GO: CLASSICAL: Duo a delight in Schubert; REVIEWS.Raphael Wallfisch Raphael Wallfisch is a British cellist. Wallfisch was born in 1953 in London to a pianist father and a cellist mother. His mother, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, is one of the last known surviving members of the Girl orchestra of Auschwitz. , John York, All Saints Church All Saints Church, or All Saints' Church or variations on the name may refer to: Australia
LEAMINGTON HASTINGS has a knack of matching fine performers and intriguing programmes. Cellist Raphael Wallfisch and pianist John York, you couldn't dismiss him as a mere accompanist here, combined to give some music making of the highest order. Schubert's Arpeggione The arpeggione is a six-stringed musical instrument, fretted and tuned like a guitar, but bowed like a cello, and thus similar to the bass viola da gamba. It enjoyed a brief vogue, perhaps a decade, after its invention around 1823, by the Viennese guitar maker Johann Georg Sonata is a staple of the cello repertoire and was a delight, but it was in two more complex pieces that Wallfisch and York excelled. The fairy tale Pohadka by Janacek and the first cello sonata by Martinu were full of both delicacy and passion. The recital concluded with three pieces by Dvorak, with an arrangement of the piano duet Silent Woods being particularly charming. Orchestra of the Swan, Stratford, October 20. THE Orchestra of the Swan's growing reputation ensured a packed house at their Stratford Civic Hall base for the opening of their new season. The highlight of the concert - part of the Stratford on Avon Music Festival - was a delicate performance of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, with the young Czech, Jana Novakova, as soloist. The Swan, under David Curtis, gave an earthy but satisfying rendition of Beethoven's groundbreaking Eroica Symphony - written 200 years ago. But two pieces by Delius - On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring is a tone poem composed in 1912 by Frederick Delius; it was 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 and Summer Night on a River - did not quite hit the mark. The Swan players could not conjure up that magic atmosphere of Delius's countryside, maybe the dark and wet October night outside was too powerful a force against them. The Swan are back at Stratford Civic Hall on November 8 with music by Corelli, Tippett, John Adams and a new commission by Tansy Davies. |
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