Spring Concert 2013

Saturday 23 March 2013

St Marys Church, Banbury

Programme 1

Banbury Symphony Orchestra is a Registered Charity. No. 239112

Hello and welcome to our autumn concert

This evenings concert is filled with inspiring tunes live music at its best.
The works in the programme are all based on strongly patriotic themes.
Rimsky Korsakovs Russian Easter Festival Overture is a concert overture
based on Russian liturgical themes and dedicated to the Russian composers
Borodin and Mussorgsky. Kodlys Peacock variations are a set of orchestral
variations based on a Hungarian theme.
The concert concludes with Rachmaninovs 2nd Symphony. This is a work
based in the Russian tradition of beautiful flowing melody and demonstrates
incredible use of orchestral colour.
We are very pleased to welcome back Anna Fleming as our leader again after,
suffering a bad break to her left wrist last year. We would like to say a big
thank you to Jenny Maynard for stepping into the breach and leading us so
positively last year.
Looking ahead to the summer, our fundraising concert in association with the
Rotary Club of Banbury and Help for Heroes will be here in St Marys on 13
July at 7.30pm.
Later in the Autumn, we are very much looking forward to playing Wagners
Faust Overture, the Grieg Piano concerto and Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6
(Pathtique). You can find out more details about this concert elsewhere in
this programme.
If you would like to be kept abreast of our concerts, then do please go to our
website on www.banburysymphony.org. There you will also find links to our
Facebook page (please Like us) and follow our new Twitter feed too (we
already have some 760 followers after only a few months). So many ways to
keep in touch with us, but most of all we hope that you will continue to
support our concerts and be entertained by the Banbury Symphony
Orchestra.
Happy listening!

Emma Callery (Chair)

Rimsky-Korsakov: Russian Easter Festival Overture

Kodly: Variations on a Hungarian Folk Song

Interval

Rachmaninov: Symphony No.2

Paul Willett Conductor

Paul Willett studied violin, singing and piano as a student
but his main instrument was the French horn. When Paul
was 16, he gained his Performance Diploma from The
Royal College of Music. Paul went on to read music on
scholarship at The Queens College, Oxford, and studied
for his teaching certificate in Music and Physical Education
at Reading University.
For several years Paul combined teaching and freelance
playing. He has given solo recitals and performed
concertos throughout the country. He was a member of The Five Winds, a group
that performed both at home and abroad, and also on BBC radio. Paul also worked
as a brass teacher for Oxfordshire Music Service and was director of a Saturday
Music School of 200 students.
Paul now combines class teaching with conducting various ensembles, both adult
and youth. He is also in demand as an adjudicator for both adult and student
competitions. Paul is Deputy Headteacher at Didcot Girls School.

Anna Fleming - Leader

Anna was born in South Africa where she started playing
the violin at the age of ten. While studying music at
secondary school, Anna became a member of the South
African National Youth Orchestra. After successfully
completing her music degree, majoring in orchestral
studies, Anna joined the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra in
1992.
Anna moved to England in late 1996. Keen to continue her orchestral playing, Anna
joined the Banbury Symphony Orchestra in 1997 and became the leader of the
orchestra in 2000, a post that she has held ever since. As a committed Christian,
Anna plays an active role in church music. Focusing primarily on private violin
tuition, Anna particularly enjoys helping adults to learn to play and she can be
contacted on 01295 780017.

Rimsky-Korsakov: Russian Easter Festival Overture

Illustration: Pre 1917 Russian Easter Card by paukrus (Flickr.com)

The Russian Easter Festival Overture written by the Russian composer Nikolai
Rimsky-Korsakov between August 1887 and April 1888, and dedicated to the
memories of Modest Mussorgsky and Alexander Borodin. It is subtitled "Overture on
Liturgical Themes and is the last of the composer's series of three exceptionally

brilliant orchestral works, preceded by Capriccio Espagnol and Scheherazade. The

work received its premiere in St. Petersburg in late December 1888.
The tunes in the overture are largely based on a collection of old Russian Orthodox
liturgical chants called the Obikhod. Rimsky-Korsakov includes several biblical
quotations in the score to guide the listener as to his intent, including Psalm 68
and Mark 16.
The composer states in his autobiography, that in this overture he is eager to
reproduce "the legendary and heathen aspect of the holiday, and the transition
from the solemnity and mystery of the evening of Passion Saturday to the unbridled
pagan-religious celebrations of Easter Sunday morning". Rimsky-Korsakov always
had a great interest in, and enjoyment of, liturgical themes and music, though he
was himself a non-believer
In 1848 the Obikhod became mandatory for all of the Churches in Russia and so the
tunes chosen for the overture would carry a certain nationalistic and religious
weight and Russians would know them well.
Professor Robert Greenberg describes The Russian Easter Overture as, "A narrative
story of a Russian Easter day from dawn until dusk." In Russian, Easter is known as
the "Bright Holiday". In the 1880s Russia went by the Julian calendar which means
that Easter would be celebrated ten to eleven days before it would have been in
Western Europe. Because of this difference in the calendars, Easter would coincide
precisely with the first day of spring and thus the rebirth of life is a metaphor for the
rebirth of Jesus. Because of this, for the Russians, spring carries with it a religious
and spiritual weight.

Kodly: Variations on a Hungarian Folk Song

The Hungarian composer Zoltn Kodly was
well known for his work in ethnomusicology.
The Peacock Variations falls into this vast
realm of the composer's output, using a
melody that has Hungarian (and possibly Mari)
roots and apparently dating back over 1,500
years, as the composer asserted in a brief note
about the work in 1966. The melody was used
in a popular Hungarian folk song entitled Fly,
Peacock.
The Peacock Variations opens with a brief,
slow introduction based on the tune, after
Image Peacock Illustration from Piero de Crescenzi (1495)
which the oboe takes up the melody. There
Opus ruralium commodorum Book 9 On animal husbandry
follow 16 variations and a finale, the whole
attributed to Marcel Douwe Dekker (Flickr.com)
piece lasting about 25 minutes. The first three
variations are lively and very short, the last having a rollicking, especially colourful
manner. The next, also a mere half-minute or so, is subdued, but the music quickly
fills with tension in the following variant, only to turn tranquil again in the sixth.
The movement number seven is jolly and bright, and could almost be mistaken for
the more folkish music of Vaughan Williams. The next variation (Piu vivo) is also
much in that same chipper vein, but contrast is again strongly felt in number nine,
among the most lyrical and lovely of the variations, the music here soaring to the
swirling caresses of the clarinet. The next variant (Molto vivo) is very lively, featuring
pizzicato strings and jaunty winds.
The English horn and strings impart rich exoticism in the following variation
(Andante espressivo), and that same character is retained but greatly intensified in
the ensuing Adagio, which, at over three minutes, is the longest and probably
darkest of the 16 variations. Number 13 (Tempo di marcia funebre) also has a
grimness to its funereal tread, but the generally lighter character of the work
returns with the following variation (Andante), which summons images of the
peacock in flight, with deftly dreamy writing for the piccolo.
Lively music finally returns with the jolly and bright number 15 (Allegro giocoso) and
the ensuing stately 16th variation (Maestoso). The piece closes with its longest
section, the finale. Here much of the work's thematic ideas reappear in different
guises in generally lively and colorful orchestration, crowning this charming
composition with a mixture of triumph and folk-like festivity.

Movements
1.

Moderato

2.

Var. 1, Con brio

3.

Var. 2

4.

Var. 3, Pi mosso

5.

Var. 4, Poco calmato

6.

Var. 5, Appassionato

7.

Var. 6, Tempo (calmato)

8.

Var. 7, Vivo

9.

Var. 8, Pi vivo

10.

Var. 9

11.

Var. 10, Molto vivo

12.

Var. 11, Andante espressivo

13.

Var. 12, Adagio

14.

Var. 13, Tempo de Marcia funebre

15.

Var. 14, Andante, poco rubato

16.

Var. 15, Allegro giocoso

17.

Var. 16, Maestoso

18.

Finale: Vivace

Woodcut of Peacocks
Attributed to Penn Provenance Project (Flickr.com)

Rachmaninov: Symphony No.2

Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27 by the Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff,

was written in 190607. The premiere was conducted by the composer himself in St.
Petersburg on 8 February 1908 to great applause.
At the time his Symphony No. 2 was composed, Rachmaninoff had had two successful
seasons as the conductor of the Imperial Opera at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. The
symphony is in four movements:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Largo Allegro moderato (E minor)

Allegro molto (A minor)
Adagio (A major)
Allegro vivace (E major)

The symphony consists of a dramatic sequence that is identified with Russian

symphonic tradition. The tradition, established by Rachmaninoff's predecessors, places
emphasis on a motif and an unending and beautiful flow of melody,
e.g. Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 (also in E minor) and, later, Balakirev's Symphony
No. 2 and Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5.
The first movement is brooding and mysterious; dramatically intense and alternates
between stormy conflict and serene vision. The second movement is a quick scherzo. In
the third movement the theme, again related to the works motif, sings through
primarily in the first violin. The symphony reaches its emotional climax in this
movement. In the Russian symphonic tradition, the motifs and themes of the preceding
movements are collectively summed-up in the finale. The final movement is grand
and sweeping, set in sonata form, carrying with it the essence of the work. The
development incorporates ideas from the previous movements, such as the opening
triplet theme, the marching melody, and the return to the Romantic string melody of
the third movement.
All programme notes taken from Wikipedia

Banbury Symphony Orchestra

Management Committee:
Emma Callery (Chair), Claire Thomas (Treasurer),
Jennifer Hubble (Secretary), Rachel McCubbin,
Lyn Gosney, Andrew Waite, Peter Button
Conductor - Paul Willett
Violin I

Double Bass

Horn

Anna Fleming (Leader)

Jenny Maynard

Robert Gilchrist
Jo Willett
Jane Martin

Simon Mead
Richard Hartree
Bob Powell
Dave Settle
Claire Stephenson

Penny Tolmie
Geoffrey Kent

Marianne Robinson
Vanesssa Devesa
Graham Buckner
Laura Henderson
Graham Buckner
Heidi Robertson
Peter Wasley

Flute
Rachel McCubbin
Sue Wain
Nick Planas

Gill Barbour
Ros Templeman
Jonathan Rowe

Trombone

Clarinet

Paul Macey
Gary Clifton
Malcolm Saunders

Claire Thomas
Alice Palmer

Tuba

Violin II

Viola

Tony Chittock
Ron Barnett
Tom Bolton-King

Oboe
Emma Wahlen
Lyn Gosney

Ian Smith
Emma Callery
Stephen Taylor
Rachel Sansome
Andrew Waite
Trish Evans
Sue Christie
Kate Barton
Gill Walker
Bryony Yelloly

Trumpet

Shaun Humphries

Bassoon
Ian McCubbin
Rachel James

Cello
Miranda Ricardo
Jennifer Hubble
Paul Morley
Janet Parsons
Rebecca Oliver
Rosi Callery

Timpani
Keith Crompton

Support us
We are grateful for the support that the orchestra receives from our patrons and
sponsors as well, of course, as the support of those who regularly attend our
concerts, which help make the concerts all the more enjoyable for audience,
performers and soloists.
If you would like to support the orchestra through donation, sponsorship or joint
enterprises, please contact our chair, Emma Callery, on 01608 737249 or email her:
emma@caller.demon.co.uk.

Our Patrons
Mrs H. M. W. Rivett

Lady Saye and Sele

Mr & Mrs Nijhuis

Our Sponsors

Banbury Symphony Orchestra has welcomed Spratt Endicott as sponsors since 2006.
Spratt Endicott is pleased to be associated with Banbury Symphony Orchestra.

www.kannegiesser.co.uk

Keep in touch
Join our email list and we can keep you up to date with our forthcoming concerts.
To find out more, please visit our website at www.banburysymphony.org or contact
Rachel McCubbin, our publicity officer, on 01608 645589 or email her:
rachelmccubbin@btinternet.com.
You can also keep in touch via:

facebook.com/banburysymphonyorchestra
twitter.com/BanburySymphony

Banbury Symphony Orchestra

Dates for your diary ...

Chamber Concert - Sunday 12 May 2013
St. Peters Church, Hook Norton at 7.30pm
Beethoven Coriolan Overture
Mozart Bassoon Concerto (Ian McCubbin - soloist)
Haydn Symphony no. 103 (Drum Roll)

Saturday 13 July 2013

St Marys Church, 7.30pm
Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture
Wagner Ride of the Valkyries
Coates Dam Busters March
Goodwin 633 Squadron March
Shostakovich Symphony No. 7

Saturday 23 November 2013

Deddington Church at 7.30pm
Wagner Faust Overture
Grieg Piano concerto with Ffinian Jones
(musician in residence at Tudor Hall)
Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 (Pathtique)

Interested in joining the orchestra?

If you play an instrument to a standard of Grade 7 or above and would like to play
with the orchestra, find out more by contacting Anna Fleming on 01295 780017. All
rehearsals take place at Banbury School during term time on Tuesday evenings,
7:309:30pm.