Programme Notes

Autumn Concert November 2025

Engelbert Humperdinck - Overture to “Hansel and Gretel”

Humperdinck's unique märchenspiel (fairy-tale opera) evolved through several versions: at first a setting of some songs to words by the composer's sister, then a play with music and finally a full-blown opera. The overture was written last. Of the overture, Humperdinck wrote: "It has become quite a lengthy piece of music, a sort of symphonic prelude." It is based entirely on themes from the opera. Thus the opening chorale, led off by the horns, is the children's evening prayer which, lost in the forest, they remember to say before going to sleep. The staccato trumpet theme which introduces the main allegro is the motif which (with the aid of a juniper branch) breaks the witch's spell. The sweeping string melody is the song with which the Dew Fairy welcomes the morning, while a lively theme led off by the woodwind is associated with the coming back to life of the gingerbread children and their general rejoicing. These themes are intertwined and developed, while the prayer theme is as all-pervading in the overture as in the opera.
Hansel and Gretel was first performed in Weimar on 23 December 1893 with Richard Strauss conducting.

Programme notes provided by John Kane, Making Music

Alexander Arutiunian - Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra in A flat Major (1950)

Andante
Allegro energico
Meno mosso
Allegro energico

The Armenian composer Alexander Arutunian was born in Yerevan on 23 September 1920. Studying as a pianist and composer, he graduated in 1941 from the Conservatoire in Yerevan, where his composition tutors were Talyan and Barkhudaryan. Further studies at the House of Armenian Culture in Moscow between 1946 and 1948 culminated in his graduation piece Cantata on the Homeland, which made his name. In 1954 he became artistic director of the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra and began teaching composition at Yerevan Conservatoire. In 1970 he was made People's Artist of the USSR.

Arutunian's compositions are noted for their lyrical character drawn from peasant music, with much of his vocal music coming from Armenian folk-songs. His instrumental music owes much to the improvisations of folk minstrels, which had a fundamental influence on his composing style. His opera Sayat Nova owes much to such sources. The colour of his music in the 1940s shows his kinship with another Armenian composer, Khachaturian, but in the early 1960s he began writing in a purer style, tending towards classical forms.

The Trumpet Concerto is through-composed in one movement. It contains a slow introduction to a fast section, followed by a slow central passage and a fast finale, in which much earlier material returns, but treated in a more elaborate manner. The writing for the soloist is very free, giving the improvisatory feeling that is so typical of the composer's style. The orchestral writing shows the influence of a grand Russian style and of jazz, with some allusions to Shostakovich. Rich harmony in the slow sections contrasts with a degree of violence in the faster passages.

Programme notes provided by Andrej Lipkin, Making Music


INTERVAL


Franz Schubert - Symphony No 8 in B Minor, D 759 (“Unfinished”)

Allegro moderato
Andante con moto

Although composed in 1822, the score of the Unfinished Symphony was not discovered until 1865. Why did Schubert complete only two movements of a symphony for which substantial sketches exist for a Scherzo, clearly indicating that a normal four movement symphony was envisaged? Many theories have been put forward in answer to this question. Perhaps there is something in the explanation that Schubert's illness in 1822 forced him to place the work on one side. But the most widely held view is that Schubert, realising the powerful beauty of the two movements he had already completed, refrained from going any further for fear of failing below the standard of his achievement.
The two completed movements combine perfectly the romantic spirit with classical form. They are characterised throughout by the quality of song that Schubert brought to orchestral music and by a wonderful pathos and passionate contrast. In one sense the two movements are complete on their own; the tensions and conflicts of the first movement are successfully resolved in the second.

The first movement opens with a dark, unaccompanied theme for 'cellos and basses in unison, which gives way to a plaintive woodwind tune over quietly restless strings. The first tune does not reappear at the start of the recapitulation, though it supplies nearly the whole of the development section and acts as a recurring motto. After a dramatically brief transition, the second subject appears in the 'cellos, a long cantabile melody in G major, with gently syncopated accompaniment.

The sublime and lyrical second movement, in E major, requires little or no analytical explanation. Suffice it to say that, after an introductory motif made up of a descending scale in the lowest section of the orchestra, Schubert presents a movement based on two main themes, one in E major, the other in C minor. Both are worked on with subtle modulations. But the whole movement is as lucid as could be, and within its enclosure of emotional feeling and expressive colour everything is said with a leisure that is part of the mood.

Programme notes provided by Making Music

Johann Strauss II - Waltz “An der schönen blauen Donau”
(“The Blue Danube”) Op.314

Johann Strauss the younger was undoubtedly the greatest of a remarkable nineteenth century dynasty of Viennese musicians whose popularity has never diminished over the ensuing years. Following in the footsteps of his father, the older Johann, his sons, especially the younger Johann, carried on the family tradition. With his own orchestra, Johann turned out a remarkable sequence of waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, gallops and other dances and, latterly, very successful operettas. He was idolized, not only in Vienna, but throughout the world, appearing in such far-flung places as St. Petersburg, London and the United States. His genius and a remarkable gift for melody raised his popular music to the level of a great art, so that his dances have a welcome place in the concert hall and his operettas in the world’s great opera houses.

Those who have visited Vienna will know that the River Danube is far from blue, and probably never was, but Strauss used a little poetic licence in naming the piece which was to become the most famous waltz ever written. No lesser person than Brahms recorded his regret that he himself was not the composer. Written in 1867, at the request of John Herbeck, conductor of the Vienna Men’s Singing Society, the original version, rarely heard today, was for chorus and orchestra. It rapidly became the signature tune of the Viennese and was looked upon as a second Austrian national anthem. Within a short time over one million copies of The Blue Danube had been printed.

Programme notes provided by John Dalton, Making Music

Johann Strauss II - Polka “Unter Donner und Blitz”
(“Thunder and Lightning”) Op. 324

Originally titled “Sternschuppe” (shooting star) this short, lively polka in ternary form was composed in 1868 for the annual grand Hesperus Ball in Vienna. It remains one of Johann Strauss’s most popular compositions, depicting a summer thunderstorm over an attractive dance melody. Strauss utilises the woodwind, drums and cymbals in dynamic contrasts with heavy accents to create a feeling of nature’s power. Despite this, the work retains a light-hearted and carefree character.

Programme notes provided by Rod Berrieman, Making Music