happy ending. All ends well with three marriages, only the Mayor being disappointed in love.

The opera was initially successful, but disappeared from the repertoire around 1779, only being revived occasionally. However, we are left with this energetic and happy overture to remind us of Mozart's youthful brilliance.

Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART Piano Concerto No 9 in E flat K271 'Jeunehomme'

i Allegro

ii Andantino

iii Rondo: Presto-Menuetto

Mozart returned to live in Salzburg in 1775, leaving only to visit Munich for the premiere of La Finta Giardiniera. During the following years he established himself as the chief composer of instrumental and secular music in Salzburg. He also performed frequently in court, in the cathedral and at other musical gatherings. However he was not happy, finding the opportunities in a provincial city and his employment with the archbishop very restrictive. Eventually he wrote to the archbishop in August 1777, asking to be released from his employment, and left Salzburg, only returning in 1779.

Nevertheless his output of new works in the mid-1770s was considerable. It included four violin concertos and four for keyboards. Two of these were for 3 keyboards, one for 2 keyboards and No 9, K271, for single keyboard. This is the concerto we shall hear tonight, originally composed for the otherwise unknown French pianist Mile Jeunehomme.

We are delighted to welcome Yanna Zissiadou as soloist in tonight's performance.

Edward ELGAR (1857-1934) Serenade for String Orchestra Op 20

i Allegro piacevole

ii Larghetto

iii Allegro come prima

The finest of Elgar's early works and always his own favourite ("I like 'em, the first thing I ever did"), the Serenade probably started out as Three Pieces for string orchestra, performed by the Worcester Musical Union in May 1888. That score is lost but the revised form shows Elgar's full capabilities as a composer and points the way to his mature-works, particularly the symphonies and the majestic Introduction and Allegro of seventeen years later. Right from the dotted figuration with which the violas introduce the work, the Serenade perfectly exemplifies the medium for which it is written, "really stringy in effect," as Elgar himself told Jaeger.

The completed composition as we know it now was given its premiere in 1892 by the Ladies' Orchestral Class of Worcester, of which Elgar was trainer and conductor. The Larghetto by itself received an airing by the Hereford Philharmonic Society on, 7th April, 1893, while the full work waited a further three years for its first professional performance.

Composition of the Serenade must have owed something to Elgar's developing relationship with his future wife, Caroline Alice Roberts. She not only attended the performance of the Three Pieces but consequently wrote a poem, On hearing some orchestral music, in which the melodies "tell of far and flowery meads! Of rivers fringed with wavering reeds, Of hills awakening to the Spring." And that was only the first movement. The darkly profound central Larghetto "... ever tells of joy and love, and yearnings past: Of hopes divine and longings vast."

It takes a great composer to know how to round off. a short work with so eloquent a centrepiece, and the brief finale provides the perfect foil, slow to break the spell at first and then recalling the opening movement and the dotted viola theme.

Franz Joseph HAYDN (1732-1809) Symphony No 52 in C minor

i Allegro assai con brio

ii Andante

iii Menuetto

iv Finale: Presto

Haydn was born of musical peasant stock in Rohrau on the Austro-Hungarian border, the second of twelve children. Following lessons with a local choirmaster, at the age of eight his fine singing gained him entry to the cathedral choir in Vienna. At seventeen, when his voice matured, he was expelled from the choir, destitute, to make his living as a music teacher and violinist. He found employment first as an accompanist, then with Count Morzin in Bohemia. A move to Eisenstadt followed, where for thirty years he was in the service of the Esterhazy family, responsible for daily concerts and magnificent festivals, composing all the time a stream of orchestral, operatic and chamber pieces.

Haydn is often regarded as the "father" of the symphony. Although other symphonic composers predate him, his output of over one hundred symphonies singles him out, particularly for their high artistic quality. The symphonies he composed in the years around 1770, which include No 52, are widely described as exemplifying his Sturm und Drang style. The most commonly cited feature of the style is the use of the minor key for at least part of the work. Symphony No 52 is mainly in the key of C minor, although it moves into the major mode in the second movement and the trio of the minuet.