Yoko Ono, when married to Beatles star John Lennon, created, with Lennon, three albums titled “Unfinished Music”, and Ono herself a book titled “Everything in the Universe is Unfinished”. “I never want projects to be finished”; said Ono, “I have always believed in unfinished work”. I got that from Schubert, you know, the ‘Unfinished Symphony.’”

Whether Schubert’s eighth Symphony was deliberately left unfinished or whether he forgot to finish it, or whether it was really ‘unfinished’ at all, has been debated ever since the work was discovered. Antonin Dvorak nearly didn’t get to complete his Violin Concerto because a world-renowned violinist kept wanting him to make changes to it, So Dvorak called ‘time’ and gave the concerto to another violinist to premiere.

​On the other hand, in the tradition of Christina Rosetti who claimed that the only thing sadder than an unfinished work, is one never begun, Felix Mendelssohn’s 3rd (or Scottish) Symphony, nearly didn’t get started. Having written down notes for it during a trip to Scotland, he embarked on a trip to Italy and was so taken with sights and sounds he found there that he forgot - until he went to write was to become his 4th (or Italian) Symphony.

No such concerns, however, for Mozart – so much music was there in his head! And especially should there be a young woman in the offing, and more so, again, if her father was a man of influence. Finished in seemingly no time at all, Mozart’s 9th Piano Concerto was his first fully mature piano concerto, dedicated to the young woman in question, and one he took as a show piece for a tour of Mannheim and Paris.

Details about our September programme and links to the recordings played can be found below.
 
 
Session Notes  13th September
Rossini - Overture to The Silken Ladder
Mendelssohn - Symphony No.3
Dvorak - Violin Concerto
 
Session Notes  27th September
Smetana - Overture to The Bartered Bride
Schubert - Rondo in A
Schubert - Symphony No.8
Mozart - Piano Concerto No.9
​

“Why fit in when you are born to stand out” is an ‘Elephant-in-the-Room’ quote often attributed to children’s author Dr Suess.

It could be applied to Johannes Brahms for whom Beethoven was the ‘elephant-in-the-room’ when it came to symphonic writing. Living in the shadow of Beethoven, Brahms was reluctant to compose a symphony for fear of it being compared to those of Beethoven. Hence it took him at least fourteen years to complete his first symphony.

It could be applied to Gabriel Fauré when he composed music for that classic ‘elephant-in-the-room” subject “death”. Faure’s Requiem is unique. He doesn’t comply totally with the traditional text. The anguish, loss and horrors of Death and Judgement Day, common to musical settings by other composers, are left by the wayside. Fauré concentrates on the true meaning of the word "Requiem", or "rest". His Requiem is about peaceful acceptance and release, and the music is serene, elevating, comforting.

Beethoven’s own ‘elephant-in-the-room’ was his ‘Septet for Wind and Strings’. The concert-going public loved it so much to the detriment of their acceptance of other works of his - works which Beethoven considered superior - that he could not bear to talk about it. “I wish I had burnt it”, he is reputed to have said of the Septet. 

For your interest and enjoyment here are the links to the notes and recordings for these and other works which occupied us in the month of August.
 
Session Notes 9th August
Introduction to Academic Festival Overture
Brahms - Academic Festival Overture
Beethoven - Septet
Webern - Langsamer Satz
Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 12
 
Session Notes  23rd August
Beethoven - Prometheus Overture
Brahms - Symphony No.1
Faure Requiem - Netherlands Choir
Faure Requiem - Kings College Choir
Faure Requiem - Latin to English Text
 
Bill Squire.

English author CS Lewis wrote: “Devils are depicted with bats' wings and good angels with birds' wings, not because anyone holds that moral deterioration would be likely to turn feathers into membrane, but because most men like birds better than bats”.

Birds, angels, and devils, featured largely in our July programmes. For a university graduation ceremony Finnish composer Rautavaara wrote a “Concerto for Birds and Orchestra” in which the orchestra part is juxtaposed with bird sounds from the Lapland bogs and marshes recorded by the composer himself. His fellow compatriot Sibelius was inspired by the sight of swans flying overhead as he wrote the final movement of his 5th Symphony. Violinist Niccolo Paganini was such a genius that rumours were put about that his soul had been sold to the devil – the violin sometimes being described as the devil’s instrument only adding to the spread of the rumours. We listened to and watched the playing of his first violin concerto – a ‘devilishly difficult’ work to master. Argentinian musician Astor Piazolla reimagined the Tango which while winning admiration in some quarters saw him receiving a ‘devil of a time’ from others for meddling with the sounds of the people”. Richard Strauss had a similar reception for the first outing of his tone poem ‘Don Juan’.

As for ‘bats’, maybe that could apply to this convenor for presenting works this month that were ‘new’ both in composition and to the class members. You be the judge, however. Links to the notes and recordings played are listed below.

Bill Squire.

Albert Einstein once said: “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new”. Robert Schumann made a grave mistake in experimenting with a device to strengthen his fingers for his planned future as a concert pianist. It so damaged his fingers that it ruined any chance of his becoming a pianist. This led to his turning to a career in musical composition. The outcome of this decision to try something new was his being acclaimed one of the most important composers of the nineteenth century. Schumann succeeded in a magnificent manner by composing what is acclaimed “probably the most beautiful of Romantic concertos. This flawless masterpiece is one of the most outstanding and romantically inspired concertos in the repertoire”.

Austrian-American composer Arnold Schoenberg thought Brahm’s 1st Piano Quartet was something of a “mistake” because the piano tended to overwhelm the other instruments. 70-plus years after the event he decided to do something new with it by arranging it for Orchestra so that the other instruments could be heard. Schoenberg’s transcription has been variously described as a “masterpiece” and as “an over-rated travesty”.

Antonin Dvorak began his working life as a butcher. At the age of 13 he was inducted into the Butcher’s Guild of Zlonice. Thankfully for us, and audiences the world over, his musical talent shone through and he changed career path. in 1889 he was inducted into the Bohemian Academy of Science, Literature and Arts. His 8th symphony was composed in celebration of his election.

These compositions were the prime focus of our June sessions. More detail and description of other works plus links to the recordings played are available below.


​Bill Squire.

14th June
Session Notes
Glinka - Overture Ruslan and Ludmilla
Brahms -  Piano Quartet No. 1
Tchaikovsky -  The Seasons (Complete)
Telemann - Flute Concerto in D


28th June
Session Notes
Schumann - Manfred Overture
Dvorak - Symphony No.8
Schumann - Piano Concerto

“To Richard Strauss, the composer, I take off my hat,” the conductor Arturo Toscanini once famously declared. “To Richard Strauss, the man, I put it on again.” Strauss, at one stage in his life was connected, musically, to Hitler’s Third Reich. Toscanini’s distinction between the individual and his work raises an age-old conundrum about art and morality: Should we allow the details of an artist’s biography to affect the way we view their work? Perhaps there is no easy answer, so perhaps we take their music as we find it and enjoy it for how that is. Which is how we approached Richard Strauss’  tone poem: “A Hero’s Life”.

Sergei Rachmaninov had his brush with politics finding himself on the receiving end of the wrath of Soviet Union officialdom following the publication of a critical letter that he’d written about the regime. His music was banned in Russia, allowing for neither its study nor its performance. Happily elsewhere it found acclaim and we were able to enjoy his Third Symphony – the penultimate work of a long career.

Similarly, Dmitri Shostakovich found himself in an ‘on and off’ relationship with the State. At an ‘on’ time he penned a Festive Overture to celebrate an anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Meanwhile in wartime England Ralph Vaughan-Williams was arrested on suspicion of being a German spy. It turned out he was making notes for a work to become known as “A Lark Ascending”.
​
Happily, other music for this month by Beethoven, Grieg and Mozart came without any political motivation or overtones. hence, they were able to be enjoyed simply for the beauty of the music. Details and links to the notes and recordings follow:
 
Session Notes  10th May
Beethoven - Consecration of the House
Rachmaninoff - Symphony No.3
Grieg - Piano Concerto
 
Session Notes  24th May
Shostakovich - Festive Overture
Richard Strauss - A Hero's Life
Additional Notes to 'A Hero's Life'
Vaughan-Williams - The Lark Ascending
Mozart -  Eine Kleine Nachtmusik


Bill Squire

“What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.” William Shakespeare uses this line in his play Romeo and Juliet to convey that the naming of things is irrelevant. Composer Robert Schumann would disagree. For Schumann, everything was in a name, and his own was legion. Most famous of all are Florestan and Eusebius, whom Schumann labelled the two emotional extremes in his changeable personality -  the active and the passive aspects of his personality. Florestan, an outward-going, robust figure; Eusebius, moody and introspective. These also appear regularly in Schumann’s music. His second Symphony is a good example with its contrasting moods of quiet reflection and exuberant hyperactivity. This, the main focus of the first of our April sessions, was bookended by a Telemann Overture and Felix Mendelssohn’s Octet for strings, composed at sixteen years of age. Interestingly, Telemann’s music was an enormous influence on Mendelssohn’s more than a century later, and Mendelssohn was the conductor for the premiere of Schumann 2nd Symphony.

If Schumann’s mental state was his “Achille’s Heel”, Beethoven’s was his encroaching deafness which, at times,  drove him to despair and, like Schumann, to thoughts of suicide. It was in the midst of this anguish that Beethoven’s Second Symphony was born. A work which bewildered critics at the time, others since have come to see it as filled with spirited vitality, humour and frivolity – “music which glances backwards while looking forwards”. This was the first part of a double bill in our second April session, the other being Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.23 – it also being a work expressing powerful emotions. Another composer of powerful emotions was British composer Ethel Smyth whose campaigning for women’s rights aa well as her music both landed her in gaol and in performance in the drawing room of Queen Victoria; and later the first composer to be made a Dame of the British Empire. We heard the Overture to her opera “The Wreckers”.

​Links to the recordings and the notes for the 2nd session may be accessed by clicking on the links below. Hopefully notes for the first session will be posted as soon as possible.

​
Bill Squire. 

14th April Session Notes - to be added shortly.  

G.Ph. Telemann Ouverture-Suite in D major, I Ouverture, TWV 55D1 (Musique de table Tafelmusik).mp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbLYcAu7BNA​

Symphony No. 2 Robert Schumann Dowland Lachrimae Antiquae Klaus Mäkelä Oslo Philharmonic.mp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxbfkZ_BzwU&t=5s​

Felix Mendelssohn String Octet in E-flat major, Op. 20.mp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL1xiQ93L7A

28th April Session Notes (pdf)

YouTube Links to Recordings:

Ethel Smyth Overture to The Wreckers - Queer Urban Orchestra.mp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbpp2tiNCXk

Beethoven Symphony No. 2 in D major, op 36 Christian Theilemann & Wiener Philharmoniker.mp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdvcIE6kVuE&t=2127s

​Mozart Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major K 488 Evgeny Kissin mp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4S6UYv8-W4&t=711s

“Here they grow in mountain depths. Far from any dwelling place. And no one comes to view their blooms” (from a poem by Japanese noble woman, poet, and author, Lady Sarashina). Ann Boyd, the first woman to be appointed as professor of music at the University of Sydney said in reflecting on those words: “It felt to me like it was the voice of all the women composers that had ever composed in the world before”. “They create great beauty but no one listens, no one hears, they don’t have a permanent place. And I felt one of them”. An ABC presenter introducing a programme for International Women’s Week on ABC FM a couple years ago took a more positive stand: “Throughout history people have said some very strange things to, and about, women in classical music. And for just as long, women have been doing incredible things anyway”.

It was with both those thoughts in mind that one of our sessions in March was given over to honour the music and the fortitude of women composers and musicians down through the ages and to showcase some of their wonderful music.  You can read about and listen to just some their music as was presented to our group by clicking on the links below. For the record, the other March session featured works by Rimsky-Korsakov, Felix Mendelssohn, and Max Bruch – all of them male composers. But don’t let that put you off -  it’s equally good and enjoyable music, too; and likewise, the links to the notes and recordings are posted below.   
              
Bill Squire

Session Notes – 22nd March Women Composers

Fanny Mendelssohn - Overture in C
Hildegarde of Bingen - De Spiritu Sancto
Emilie Mayer -  Piano Concerto in B flat major
Clara Schumann - Three Romances for Violin and Piano
Germaine Tailleferre - Sonata for Harp
Maddalene Lombardini-Sirman - Quartet No.3 Opus 2

 
Session Notes – 8th March
Additional Notes to Bruch's Scottish Fantasy
​
Rimsky-Korsakov - Russian Easter Festival Overture
Mendelssohn - 5th Symphony
Bruch - Scottish Fantasy

​Ayn Rand, Russian - American writer and philosopher - once wrote “To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul - would you understand why that's much harder”?
​
Italian composer Guiseppe Tartini had a dream in which he was invited by the Devil sell his soul in return for which the devil would become Tartini’s servant. In the process Tartini saw and heard the Devil playing him a melody on the violin. That was the easy bit. The hard part came when Tartini awoke and tried to remember the melody devil had played!. The result was his Sonata in G which featured as one of the “pipe-openers” for this year’s musical excursions.

Beethoven, Mozart, Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky with a little Wagner and Rossini made for some “easy” listening as we welcomed new members to our group.

Not so easy was to bid “Goodbye” to world famous Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa who died during the month.

You can read and listen to our tribute to him along with the notes and recordings for both of our February sessions by accessing the links below:
​
Bill Squire

Session Notes  9th February
Overture to Tannhauser
Beethoven - Piano Concerto No.1
Tartini - 'Devil's Trill' Sonata
Mozart - Oboe Concerto
 
Session Notes   23rd February
Rossini - Overture to The Italian Girl in Algiers
Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition
Tchaikovsky - Serenade for Strings
Beethoven - Choral Fantasy (Ozawa)
Ozawa - Broadcast to Outer Space 

An important date for you diary - Music Appreciation 2024 commences on Friday 9th February and is held on the 2nd & 4th Friday of the month – 10 am to 12 noon.

Bill Squire

Too long, strange, complicated, were words that once were not uncommon when it came to describing some of Beethoven’s music. His (one and only) violin concerto proved so difficult at its premiere that the soloist gave up with the piece altogether, choosing instead to improvise. People left the concert feeling confused at best, ‘exhausted’ at worst. The Violin Concerto didn’t sink into utter obscurity, but it was rarely performed in the four decades following its lukewarm debut. When it was performed, reviewers usually talked about how talented the soloist was to pull off such an attempt, rather than praising the concerto itself. Such was our experience as we watched a performance of the concerto so scintillating as to seemingly confine to obscurity the orchestral suite by Australian composer Nigel Westlake and the Mozart symphony that made up the rest of our one and only session for the month (and our final programme for this year). The links to the session notes and links and to the video recordings used are posted below.
​
Bill Squire
 
Session Notes
Westlake - Flying Dream
Beethoven - Violin Concerto
Mozart - Symphony No.40
​

What do you do if someone goes to sleep during your performance of your latest work? That’s what happened to Brahms while Liszt was introducing his brand-new Sonata in B minor. Clearly he wasn’t impressed, Nor was Clara Schumann to whose husband, Robert, the work was dedicated. “Blind noise”. “Just awful”, were two of her comments. Yet it became in some other’s eyes, a masterpiece  - an essential part of any aspiring concert pianist’s repertoire.

I didn’t notice if any of our group “did a Brahms” as it was played during one of our October sessions, but if it wasn’t to everyone’s musical taste, the rendition we saw at the hands of an upcoming Russian pianist in a winning performance at this year’s Tchaikovsky competition was something else indeed.

Brahms also featured earlier in the month in a chamber version of his Serenade for Orchestra – a work that helped bring the composer to the attention of the musical world and served also as an introduction for him to the art of symphonic writing.

But it was Steven Isserlis’ performance of Haydn’s 1st cello concerto that had our group talking the most.

Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro composed for the purpose of a harp manufacturer to show off their latest instrument (and stave off competition from a rival manufacturer) introduced the month’s music programme, while Mozart’s 39th (but not his last) symphony brought down the curtain on the second of our gatherings.

Click on the relevant link below to access notes and recordings.

Bill Squire

13th October:
Session Notes 
Ravel - Introduction and Allegro
Brahms - Serenade for Orchestra
Haydn - Cello Concerto No.1
 
27th October:
Session Notes 
Ramaeu - Pieces de Clavacin No.5
Liszt - Sonata in B minor
Mozart - Symphony No. 39

“It simply wrote itself”, commented Sergei Rachmaninoff on the melody that comprised the major theme of his 3rd Piano Concerto. Perhaps that could be the wish of many of us as we get older and brain fade tendencies seem to increase! That melody, however, was to grow into one of the towering masterpieces composed for the keyboard and formed the centrepiece of the first of our September sessions.

Unlike Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky could relate to some degree of brain fade. Struggling to compose his 5th Symphony, he frequently complained of ‘writer’s block’ and began to wonder whether he has simply run out of ideas. History demonstrates, of course, that nothing was further from the truth.  This symphony with its theme of “ultimate victory through sacrifice”, was ordered to be played during the World War II Siege of Leningrad in an endeavour to keep up the spirits of the city’s population, thus ensuring its popularity. One performance was broadcast live to London and listeners could hear the sounds of bombs exploding as the musicians played on.  This symphony was the central item for the second of our sessions this month - but without any added sound effects of bombs. 

A Spring Festival Overture by Chinese composer Li Huanzhi and Schumann’s Spring Symphony helped put spring into our step as we celebrated the arrival of the new season, while Smetena’s romantic “The Moldau” and Bruch’s 1st Violin Concerto with its dreamy adagio movement, proved a perfect foil to the drama of Tchaikovsky Symphony.  

Bill Squire

​Click on the links below to access session notes and recordings.

Self-portraits come in a variety of forms. Some are with a paintbrush, some with a camera, others with a pen. It would seem only right - and natural, even - that a musician would choose music. Which is what Camille Saint-Saens is said to have done in his 3rd Symphony. Within in its walls are aspects of the composer – his talents, his doubts, his belief, his fears and his hopes. All his instruments are there – a pipe organ (has was a church organist at one time), the piano (which he had played since childhood), his passion for sacred music, the love of logic and balance (there are two movements each with two sections), the forces of darkness (the Deus Irae haunts the work) and finally there is the element of hope as the symphony gradually progresses from darkness to light. Some say it is expressive of his hope of resurrection, although it is well documented that Saint-Saens was not at all religious. Perhaps his aim was to demonstrate the spiritual power of music. Whatever, it was the standout work we looked at in our August sessions.

Beethoven’s 4th piano concerto which we also heard deserves more acclaim than it gets – tending to be overlooked - coming as it does between the monumental 3rd and 5th concertos - so two totally different recordings were viewed. Love is often in the air when music is being composed and Brahms’ love for Clara Schumann may have inspired his 1st violin sonata, while Mahler’s Adagietto from his 5th symphony definitely was instrumental in the wooing of Anna, his wife to be. These and the ubiquitous overture - every good music programme should start with one – made for happy watching and listening. The video recordings together with the explanatory notes for each performance can be accessed via the links below.  

Finally, a reminder that our class on Friday 22nd September has been rescheduled to the Friday 29th September.
​
Bill Squire.


Session Notes   - 11th August
 
Weber - Euryanthe Overture
 
Saint-Saens - Symphony No.3
 
Mahler - Adagietto from Symphony No. 5
 
Mozart - Piano Trio K 502
 
Session Notes  - 25th August
 
Rossini - Thieving Magpie Overture
 
Beethoven - Piano Concerto No.4 - Soloist Nelson Freire
 
Beethoven - Piano Concerto No.4 - Soloist Eric Lu
 
Brahms - Violin Sonata No. 1

“Listening to the music while stretching her body close to its limit, she was able to attain a mysterious calm. She was simultaneously the torturer and the tortured, the forcer and the forced”. That quote by Japanese writer and translator Haruki Murakami, kind of describes some of the class reactions to the first of our June sessions as we endeavoured to get our musical minds around Karl Jenkins’ composition The Armed Man, commissioned by the British Royal Armourers to mark the transition from the 20th to the 21st century and their move to a new Museum in Leeds.  Dedicated by the composer to the victims of the Kosovo conflict, the work is a 13 movement Mass for peace loosely set within the Christian Mass, with additional texts from Muslim and Hindu sources and secular writers. A mind and body exercise occupying us for the whole of the session.

No such concerns with our second session as we watched a scintillating performance of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No 1 given in the final round of the 18th Chopin Competition in 2021. The work was bookended in our programme by Mozart’s Overture to Don Giovanni and Schumann’s Symphony No.4 leaving us in a buoyant mood as the curtain came down on Semester 1.  Semester 2 for us kicks off on Friday 14th July.

Meanwhile you can check out recordings and notes for our June programmes below.  Enjoy!

Bill Squires

Session Notes  9th June 

Karl Jenkins - The Armed Man

​Session Notes  23rd June

Mozart - Don Giovanni Overture

Chopin - Piano Concerto No 1
​
Schumann - Symphony No.4

It has been said that “the most glorious works of art, the ones that bring the purest joy – perhaps they need not be touched or known, but seen only with the heart”.

Both of the major musical compositions for the month of May can be understood a “masterpieces in their own way.

​Debussy’s ‘La Mer’ – an impression of the sea as seen from the heart - is regarded today as a masterpiece of musical impressionism, although that wasn’t always the case. The premiere of the work in 1905 was met with a mixture of boos, whistles and restrained applause. There were no boos and whistles as our group listened to it, and neither was there an enthusiastic reception overall. Masterpiece or not, impressionism is clearly not to everyone’s taste.

Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 was regarded by Brahms as a “masterpiece of art, full of inspiration and ideas. Beethoven remarked to a pianist friend “we’ll never be able to write anything like that”, while some scholars and musicologists claim it to be one of the greatest piano concertos ever composed. Yet this concerto is written in the minor key - unlike most of Mozart compositions – and so for other listeners a work not easily recognisable as belonging to Mozart. Such was the case with our group’s listening experience.

For those reading this, then, perhaps you can listen to each and form your own opinion. It’s all available (recordings and notes) via the links below. While you are at it, why not check out the rest of the month’s music selections: - something a little more recognisable as Mozart, some Mendelssohn and Haydn, Tchaikovsky and, of course, given the other big event of the month, some Coronation music.


Bill Squire.
 
 
Session Notes 12th May
 
Session Notes 26th May
 
Debussy - La Mer
 
Mozart - Piano Concerto No.24
 
Mozart Symphony No.35
 
Handel - Zadok the Priest
 
Handel - The King Shall Rejoice
 
Handel - Let Thy Hand be Strengthened
 
Elgar -  Pomp and Circumstance March No.1
 
Mendelssohn - Hebrides Overture
 
Haydn - Symphony No. 83
 
Tchaikovsky - Capriccio Italien

When is a symphony not a symphony? When it’s an overture! Maksym Berezovsky (the Ukrainian Mozart) composed a Symphony in C lasting all of nine minutes, which also doubled as the overture to his one and only opera “Il Demonfonte”, and also as the ‘overture’ to our first session for April. 

Friedrich Nietzsche, a highly poetic philosopher was all the rage in Germany when Richard Strauss was a young man. Strauss set to music a wildly rhapsodic book of his called Thus Spake Zarathustra, which was the major focus for our group this session. The work isn't really about Zarathustra at all. Nietzsche simply used Zarathustra as a spokesman, a sort of prophet—hero, into whose mouth he put his own philosophy. Strauss’ "Zarathustra" is a music picture of man's greatest problem—his mortality, the grim fact that he must die. This painful problem is shown in terms of a conflict—the struggle between Man's tremendous need for immortality, and his equally strong need to accept the fact that he is mortal. It's a struggle we all share.

A little bit of Russian fairytale by way of contrast - Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite - completed the morning. As an encore the Pas de Deux from the Firebird ballet was danced courtesy of the Mariinsky Ballet Company.

The ‘Overture to get session two underway came from the pen of Robert Schumann in the form of his “Overture, Scherzo and Finale”. Written in the wake of his marriage to Clara Wieck (after a long and tortuous courtship made difficult by Clara’s father), it is essentially a symphony without a slow movement.  Schumann initially named it “Symphony No.2” before settling for the title “Sinfonietta”. 

When war broke out in August 1914, Edward Elgar was not among the enthusiastic.  He had serious forebodings, and after the cataclysm that effectively eliminated an entire generation of English youth, he plunged into despair.  His Cello Concerto (the major work for this session) is completely the reflection of a heartfelt response to the national tragedy.  It’s an unconventional concerto, but it is a masterpiece.  It is not only a reflection of the forever altered world of Britain in 1919, but also the deep and apt expression of great composer facing his own old age, and for that matter, an audience that soon saw him as an anachronism. 

When Rachmaninoff, wizard of the piano, meets Paganini, wizard of the violin, the result is the notoriously difficult Rhapsody — 24 variations on the 24th of Paganini’s Caprices — encompassing everything from knuckle-busting runs to the terrifying Day of Wrath medieval chant and the swoon-worthy 18th variation. Said to be Rachmaninoff’s finest work for piano and orchestra, it brought down the curtain on our April music excursions. Full notes and links to the recordings used can be found on Music Appreciation page of our U3A website.

​Bill Squire

​14th April
 
Session Notes for 14th April
 
Berezovsky - Symphony in C
 
R Strauss - Thus Spoke Zarathustra
 
Stravinsky - Firebird Suite
 
Stravinsky - Firebird Pas de Deux
 
28th April

Session Note for 28th April
 
Schumann - Overture, Scherzo & Finale
 
Elgar - Cello Concerto
 
Rachmaninoff - Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini
 
Start times - Rachmaninoff Variations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VviWab5J2ao
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfwAPg4rQQE&t=1283s
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZqYPIN4CEI&t=317s
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC6MmmLKEmA

War, love, family, tragedy: you name it and music has it. Add in a dash of artistic influence and a bit of a ‘walk in the park’ and you have a quick guide to our March programmes. 

​Session one started out with Wagner’s overture to Lohengrin – an opera about fairy-tale love that ends in tragedy. Beethoven loved nothing more to relieve the frustrations of his encroaching deafness than to go for a nature walk – the sounds he would hear leading him to compose his sixth (pastoral) symphony. Maurice Ravel wrote a concerto which literally can be played with one hand behind your back. His Concerto for the Left Hand being commissioned by a pianist/soldier who lost an arm fighting in the first world war.

First up in session two was Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture written for a play about a fifth century Roman general whose ‘turncoat’ decisions led to his death at the hands of his soldiers – or perhaps he died at his own hand? Brahms, who was never a violinist, struck up a close friendship with one who was the premier violinist of the day. This led to a violin concerto that is one of the most recorded in the violin repertoire. Its premiere saw Brahms as the conductor of the orchestra and his friend as the soloist. A Brahms encore was composed in honour of another of his friends - an artist who died tragically at a young age. “Nänie” is sometimes referred to as Brahms’ “Litte Requiem” (as distinct from his much longer and grander “German Requiem”.

To top off the month’s musical journey Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ – the inspiration for the name coming from Whistler’s painting “Nocturne in Blue and Green”. Written in a hurry (most of it on a train journey) and premiered even before the solo part had been put to paper (Gershwin himself being the pianist), the work went on to become an all-time American classic. You can read the detail and find the links to the music recordings below.  

Bill Squire

There is nothing like “starting with a bang”, as they say. And so our programme for 2023 got under way with “Workers Union” - a modern composition by Louis Andriessen, a highly innovative contemporary composer known for his individualism, political activism, and creativity. He is considered the most important living composer from the Netherlands.

The piece was written for any combination of loud sounding instruments which was in keeping with the composer’s desire to avoid standard instrumental combinations. Andriessen states that “This piece is a combination of individual freedom and severe discipline: its rhythm is exactly fixed; the pitch, on the other hand, is indicated only approximately, on a single-lined stave. It is difficult to play in an ensemble and to remain in step, sort of like organizing and carrying on political action. No two recordings of the work, it is claimed, are the same.

Mozart’s Concert for Two Pianos – one of the most artful and ambitious works of all his piano concertos - served to quickly bring us back in time to the golden age of Viennese music. For what occasion Mozart wrote this piece is not known for certain, but it is claimed that he wrote it for himself to play with his sister. As youngsters the Mozart siblings often performed together. Fitting it was then that the performance our group watched was by two pianist brothers who had grown up from an early age performing together.

A trumpet concerto by Czech composer Johann Baptiste Neruda and a rendition of Gabriel Fauré’s ‘Cantique de Jean Racine’, the latter performed by Australia’s very own Gondwana Voices, closed out the session in complete contrast to its beginning.

Our second session was on the day of the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Serendipitously the major work selected was Beethoven’s 3rd Symphony originally conceived to honour Napoleon’s victory over the combined forces of Russian and Austria. The dedication to Napoleon, however, was short lived. When Napoleon declared himself as Emperor of France, Beethoven, in fury that Napoleon showed himself as no better than any despot who had previously ruled in Europe, scratched his name from the title page and changed the dedication to “an heroic person”. Hence today the symphony carries the title “Eroica”, a title that many would want to ascribe to those involved in the defence of Ukraine today. The rest of the programme was given over to a series of short works by Ukrainian composers culminating in a presentation of lively and colourful dance routines by a Ukrainian national dance ensemble.

Here are the links to the notes and recordings:
 
10th February
 
Session Notes
 
Andriessen - Workers Union
 
Mozart - Concerto for Two Pianos
 
Neruda - Concerto for Trumpet and Strings
 
Faure - Cantique de Jean Racine
 
 
24tth February
 
Session Notes
 
Beethoven Symphony No 3
 
Choir - Prayer for Ukraine & 'Oak'
 
Melodia on a Ukranian Theme
 
Impromptu 66 No.2
 
Orchestra - Prayer for Ukraine
 
Ukrainian National Dance Ensemble
 

​Bill Squire.

​And, of course, no music year is ever complete without some reference to Handel’s “Messiah” which is exactly how our year ended up.

​Meanwhile, as TS Eliot observed: “to make an end is to make a beginning”. 2023 will see Music Appreciation widen its source of recordings and music selections with a little bit of innovation. A fascinating year awaits. 

As the year draws to a close, did you know that the original meaning (in English) for “merry” is “strong”? Have a “strong” Christmas.
​
Bill Squire.

According to legend enshrined in a piece of English doggerel  “if it rains on St Swithun's Day, it will rain for the next 40 days". While October is well past St Swithun’s day, it certainly has felt like it has been raining for that that length of time. Whatever, the volume of water that enveloped our town earlier in the month saw us having to cancel the first of our two sessions, inspiring one of our number to suggest a recording of Handel’s Water Music be sent out to all instead.

The music planned for that session was held over for the following session with fingers crossed that the curse of St Swithun wasn’t going to stick around. It didn’t! So we were able to appreciate a stunning recording of Dvorak’s Cello Concerto (Mischa Maisky with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra). Part of Debussy’s Bergamasque Suite and Shostakovich’s 3rd String Quartet made up the rest of the programme.

The session notes and recordings can be accessed via the links below.

​For those curious about St Swithun, he was Bishop of Winchester from 852-862AD. Unlike other religious figures, he asked not to be buried in a prominent place within Winchester Cathedral, but outside in a simple tomb "where the sweet rain of heaven may fall upon my grave".

In 971 the Bishop at the time moved Swithun's remains to a new shrine, commissioned by the King, inside Winchester Cathedral. The legend says after his remains were moved inside there was a great storm and it rained for many weeks after. St. Swithin’s day falls on the 15th July, and it is reputed to be on this day that the great flood started (Noah etc), hence this day being associated with the weather forecast for the English summer.

Bill Squire.

September’s programme got off to a stunning start. We were fortunate enough to access a recording of Dvorak’s 9th (”New World”) Symphony by our very own Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Recorded at a concert just a few weeks previously it showed us what a world class orchestra we have right on our doorstep so to speak. Without wanting to take away from the performers of other works we looked at in the same session (an excerpt from Berlioz’ Harold in Italy and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto), the Dvorak symphony was a standout recording.

The second session for the month, although each work had its own individual claims to brilliance seemed to pale a little by way of comparison. There was Copland’s virtuosic Clarinet Concerto (it was commissioned and composed for Benny Goodman), Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances (his last hurrah composition-wise), and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.20 - written strangely in a minor key (most, of his works are in a major key). In this case the key was D minor – the central key for his Requiem, the Queen of the Night aria from his opera The Magic Flute, and the more haunting moments of the opera Don Giovanni.

​Links to the notes and recordings for both sessions are:
 
 
Session Notes   - 9th September
 
Berlioz - Harold in Italy, 1st Movement
 
Dvorak - Symphony No.9
 
Mendelssohn - Violin Concerto in E minor
 
Session Notes  - 23rd September
 
Copland Clarinet Concerto
 
Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances
 
Mozart Piano Concerto No.20
 

Bill Squire

“Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue; a sixpence in your shoe” might be one way of describing the one and only August programme, except that it had nothing to do with good luck for brides or marriage.

​Good luck did however enter the equation when the director the Ballet Russe called on Stravinsky to check on progress for a commissioned work “The Rite of Spring” only to find no progress at all! The composer had been tinkering instead with an orchestral piece about a puppet who comes to life. Stravinsky was instructed to forget “The Rite of Spring” for the time being and so the ballet “Petrushka” was born: and what better way to appreciate something that nearly wasn’t than to see it performed in an old recording by none other than the Bolshoi Ballet.

‘Borrowed and new’ was present day composer Max Richter’s “Recomposed” – a rejiggered version of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”; while a chance meeting between Maurice Ravel and George Gershwin led to Ravel composing a piano concerto incorporating a “bluesy” main theme bearing an uncanny resemblance to Gershwin’s adaptations of the jazz idiom.

Put “a sixpence in your shoe” and enjoy this wonderful music for yourself by clicking on the respective links below.
 
Session Notes
 
How Stravinsky tells a Story
 
Petrushka - Ballet
 
Recomposed - Richter
 
Piano Concerto in G - Ravel
 
Bill Squire.

July started with a bit of a ‘buzz': Vaughan-Williams’ overture to the  “The Wasps” - a fifth century BC satire on the Athenian judiciary system for which he (Vaughan-Willams) had been invited to compose incidental music. The tempo of the morning “upped”  with a Liszt ‘Tarantella’ before settling back to the more sonorous and lyrical tones of a Rachmaninoff Sonata. An “imagined” concerto by JS  Bach for violin and oboe - ‘imagined’ because no original manuscript exists for the concerto – invited us to imagine  a conversation between the two solo instruments while a chamber orchestra ‘buzzed’ in the background. Mendelssohn, whose personal musical voice, it is said, reached maturity by the remarkable age of seventeen (a feat some say that even Mozart did not attain) rounded out the first session with one of the thirteen string symphonies he had composed by the age of fourteen.

Ancient Greece was also the starting point for the month’s second session as Jordi Savalle and his “Concert de Nations” played the prologue to Monteverdi’s “Orfeo” as the story of Orpheus, son of the god Apollo and the muse Calliope, is told.  Even without any mythology attached to it, the so-called “Pathétique” Symphony of Tchaikovsky is a landmark in the history of the symphonic form. The idea of closing with a slow movement was bold and unprecedented.  Tchaikovsky thought it his greatest work. Composed in Russia in 1917, Prokofiev’s  1st violin concerto had a long gestation, with numerous travels backwards and forwards  across the Atlantic with the composer, before being premiered in Paris in 1923, only to be found too romantic and passé to chic Parisian audiences. With an enormous orchestra, deep bells, offstage brass and percussion, vocal soloists, and a large chorus, Mahler’s 2nd Symphony fashions a sound world all his own, exploring themes of afterlife and the resurrection of the dead. Being too long a work for our group to consider in its entirety, we were content with the rousing finale – a fitting climax to the session.

Click on the links below to access the notes and the recordings.

Bill Squire.
 
 
 
Session Notes  8th July
 
Vaughan-Williams  -  The Wasps Overture
 
Listz - Tarantella
 
Rachmaninoff - Piano Sonata No. 2
 
Bach - Concerto for Oboe and Violin
 
Mendelssohn - Sinfonia No. 7
 
 
 
Session Notes  22nd July
 
Monteverdi - Orfeo:  Prologue
 
Tchaikovsky - Symphony No.6
 
Prokofiev - Violin Concerto No.1
 
Mahler - Symphony No.2 : Finale