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Orchestral concert offered audience many highlights

Watford Philharmonic Orchestra returned to Watford Grammar School for Girls for its annual orchestral concert on Saturday, which was well attended.

The May Day celebration began with Borodin's Prince Igor Overture, and was a suitable choice for warming up the musicians.

The highlight of the first half was the Albinoni Concerto in D Op.9 for oboe and strings.  Soloist was the pretty 18-year old Clare Wills, currently studying at the Purcell School.  She is also co-principal of the National Youth Orchestra.

The charming Clare, who played without a score, gave an assured performance, the Adagio being sensitively and movingly expressed.  Unfortunately the accompaniment by the large number of strings was at times pedestrian, although admittedly they had little to do.

My favourite of the evening, however, was Sibelius's Karelia Suite with its wonderful atmospheric sound.  The brass, in the intermezzo, together with the violins, introduced the traditional Finnish patriotic themes associated with this composer, leading to the joyful Alla Marcia.

Finally, the orchestra performed another, later, Borodin piece - the 2nd Symphony.

Again, this was full of nationalistic feeling, including folk tunes.  The gossamer-like Scherzo bubbled along merrily, the brass dealing with the difficult and intricate parts well.  The slow movement featured horn player, Vigita Nikapota.

Justifiably, he was singled out for praise by the conductor, Stuart Dunlop.

by Wendy Keeling Taylor

ALEXANDER BORODIN (1833 – 1887)

Overture: Prince Igor

Borodin was the illegitimate son of a Russian prince and technically a serf until freed later, but was brought up in St Petersburg by his parents. He showed early promise at music, composing from the age of 9, and also a passion for chemistry, graduating from the St Petersburg Medical and Surgical Academy ‘with exceptional distinction’. Chemistry became his main career, he published many scientific papers and for the last 15 years of his life was a lecturer at the School of Medicine for Women.

As a result finding time for composition was always a problem. His one opera, Prince Igor, was begun in 1869 and was still unfinished at his death. He never wrote down the overture but his young friend Glazunov claimed to have heard him play it so often on the piano that he had no difficulty putting it on paper – “roughly according to Borodin’s plan”.

TOMASO ALBINONI (1671 – 1751)

Concerto in D minor Op. 9 no. 2 for oboe and strings

Allegro e non presto - Adagio - Allegro

Albinoni’s father was a Venetian stationer and manufacturer of playing cards with several shops in Venice and some landed property. Consequently his son could afford to be a ‘dilettante’, indulging his love of music without depending on it for a livelihood. He studied the violin and singing, for a time ran a school for singers and composed an immense quantity of music.

His operas (there are over 50 of them) were performed all over Europe and there are also 50 solo cantatas, 59 concertos and about 100 sonatas for various instruments – and there are many other pieces dubiously attributed to him. The op. 9 concertos were published in Amsterdam in 1722.

JEAN SIBELIUS (1865 – 1957)

Suite: Karelia

Intermezzo - Ballad - Alla Marcia

Karelia is the district of Finland closest to St Petersburg. In Sibelius’s day it was venerated by the Finns as preserving the most authentic traditions of Finnish music and poetry. It was also the source area of the Kalevala, the epic poem which was the inspiration of so much of Sibelius’s music.

For most of his active composing life Finland was a province of the Russian Empire. Karelia itself was actually absorbed into Russia, only ‘escaping’ temporarily between the two World Wars. This only made it the more potent as a symbol of Finnish ‘National Romanticism’.

The suite was commissioned in 1893 by the Viipuri Students Association who wanted some music to go with a series of historical tableaux. Viipuri or Viborg was in one of the few districts of Karelia not absorbed into Russia.

ALEXANDER BORODIN (1833 – 1887)

Symphony No. 2 in B minor

Allegro - Scherzo: prestissimo - Andante - Allegro

Borodin’s earlier compositions were all small-scale – songs, chamber music, etc; but after meeting Balakirev and having composition lessons from him he became more ambitious. The First Symphony was composed in 1869 and he started work on the Second soon after. Its first performance in 1877 was not a great success, the writing for the brass in particular was too heavy and impractical. Borodin revised and tinkered with it over the next 10 years and was preparing it for the printers when he died. Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov added the finishing touches.

The first movement according to Borodin depicts a gathering of old Russian heroes. The Scherzo has the unusual time signature of 1/1 (work that one out!). The Andante is a picture of an old Russian story-teller and the Finale is a jolly, rollicking carousal. (Borodin died of a heart attack at a ball. Wearing traditional Russian baggy trousers and big boots he had just executed an energetic dance.)

by Roddy Williams

Watford Philharmonic Preview

Clare Wills joins Watford Philharmonic Society's orchestra on Saturday 1st May in their annual orchestral concert to perform Albinoni's Oboe Concerto.  We've previously welcomed other pupils of the Purcell School and, as well as giving them the performance experience, it provides us as a Society and you, as an audience, with the chance to hear some extremely talented local young musicians who are beginning their careers.

The concert is set to provide a very enjoyable evening of classical music, beginning with the Overture to Borodin's Prince Igor and then Sibelius' famous and instantly appealing Karelia Suite.  The oboe concerto follows and the second half will return to Alexander Borodin's music in the form of his Symphony No. 2.  He worked on this for nearly 7 years during which time his talent for composition developed so greatly that this symphony is considered one the boldest and most colourful of the 19th century.

We are pleased to welcome Clare Wills to join us and perform Albinoni's Oboe Concerto in D Minor.  Her presence continues our ongoing relationship with soloists from the Purcell School.

Clare Wills (oboe) was born in 1986 and started playing the oboe at the age of 7 and at the age of 13 she was accepted to the junior department of the Royal Academy of Music where she studies with Melanie Ragge. She joined the Purcell School in 2002 where she holds a scholarship under the Government’s Music and Dance Scheme. At the age of 11 she joined the Northampton County Junior Orchestra, subsequently becoming Principal of the County Youth Orchestra and the County Youth Concert Band, with who whom she enjoyed a tour to Poland in Summer 2000.

She played her first concerto with the Huntingdon Philharmonic in October 2001, and was then invited to join the orchestra as principal oboe. She has also played with the National Children’s Wind Orchestra and has now become a member of the National Youth Orchestra with whom she performed Mozart’s 13 Winds at the Cheltenham International Music Festival. Clare recently reached the Finals of the 2004 Senior Concerto Competition.