16 September 2012: Iuventus Ensemble with Thomas Hull
The performers
Ruth Rogers and Elizabeth Williams violins, Rebecca Low and Jon Thorne violas and Katherine Jenkinson cello, with Thomas Hull clarinet
Background
Ruth Rogers, who directs the Iuventus, has played at Cratfield twice before, as a soloist in 2008 (with Morgan Szymanski guitar and Laura Mitchell soprano) and in 2010 as a member of the newly formed Aquinas Piano Trio. For her 2012 concert she is joined by regular chamber music colleagues, including Jon Thorne viola (from the Badke Quartet) and Katherine Jenkinson cello (from the Aquinas) to form the Iuventus Ensemble, who played at Blackthorpe Barn in the final 2011 season, as did Thomas Hull clarinet.
Ruth has a busy life as a concerto soloist and orchestral musician, co-leading the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra; she also appears at the Proms and elsewhere with the John Wilson Orchestra and directs the Shaftesbury Chamber Music Series. Thomas Hull clarinet, who joins the Iuventus for the Weber quintet, is active in other musical activities too, as conductor of the orchestra for the annual Chipping Campden Music Festival and of the City of London Chamber Orchestra at Music at Dingley in Leicestershire; and as a musicians’ agent with Ingpen & Williams.
For more details, click here to go to Ruth’s own website.
Playing at Cratfield
The concert is at 3pm on Sunday 16 September 2012.
Concert programme
Brahms, String quintet no 1 in F op 88 (1882)
Weber, Clarinet quintet in B flat J182 (1815)
INTERVAL
Mozart, String quintet in G minor K516 (1787)
About the programme
This concert presents the music in reverse order, ending with the earliest. Brahms’ String quintet in F belongs to his later and reflective autumnal style of composition, with a hint of serenade and rich textures made possible with the extra viola. Two clarinet quintets seem to have cornered the market these days – the Mozart K581 (1789) and the Brahms op 115 (1891) – but the Weber Clarinet quintet in B flat is no also-ran. Not attempting the subtle integration between clarinet and string quartet of the Mozart, it is an unashamed and brilliant (hence taxing) showpiece for the clarinet, in Weber’s most elegant, tuneful and witty style, in transition between the classicism of Mozart and the romanticism of Mendelssohn and Schumann, with a hint of Bellini. Mozart’s String quintet in G minor is often paired with its quintet predecessor in C K515 as two of the composer’s very finest chamber works and – as a result – with a claim to be the finest string quintets ever composed. Mozart in G minor is always special – as in the two symphonies no 25 K183 and no 40 K550 – and this is therefore an appropriate work to end our 2012 season, by the same composer whose music opened it in July.
CDs
[not yet!]
Ticket availability (click here for the Tickets page)
£14.50: booking not yet open
£11: booking not yet open
£8: booking not yet open
Click here for a plan of the church, showing the location of seats at the different prices for 2012; the PDF file will either open in a new window or be downloaded to your computer, depending on your own browser settings or preferences.