​“Most people don’t care who’s on charge so long as someone is”, wrote author Tanya Huff in her book of heroic fantasy stories. That could not be said about George 1st – King of England in the early 18th century. German-speaking, uncharismatic and not especially intelligent, George I was unpopular, and opposition politicians flocked to support his eldest son, the future George II. His response was to stage a grand royal event on a barge on the River Thames as a publicity-boosting spectacle, designed to impress Londoners and steal the spotlight from the prince, as well as to convey a message to him as to who is in charge. For that event the king commissioned Handel to compose music for the occasion, - giving us what we know today as “The Water Music”.

Not so forthcoming was Johannes Brahms. For some years, uncertain in his work and his life and his income, Brahms retreated into a kind of musical wilderness. But out of this wilderness experience came his “Serenade No. 2 for Orchestra”. Tuneful and largely cheerful, the work was well received publicly which did much to restore his self-confidence, paving the way for the greater things which were to come from his hand.

Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was a great admirer of the composer Respighi’s music, prompting some to call into the question Respighi’s own political affiliations and sympathies. Respighi, however, was a man deeply attuned to the immense richness of his nation’s historical and artistic heritage. That's one reason why Respighi, a proud Bolognese, was attracted to the Italian capital as a source of cultural inspiration. He moved to Rome in in his mid-thirties to teach composition at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia and from this, among other similar compositions, came his “Fountains of Rome” – describing aesthetic impression made on him, the ‘sentiments and visions’ inspired, as he put it, by four exquisitely sculpted Roman fountains, ‘contemplated at the hour in which their character is most in harmony with the surrounding landscape, or their beauty appears most impressive to the observer’.

The final session for the year was given over to the anticipation of the coming Christmas season. A smorgasbord of music for the season - works by Corelli, Berlioz, Charpentier, Praetorious, and a few in lighter vein, rounded off an enjoyable musical year. The details (notes and recordings) are posted below.

Many thanks to all who have showed appreciation and support in the presentation of programmes throughout the year. 

​I look forward to the company of any and all who wish to be part of our musical adventures in 2026.

​
Bill Squire.

Session Notes 14th November
Handel Water Music - Suite No.2
Brahms - Serenade NO. 2]
Respighi - Fountains of Rome
Bach - Keyboard Concerto No.2

Session Notes 28th November
Hess - Christmas Overture
Corelli - A Christmas Concerto
Berlioz - Herod's Aria
Berlioz - Shepherds' Farewell
Berlioz - Trio for Harp and Flutes
Charpentier- Noels sur les Instruments
Praetorious - In Dulce Jubilo
Poston - Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
Vaughan Williams (Collection) - The Gloucester Wassail
Figgy Pudding Song

“If you write with someone looking over your shoulder you will never write”. Long before African-American poet Nikki Giovanni spoke those words, both Brahms and Tchaikovsky knew the full weight of their meaning. Brahms, touted in his early years as a composer that he would be the successor to Beethoven, felt for some time he was living in Beethoven’s shadow. Consequently, he often fought with expectations and fell into bouts of what you might call “obstructive perfectionism”. If he was to be seen as Beethoven’s successor, he then wanted to make sure his work would be a success. It’s why he took him 21 years - until mid-life - to compose a symphony. Happily, once that “monkey was off his back’, as it were, and Beethoven had been dead for 50 years, his 2nd Symphony followed in a matter of months.

Tchaikovsky was homosexual – something not all approved of either in ‘society’ or realms of Russian officialdom. Either to counter or to hide his nature – or maybe both -  Tchaikovsky entered into marriage with a female pupil. Either way the marriage was a disaster and Tchaikovsky fled from it after a couple of months to Italy and Switzerland. Coming to terms with his homosexuality, he eventually settled down to compose and his Violin Concerto arose from his greater degree of self-acceptance. Brahms’ 2nd symphony and Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto each provided a foundation for our August programmes, where also we heard compositions by Haydn, Mozart and, of course, Beethoven. Links to the video recordings used and the notes for each session are listed below.
​
Bill Squire.

​Friday 8th August
​
Session Notes 

Beethoven Symphony No.4
Brahms - Symphony No.2: 

When Erik Korngold was serving in the first world war as music director for his regiment, the General once remarked: “Isn't it a little fast, Korngold? The men can't march to that”. To which Korngold replied: “Ah yes, well, you see Sir, this was composed for the retreat”. Being Austrian by birth , but of Jewish descent, Korngold, a few years later, was to organise his own “retreat”, escaping to the USA when the Nazi regime came to power. Although composing scores for opera was his forte, Korngold was persuaded by Warner Brothers to write incidental music for films. He regarded his films as ‘operas without singing’, and it is said of him: “he was the musical prodigy who brought the sound of Wagner and Puccini to Hollywood”. Sensing, however, that when a film left public view so did his music, Korngold returned to more serious composition. His violin concerto nearly didn’t make it past its premiere. Panned by critics as “more corn than gold” it rocketed to fame when no less a violinist than Jascha Heifitz took it on board, and the rest is history, as they say. Interestingly the opening melody is the flight/love theme from the film “Another Dawn” – which Korngold had envisaged as a concerto theme years before the film. This concerto was the foundation on which the second of our sessions for June was based: a Cuban Overture by George Gershwin, a Spanish dance by Maurice Ravel, and the Symphonic Suite from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story making up the programme.

The month’s earlier session was somewhat more traditional, although Brahms’ 3rd Symphony was not regarded by the composer as such, casting it as ‘contemporary’. Seen by some as ‘modernist’ and ‘romantic’, the symphony does break away from common convention ever so slightly - its successive movements, for example, each end quietly. Dvorak’s Carnival Overture, a Chopin Polonaise, and a piano concerto by Felix Mendelssohn scintillatingly played by Stephen Hough, served, however, to keep the programme in ‘traditional’ mode. Session notes and recordings played may be accessed by clicking on the relative links below.

Bill Squire.
​
 
13th June

Session Notes
Dvorak - Carnival Overture
Brahms - Symphony No.3
Chopin - Polonaise Opus 44
Mendelssohn - Piano Concerto No.1

27th June

Session Notes
Gershwin - Cuban Overture
Korngold - Violin Concerto
Ravel - Alborada del Gracioso
Bernstein - Symphonic  Dances from West Side Story

“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.

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

An ancient Chinese philosopher once said: "Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage”. This certainly seemed to be the case with Tchaikovsky and Brahms who were the main composers for our music appreciation this month.

Tchaikovsky’s fourth symphony (played at this month’s 1st session) was an expression of his love for Nadezhda von Mech – a wealthy widow who provided him with a generous stipend annually on condition they never meet. He said in a letter to her: “how much I think of you in every bar”.

Brahms was deeply in love with the widow of Robert Schumann. He wrote to a friend: “I believe that I do not have more concern for and admiration for her than I love her and find love in her. I often have to restrain myself forcibly from just quietly putting my arms around her….” While he could never bring himself tell her as much, his first piano concerto (played at our 2nd session) was composed at the height of his admiration for Clara Schumann.

​In addition to these major compositions, there were shorter works by Mozart, Kodaly, Rimsky-Korsakov, Offenbach and Richard Strauss.  You can read all about it and listen to the music by clicking on the links below.
 
 
Session Notes     (13th May)
 
Mozart - Overture to he Marriage of Figaro
 
Tchaikovsky - Symphony No.4
 
Kodaly - Dances of Galanta
 
Rimsky-Korsakov - Capriccio Espagnole
 
Session Notes   (27th May)
 
Offenbach - Overture to Orpheus in the Underworld
 
Brahms - Piano Concerto No.1
 
R. Strauss - Der Rosenkavalier Suite
 
Offenbach - Orpheus in the Underworld, Finale
​

Our following of the planned MSO concert schedule for July kicked off with a couple of pleasant surprises in Dvorak’s “legends” – 10 piano pieces for four hands and a Beethoven concert aria “Ah Perfido”! To balance out these little known works, a scintillating rendition of an old favourite in Brahms’ Violin Concerto, and maybe “the greatest graduation piece of all time”, in Shostakovich’s First Symphony, rounded out the first session for this month.

“An Anthem for our Time” and “A message of consolation and hope in times of tragedy” is how Brahms’ “Ein Deutsches Requiem” has been described. This was the feature work of the second of our programmes for this month. In a sense then, an appropriate work to listen to and think about as so much of our world is engulfed currently with tragedy and grief on a huge scale. In keeping with that sentiment, Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” bookends our programme – a memorial to a departed friend. In between there was Elgar’s lengthy Violin Concerto - a work steeped in mystery – and a little-known (or not so often played) Beethoven Overture.

Here are the links to the programme notes, which include  the YouTube links to the music performances:
​
10th July  Beethoven 2020; Anton Dvorak: Johannes Brahms: Dmitri Shostakovich
24th July: Beethoven 2020; Johannes Brahms, Edward Elgar; Modest Mussorgsky

​Interested in joining in the Beethoven Celebrations!  Enjoy the video links from the Beethoven catalogue suggested in the notes.

​
Bill Squire
​27 July 2020
​

"THE WAR OF THE ROMANTICS"
 
During the second half of the 19th century a schism developed in Europe between composers who represented a ‘futuristic”  approach to music and those who took a conservative approach. Chief among the first was Franz Liszt, while the latter was headed up by Johannes Brahms. This became known as the “War of the Romantics”. The main debates centred  around whether music should be descriptive: something that is inspired by art or literature or other external ideas; or whether music should be simply “pure” or “absolute” or “classical”.
 
Brahms’ ‘school’, who followed ‘Classical’ principles and looked back to the great masters of the past, such as Bach, Haydn, Mozart and especially Beethoven, were labelled 'conservatives'. Proponents of the Romantically-inspired ‘New German’ music, principally Liszt and company, drew widely on literature and painting, breaking the boundaries of classical forms to make music which was freely expressive in subject matter, structure and harmony.
 
Our June programmes featured music by each of Liszt and Brahms. You can read the programme notes for each session by clicking on the links below - the notes also contain the Youtube links to the music selections.
 
As for who was the greater composer, I guess it boils down to personal taste or musical preference.

​Bill Squire

Class Notes for June- click on the composer's name to link to document.

June 14th - Franz Liszt
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June 28th - Johannes Brahms