Caceled: String Festival in Winter Time

Event has already taken place. Unfortunately, the concert is cancelled due to illness, purchased tickets are automatically refunded.

Concert length: 2 h incl. intermission Scene: Stenhammarsalen

245-315 SEK Student 123-158 SEK Young up to 29 123-158 SEK

Sunday 21 January 2024 18.00 — Event has already taken place

Listen Programme & Participants

Event has already taken place

Unfortunately, the concert is canceled due to illness, purchased tickets are automatically refunded.

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On silver platters, musicians from the Gothenburg Symphony serve a four-course meal of strings. We are treated to Strauss’ last opera, Nancy Dalberg’s impassioned string quartet and eager conversation for viola and violin composed by Clarke and Mozart.

Richard Strauss’ last opera opens with silky strings. The opera Capriccio was written as late as 1942 and is about how an opera is made. Strauss looks back to 1775, the setting is a castle in the French countryside. The string sextet is both a prelude and part of the action itself.

Danish Nancy Dalberg was a pianist, but injured her arm and turned to composing. The third string quartet is dedicated to Carl Nielsen, her teacher in composition and instrumentation. Later she orchestrated several of his works.

Rebecca Clarke’s work is influenced by both impressionism and neoclassicism, and here by Eastern European folk music. As a recognized violist, she was the first woman in a professional orchestra in England.

Everything is tied together by the feather-light, elegant strings in Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante from 1779. The concertante form is an equal conversation between the orchestra and one or more soloists, a novelty that Mozart picked up during one of his many travels. Here in an exquisite dialogue between a resiliently shimmering violin and a mustily veiled viola.

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Get to know the classical pieces.

Programme

R Strauss Sextet from Capriccio 13 min

Richard Strauss (1864-1949) Sextet from Capriccio Richard Strauss wrote his last opera in 1940-41 in the middle of a raging war. Capriccio is an opera about opera, a conversation piece, which lacks both Salome's drama and the wonderful arias of Die Rosenkavalier. This may have contributed to it not becoming as popular as many of Strauss's other works in the genre. The libretto was written by his friend Clemens Krauss but the idea originally came from the writer Stefan Zweig. Perhaps he wanted to write an opera with a content that defied the barbarism going on around him. If civilized persons could converse, why not also countries? And it must have been provocative for those in power that the opera discusses the quality of the music of Couperin and Rameau, composers whose music was hardly ever performed on the concert stages of the Third Reich. The action takes place around 1775 at a castle in the vicinity of Paris. A party has gathered to celebrate Countess Madeleine's birthday. As a recent widow, she is wooed by the composer Flamand and the poet Olivier. She is torn about which of them to choose. The two get to embody the question of which art form comes first, music or literature, a question that can also be said to be the theme of the opera. It will receive no response. How could an opera composer do otherwise than leave the question unanswered? The sextet, which functions as an overture, is composed in the opera by Flamand as a gift of love to the countess. However, the style of the work is neither rococo nor modernism. Here, instead, there is much of the mood that characterizes Strauss's own late romantic style before the turn of the century. With the counterpoint of the parts and many dialogues, it is a genuine piece of chamber music in its own right. The 1-movement sextet has a clear three-part form, broadly similar to sonata form. A short exposition with a very pregnant side theme is followed by a very long middle part with a carry-through character. In the concluding part, the main group and side group return, both in the tonic. In the main group there is no meaningful theme, but rather a number of shorter phrases/motifs that stand out. Swedish Chamber Music Association; Yngve Bernhardsson

Dalberg String Quartet No. 3 20 min

Nancy Dalberg (1881-1949) String Quartet No. 3 Op 20 Allegro con passione Allegretto semplice Tempo giusto Danish Nancy Dalberg grew up in a manor house on Funen. Her father was the successful pharmacist and industrialist Christian D A Hansen. She started playing the piano early and after her marriage in 1901 and settling in Copenhagen, she continued piano studies with Ove Christensen. A promising career as a concert pianist, however, was cut short by a chronic tendinitis. From 1909-11 she studied music theory and composition with Johan Svendsen and from 1913 with Carl Nielsen. This, incidentally, came to play a big role in her life. Among other things, she was entrusted to instrument parts of Nielsen's Aladdin and Fynsk forår. He would also appear in one of the parts at the premiere of her first string quartet, which took place in her home in 1914. He also premiered in 1915 and 1918 three of her orchestral works, Scherzo for String Orchestra op. 6, Symphony in C sharp minor (1917) and Capriccio for orchestra (1918). Nancy Dalberg's output is not large. In addition to the aforementioned orchestral works and a few more, she wrote about fifty songs, three of which are for voice and orchestra. Among the latter can be mentioned Marianne Sinclair's song, one of the pieces for a planned opera based on Gösta Berling's saga. Unfortunately, Selma Lagerlöf had already promised away the opera rights, so that venture had to be shelved. Among the chamber music works are a number of smaller works for violin and piano as well as cello and piano. But it is above all the three string quartets that have made themselves known, not least after an excellent recording in 2019. The third string quartet was never published during Dalberg's lifetime, although in 1946 she attempted to pay for the printing herself. However, it dragged on over time. Only in 1950, a year after her death, was the work published. It was dedicated to teacher and friend Carl Nielsen. He died in 1931, but had hopefully listened to the work at the performances in 1928 and 1929. Swedish Chamber Music Association; Yngve Bernhardsson

Intermission 25 min

Clarke Dumka 10 min

Mozart Sinfonia Concertante 30 min

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Sinfonia concertante E-flat Major K 364 for string sextet Allegro maestoso -Andante - Presto Just over 30 years ago, an energetic Mr. Brook counted 570 extant works by 210 composers entitled "Symphonie Concertante" or "Sinfonia Concertante." All written between 1767 and 1830. Giuseppe Cambini alone is credited with 80 pieces - though then you have to remember all those who wrote his name on all kinds of music because it sold so well. "Concertant symphony" meant concert for more than one soloist. As the public concerts for paying audiences took hold, the need for "brilliant" orchestral music in which famous soloists were showcased increased. Preferably several in the same work. Mozart wrote a Symphonie Concertante for four winds during his six months in Paris - then when the mother died over there. It does not seem to have been performed there and exists today only in a heavily edited version from the 19th century. In Paris he also wrote the concerto for flute and harp. His Concertone from 1773 also strictly speaking belongs to the genre. The Double Piano Concerto in E flat major as well. Two fragments can be found in the Köchel catalogue's 100-number long list of incomplete, abandoned works: a concerto for piano and violin (which someone seems to have tried to complete). And then one for violin, viola and cello. Sinfonia concertante in E flat major for violin and viola with orchestra, was probably written in Salzburg sometime during the summer of 1779. The original sheet music has been lost along the way. Then it becomes more difficult to time the music. The first known printed edition is from 1801. It is one of Mozart's longest concertos, just over half an hour. The viola part is notated in D major, so the musician was allowed to tune his instrument a semitone higher. The idea was perhaps to get a sharper sound so that the soloist would not be drowned out. In addition, it is supposed to be easier to play with "D major grip". Ingemar von Heijne

Sunday 21 January 2024: The event ends at approx. 20.00