Lindow Ensemble – 22nd March, 7.30 pm
Vivaldi: Sinfonia in G RV146
Spilsbury: Eyebright
Rachmaninov: Romance in G Minor
Bach: Concerto for Two Violins BWV 1043
Interval
Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings opus 48
Programme notes by Donald Judge
Antonio Vivaldi (1678 – 1741): Sinfonia in G RV146
Allegro: Andante e sempre piano: Presto
Vivaldi needs little introduction to many since his Four Seasons became one of the most popular works in the repertoire. While musicians strive to interpret and reinterpret the four violin concerti it comprises, they and audiences can miss out on a wealth of other glories from a composer who was hugely respected and influential in his time. They include at least 496 other concerti, which redefined the genre especially for violin, and cemented the three-movement fast slow fast plan almost all composers have followed to this day. Bach studied, borrowed, or transcribed many of his works as concerti and for organ. While his Gloria is well known, Vivaldi’s other religious music and 46 operas are less familiar but no less vivid and brilliant.
This three-movement sinfonia encapsulates much about the composer’s style and range without a soloist to dominate it. It opens with a tempestuous Allegro reminiscent of the finale of Summer from the Four Seasons. It’s rumoured Vivaldi was born as an earthquake struck Venice, and this would be ideal music to compose for one. But the mood shifts completely, rather as it does for the middle movement of Winter, into a charming and graceful minuet in the minor key. Back to duple time and the major key for the briefest of finales that could almost be by his contemporary Handel. A sinfonia was often the equivalent of an overture to an opera that in this case can’t be identified. But it certainly doesn’t keep the audience waiting as they anticipate curtain up.
Adrienne Spilsbury: Eyebright
Adrienne is well known both as a violinist and violist in the Lindow and other ensembles, and as a composer writing in many genres. Born in North Wales, she studied Musicology at the Royal Northern College of Music. She is often inspired by nature and gardens in Wales and elsewhere. She writes of Eyebright: “The starting point for this work was visits I made to wildflower meadows being created and conserved in Cheshire, and reflections on our inter-connections with the natural world. Eyebright is a wildflower which keeps vigorous grasses at bay, allowing more delicate wildflowers to thrive. It has a long history of use as a herbal medicine.” Written in 2019, and commissioned by the Lindow Ensemble, John Phillips, Chairman of the Northern Chamber Orchestra, wrote: “Eyebright was well received by the audience – as the applause showed – and by the players too as it is so well written for strings. It has a wonderful serenity about it, especially in the closing slow section.” In December 2024, Bollington Festival Choir and guest musicians performed Adrienne’s setting of Walter de la Mare’s poem Winter, also very well received by both singers and the audience. Adrienne played viola in the string quintet led by Nicola Bright.
Sergei Rachmaninov (1873 – 1943): Romance in G Minor
While Vivaldi and other composers were prolific, often because they had to fulfil the almost daily thirst for new music for courts and churches, the romantic era brought composers with less secure employment, who like Rachmaninov, could be tortured by self-doubt and loss of a muse. Renowned as a pianist, there were periods of Rachmaninov’s life when he spent months unable to compose. And yet some of his music enjoys the popularity of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, even if some might only know his contribution, two years posthumously, in the film Brief Encounter. His musical voice remained obdurately romantic, Russian despite his flight to the West, lyrical and with many works on a grand symphonic scale. Much more intimate is this Romance, in 9/8 time, lyrical and melancholy, an arrangement of the slow movement of the first of two string quartets, written in 1899-1900 but never completed (it lacks the opening movement.)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750): Concerto for Two Violins BWV 1043
Vivace: Largo ma non tanto: Allegro
Bach is a composer who needs no introduction, and this concerto, written in Leipzig in around 1730, follows the three-movement fast slow fast form, and is one of his best-known works – especially the meltingly beautiful slow movement with its interweaving solo lines. The opening Vivace (vivacious is an accurate translation) alternates ripieno sections where the two soloists double the first and second violins with ones where they shine in partnership above a simpler accompaniment – though being Bach, all voices are given challenging and essential parts in a rich tapestry of counterpoint. In the slow movement, in the relative major key of F, and lilting 12/8, the discrete accompaniment never doubles the soloists’ magical threads. In the finale, back in D minor and 3/4 time, the soloists chase each other closely in canon, with scurrying semiquavers. There’s no let up in the drive and virtuosity, with Bach choosing to end dramatically in the minor key.
INTERVAL
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 – 1893): Serenade for Strings opus 48
Pezzo in forma di sonatina, Andante non troppo – Allegro moderato: Valse, Moderato, Tempo di Valse: Elegia, Larghetto elegiac: Finale (Tema russo), Andante – Allegro con spirito
Tchaikovsky also needs little introduction, not just for his many enduringly popular works, but for some of the details of his difficult personal life – the early separation from his mother to attend boarding school almost 1000 miles away; his “battle” with homosexuality; his disastrous marriage; and his tragic early death and the speculation that he may have drunk water he knew could give him cholera. That may be as fanciful as Mozart being poisoned by Salieri, given Tchaikovsky’s lifetime smoking and drinking, and the prevalence of cholera generally.
Having shown precocious talent as a child, Tchaikovsky was destined for a career in the Civil Service. After three years in post, he enrolled at the St Petersburg Conservatory where he honed his considerable skills that had only received scant attention or praise during his schooldays. He asserted his independence from “The Five”, considered the great hopes of Russian music – Balakirev, Cui, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin. He was on friendly terms with most of them, but many of his compositions, notably the First Piano Concerto, drew furious condemnation from the Five’s champion, Nikolai Rubinstein, adding to his insecurity and fear of criticism. However, his popularity grew with songs and operas on Russian themes, his supreme gift for melody, and from audiences becoming more interested in musical structures and development – at which Tchaikovsky excels – than showy virtuosity. Ballet scores such as The Nutcracker and Swan Lake cemented his reputation. He could achieve blazing crowd-pleasing patriotism as in the 1812 overture, and heartbreaking introspection and tragedy, as in the Sixth, Pathétique, Symphony.
Tchaikovsky was passionate about earlier music, especially Mozart, no doubt explaining the title Serenade, even though this very weighty work demands attention way beyond an after-dinner bonbon. He intended the first movement to imitate Mozart, though its sound world, melodies and harmonies are very different. It begins with a majestic slow introduction that features rich divisi and double stopping. It’s followed by an Allegro in lilting 6/8 time, contrasting with material with semiquaver movement with plenty of interaction between parts and accents that give some bars cross rhythms and the feeling of 3/4. After an exciting build up, Tchaikovsky concludes with an inspired return to a shortened version of the introduction. A waltz follows, a dance Tchaikovsky excelled at writing in operas, ballets, and famously, one in 5/4 time, albeit one that would wrong step dancers, in the aforementioned Sixth Symphony. The elegy has an introduction that puts the listener in mind of the block chordal movement and modal harmonies of Russian Orthodox choral music, before achingly beautiful melodies pour out. Mutes are placed on the instruments for the modal music’s final repetition, and the rising theme heard at the start moves higher to conclude the movement with eerily high harmonics from all but the silent double basses. The transition to the finale needs to be inspired, not least because Tchaikovsky wrote the elegy in D major and must somehow get back to C. Mutes are kept on for the same note D in what sounds like a continuation of the elegy. His first goal is G major, the dominant of C. But in achieving it, he forewarns us of the sparkling folksy melody that’s the Russian Theme for the variations. A pause to remove the mutes and off we go, C major, 2/4, plenty of semiquavers and playfulness between the instruments. His manipulation of such a simple melody is masterful, ranging through several keys; and he combines it with a more lyrical countermelody. There must be no spoilers here as to how Tchaikovsky interrupts the movement and what follows. Suffice it to say, however familiar the piece, it’s always a moment of breathtaking genius, and also reveals where the playful Tema Russo came from. The conclusion is as joyous and positive as any in music, belying the composer’s insecurity, and confirming the Serenade as one of the masterpieces for string orchestra.