Banbury Symphony Orchestra is a Registered Charity. No. 239112

Spring Concert 2012 Saturday 24 March 2012 St Marys Church, Banbury

Programme 1

Welcome to our Spring concert!

Our spring concert begins with the Russlan and Ludmilla overture from

Glinkas five act opera. This overture is a joyful piece, brimming with

excitement to get the concert off to an exhilarating start. We then have two

tone poems by Delius; A Song Before Sunrise and On Hearing the First Cuckoo

in Spring evoking pastoral scenes reminiscent of the English countryside at

this special time of year when all is awaking. Parrys Symphonic Variations

completes the first half of the concert. Finally, and continuing the feeling of

awakening, our concert concludes with Dvoraks 8th Symphony, and

wonderfully lyrical work in which the composer makes great use of his

beloved Bohemian folk melodies.

Glinka: Russlan and Ludmilla overture

Delius: A Song Before Sunrise/On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring

Parry: Symphonic Variations

Interval

Dvorak: Symphony No. 8

Thanks again for being with us. 2012 is going to be an exciting year for us all,

with celebrations for the Queens diamond jubilee and the Olympic Games

hosted in London in the summer. To celebrate this, we have a British themed

family summer concert planned which will feature works by Elgar, Britten and

Vaughan Williams. Please make a note in your diary to join us again at St

Marys on Saturday 14 July 2012, at 6pm.

Paul Willett Conductor

Paul Willett studied violin, singing and piano

as a student but his main instrument was the

French horn. When Paul was 16, he gained

his Performance Diploma from The Royal

College of Music. Paul went on to read music

on scholarship at The Queens College,

Oxford, and studied for his teaching

certificate in Music and Physical Education at

Reading University.

For several years Paul combined teaching and freelance playing. He has given solo

recitals and performed concertos throughout the country. He was a member of The

Five Winds, a group that performed both at home and abroad, and also on BBC

radio. Paul also worked as a brass teacher for Oxfordshire Music Service and was

director of a Saturday Music School of 200 students.

Paul now combines class teaching with conducting various ensembles, both adult

and youth. He is also in demand as an adjudicator for both adult and student

competitions. Paul is Deputy Headteacher at Didcot Girls School.

Jenny Maynard - Leader Sadly, our regular leader, Anna Fleming, broke her wrist in January. We send her our best wishes for a speedy recovery, and look forward to welcoming her back as leader for the summer concert. Our leader for this concert is Jenny Maynard.

Jenny started playing the violin at the age of eight.

She led her County Youth and University Symphony

Orchestras, and has subsequently always played an active part in local orchestras

and other musical ensembles wherever she has lived. She has recently studied the

violin with Roger Coull of the Coull Quartet. Jenny leads a busy life as Senior

Teaching Fellow in Accounting at the University of Warwick together with other

professional accountancy appointments, which includes plenty of playing, including

the Banbury Symphony Orchestra, the Cherwell Orchestra, Oriflamme and a quartet.

.

Glinka: Russlan and Ludmilla overture

Mikhail Glinka is considered to be the father of modern Russian music. His

nationalistic, Russian style was a seminal influence on all Russian composers who

followed, from Rimsky-Korsakov to Tchaikovsky to Stravinsky.

The director of the Imperial Theater in St. Petersburg suggested that Glinka adapt

Pushkin's epic poem, Ruslan and Ludmilla, as an opera. The poem tells of the

abduction of Ludmilla by an evil sorcerer, Chernomor, from a party given for

Ludmilla's three suitors, one of whom is Ruslan. Each suitor rides off to save the girl,

encountering a fantastic assortment of witches, hermits, magic castles, enchanted

gardens, magic swords, and so forth, rather in the style of the tales of the Arabian

Nights. The sorcerer is vanquished in the end by Ruslan, who revives Ludmilla from a

trance and wins her hand in marriage.

The opera is a musicological travelogue, with themes based on Russian, Finnish,

Tartar, and Persian music, all brilliantly orchestrated. Folk songs represent Ruslan's

Russia, while whole-tone harmonies depict the magical world of the sorcerer

Chernomor. Glinka's inspiration for the overture was particularly down-to-earth. He

attended a wedding dinner at the Russian court, and later wrote: "I was up in the

balcony, and the clattering of knives, forks and plates made such an impression on

me that I had the idea to imitate them in the prelude to Ruslan. I later did so, with

fair success." The overture consists of two main themes, the first driving and

rhythmic (one hopes the servants at the dinner Glinka attended weren't really

rushing at this speed!), the second more lyrical and reminiscent of courtly dances.

Delius: A Song Before Sunrise/On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring

A Song Before Sunrise. In the summer of 1918, with the Great War grinding slowly to its

end and the troubling symptom of syphilitic paralysis which over the next seven years

would turn the vigorous Delius into a helpless invalid the composer sought a cure in the

baths at Biarritz, where he composed A Song Before Sunrise. In its brevity (playing

about six minutes), keenness of orchestral detail, and evocative power, it might easily

make a third to the Two Pieces for Small Orchestra "On Hearing the First Cuckoo in

Spring" and "Summer Night on the River" from before the war. Indeed, it has the

character of "'Cuckoo' revisited," though where the latter and its companion exude an

elegiac, almost mystical, rapture, A Song Before Sunrise is redolent with tongue-in-

cheek blitheness. Delius is even said to have likened the clarinet figure in the last bars

to a rooster's sunrise greeting. Dedicated to Philip Heseltine (known as Peter Warlock

to all lovers of English song) the piece was first given by Sir Henry Wood at a

Promenade Concert in September, 1923.

On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring was composed in 1912 and first performed in

Leipzig on October 2, 1913. The work opens with a slow three-bar sequence; its first

theme is an exchange of cuckoo calls, first for oboe, then for divided strings. The

second theme of the piece is scored for first violins, and is taken from a Norwegian folk

song, "In Ola Valley", which was brought to his attention by the Australian composer

and folk-song arranger Percy Grainger. (The theme was also quoted by Edvard Grieg in

his 19 Norwegian Folksongs, Op. 66.) The clarinet returns with the cuckoo calls before

the piece ends in pastoral fashion.

Frederick Delius was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, on 29th January 1862. 2012 is

therefore his 150th anniversary, and The Delius Society is giving as much support as

possible to publicising it, and securing performances of his music - particularly works

which are rarely performed.

For further information refer to http://www.delius.org.uk

Parry: Symphonic Variations

Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, 1st Baronet (27 February 1848 7 October 1918) was

an English composer, teacher and historian of music.

Parry's first major works appeared in 1880. As a composer he is best known for the

choral song "Jerusalem", the coronation anthem "I was glad" and the hymn tune

"Repton", which sets the words "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind". He was director of

the Royal College of Music from 1895 until his death and was also professor of music at

the University of Oxford from 1900 to 1908.

Influenced as a composer principally by Bach and Brahms, Parry evolved a powerful

diatonic style which itself greatly influenced future English composers such

as Elgar and Vaughan Williams. His own full development as a composer was almost

certainly hampered by the immense amount of work he took on, but his energy and

charisma, not to mention his abilities as a teacher and administrator, helped establish

art music at the centre of English cultural life. He collaborated with the poet Robert

Bridges, and was responsible for many books on music, including The Evolution of the

Art of Music (1896), the third volume of the Oxford History of Music (1907) and a study

of Bach (1909).

Parry's Symphonic Variations were doubtless partly inspired by Dvork's work of the

same name, by Brahms's "Haydn" Variations, and by the passacaglia finale of the

German composer's Fourth Symphony. In the concentrated complexity of its motivic

development, Parry's work constitutes a historical bridge between Brahms's variation

techniques and those of Schoenberg. Commissioned by London's Philharmonic Society,

Parry's work was premiered on June 3, 1897.

Dvok: Symphony No. 8

The Symphony No. 8 in G major, Op. 88, B. 163, was composed and orchestrated by

Antonn Dvok within the two-and-a-half-month period from August 26 to November

8 1889 in Vysok u Pbrami, Bohemia. The score was dedicated: "To the Bohemian

Academy of Emperor Franz Joseph for the Encouragement of Arts and Literature, in

thanks for my election." Dvok conducted the premiere in Prague on February 2, 1890.

The Eighth Symphony is performed fairly frequently, but not nearly as often as the

more famous Ninth Symphony ("From the New World"). In this regard the Eighth enjoys

a similar status to the Seventh Symphony, despite the two works' marked differences.

While the Seventh is a stormy romantic work, the Eighth is cheery and draws its

inspiration more from the Bohemian folk music that Dvok loved.

A typical performance of the Eighth lasts about 36 minutes, making it one of Dvok's

shorter symphonies.

The work is in four movements:

1. Allegro con brio (G major) The first movement is a powerful and glowing

exposition characterized by liberal use of timpani. It opens with a lyrical G minor

theme in the cellos, horns, clarinets and bassoon with violas and double basses

pizzicato. This gives way to a "bird call" flute melody. The general cheery nature

of this movement is contrasted sharply by the more ominous minor-key sections.

2. Adagio (C minor) Despite being marked Adagio the second movement, in

reality, moves along at quite a reasonable speed. It begins with a typically

beautiful clarinet duet and ends quietly, but contentedly.

3. Allegretto grazioso Molto vivace (G minor) Most of the third movement is a

melancholy waltz in 3/8 time. Near the end, the meter changes to 2/4, and the

music ends in a manner not unlike that of the second movement.

4. Allegro ma non troppo (G major) The finale (formally a set of variations) is the

most turbulent movement. It begins with a fanfare of trumpets, then progresses

to a beautiful melody which is first played by the cellos. The tension is

masterfully built and finally released at approximately two minutes into the

piece, with a cascade of instruments triumphantly playing the initial theme at a

somewhat faster pace. From there, following an enormous flute solo, the

movement compellingly progresses through a tempestuous middle section,

modulating from major to minor several times throughout. After a return to the

slow, lyrical section, the piece ends on a chromatic coda, in which brass and

timpani are greatly prominent.

Banbury Symphony Orchestra Management Committee:

Jonathan Rowe (Chair), Kathryn Whiteway (Secretary), Jennifer Hubble Rachel McCubbin, Lyn Gosney, Anna Fleming, Andrew Waite

Conductor - Paul Willett

Violin I Piccolo Tuba Jenny Maynard (Leader) Nick Planas James Bolton-King Geoff Kent

Claire Humphries

Marianne Robinson

Euphonium Penny Tolmie

Oboe

Rory Cartmell Heidi Robertson Emma Wahlen Jo Sandy Diana Lewis Percussion

Graham Buckner Justin Rhodes Kathryn Whiteway

Bass Oboe Sue Woolhouse Christine Griggs Liam Halloran

Violin II

Ian Smith

Cor Anglais Timpani Rachel Sansome Malcolm Rowson Keith Crompton Trish Evans David Martin Andrew Waite Clarinet Rachel Saunders Antony Allen Harp Gill Walker

Claire Thomas Anna Lockett Rosemary Wilson Sue Shields Karina Bell

Viola

Bass Clarinet

Celesta Alice Palmer

Nia Williams

Gill Barbour Jonathan Rowe

Bassoon Soprano Voices (Planas):

Conrad Woolley

Ian McCubbin

India Shaw-Smith Rachel James Kayleigh Manley

Cello Cathy Gray Kelly Hampson Miranda Ricardo

Contra Bassoon

Jennifer Hubble

Ian White Janet Parsons

Horn

Peter Button

Bob Powell

Ruth Mankelow Simon Mead Chris Seddon David Settle

Graham Appleton Richard Hartree

Helen Barnby-Porritt

Double Bass

Raymond Joyce Robert Gilchrist

George Bone

Jo Hammond

Trumpet

Jane Martin Tony Chittock

Sarah Turnock

Ron Barnett

Martin Mills

Flute Catherine Underwood Rachel McCubbin

Trombone

Sue Wain Paul Macey

Alto flute Gary Clifton

Nick Planas Malcolm Saunders

Dates for your diary

Our next concert in 2012: Saturday 14 July 2012, 6.00pm St Marys Church, Banbury.

Elgar: Cockaigne overture

Britten: Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes

Vaughan Williams: London Symphony

Website Please visit our website for more information www.banburysymphony.org Patrons of Banbury Symphony Orchestra

Mrs H. M. W. Rivett Lady Saye and Sele

We are very grateful to our patrons for their financial support. If you would like to make a donation, please send a cheque made payable to Banbury Symphony Orchestra to The Chairman, Jonathan Rowe, 5 Rectory Road, Hook Norton, Oxon OX15 5QQ or e-mail him on rowe4jkt@fastmail.fm Please also fill in a Gift Aid declaration that can be obtained from Jonathan, which enables the orchestra to claim an additional 25p for every 1 donated by taxpayers. All programme notes taken from Wikipedia

Our Sponsors

Banbury Symphony Orchestra has welcomed Spratt Endicott as sponsors since the start of 2006. Spratt Endicott is pleased to be associated with Banbury Symphony Orchestra. We place particular emphasis on delivering effective legal solutions to the problems faced by businesses and private clients alike. Our approach is proactive and we listen to our clients and take pride in our efforts to achieve their objectives. Spratt Endicott Become a Friend of the orchestra. Its FREE! Friends of the Banbury Symphony Orchestra enjoy the following benefits:

Regular updates on the orchestra

Information about forthcoming concerts If you would like to become a friend or would like to know more, please visit our website, or contact Rachel McCubbin on 01608 645589 or e-mail her: rachelmccubbin@btinternet.com. Are you interested in joining the orchestra? If you play an instrument to a standard of Grade 7 or above and would like to play with the orchestra, find out more by contacting Anna Fleming on 01295 780017. All rehearsals take place at Banbury School during term time on Tuesday evenings,

7:309:30pm.