About
Friday 16 Sept 7.30pm
£15 unreserved
National Centre for Early Music, St Margaret’s Church
Concert by Festival Artists
Tristan Gurney,
Jonathan Stone (violins)
Sarah-Jane Bradley,
Scott Dickenson (violas)
Marie Bitlloch,
Tim Lowe (cellos)
Josef Haydn (1732-1809)
String Quartet Op. 76, No. 2 “Fifths”
Jean Sibelius (1865 – 1957)
String Trio in G minor
Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897)
String Sextet B flat
String groups of three, four and six make up this concert!
In his late fifties Haydn travelled twice to London. What he discovered there was nothing like the rarefied, intimate salon of the aristocratic court he had been used to but an 800-seat hall buzzing with all sorts of people, attentive and excited. In response Haydn composed quartet music that was vibrant with virtuosic playing, wonderfully tuneful; attention grabbing. Back in Vienna this creative energy carried forward to the quartets of Op. 76, his last set of six. Fantastic music touching the edge of Romanticism and even foreshadowing modernism over the horizon.
Sibelius’s string trio is also from his mature chamber music period. It was never finished apart from the Lento. It is an experimental piece with a mix of different forms and in the process creates a large symphonic arch spanning the entire movement. This technique led to the one-movement form of his last, great Seventh Symphony (1924).
Coming out from under the shadow of the mighty Beethoven the twenty six year old Brahms found his own voice using two cellos and two violas, alongside violins, to produce a sound-world that has a gentle charm with a visceral, mellow, golden glow. Brahms’s String Sextet in B Flat is one of the most comforting and popular works in the repertoire. Perhaps, these days, we need to bask in such music.
York Chamber Music Festival Opening Hours
NCEM BOX OFFICE
St Margaret's Church,
Walmgate, York, YO1 9TL
Monday - Friday | 9am - 5pm
