On Friday evening, April 30, 28 musicians from Wellington College brought to a magnificent close the 12th season of Conservatoire International Concerts. This was the second visit by the College to these concerts. The programme was brilliantly curated by the music department’s Head of Keyboard, David Malusà, himself a former soloist in the concerts. The concert programme last Wednesday was unusual to say the least. 8 singers, each with her own pianist, performed Schumann’s beautiful cycle “Frauenlibe und Leben”. In the history of music, that had to be a first! And what a great achievement that was – each song lovingly performed in the original German.
The rest of the programme was made up of instrumental ensembles. A Bach Violin duo, a Mozart Quintet for Piano and Winds, a Piano Trio by Schumann’s wife Clara, a Haydn Piano Trio and finally César Franck’s virtuoso ” Prelude, Chorale and Fugue”, performed with verve and élan by Stephanie Oh. Chamber music is a real test of musicianship and the Trios and Quintet we heard were a real joy to hear; we stopped marvelling at the age of the performers and simply enjoyed the music.
This great ensemble of 28 musicians were performing to a live audience for the first time and they all equipped themselves with distinction. The proof was in the audience’s enthusiastic response to their music making and the request that the College should return to South Hill Park next year and once again bring the Conservatoire International Concerts to a triumphant close.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Double Concerto for 2 violins - Slow movement
Clara Josephine Schumann (née Wieck) (1819-1896)
Piano Trio in G minor, 1st. movement – Allegro moderato
Robert Alexander Schumann (1810-1856)
Song Cycle, Frauenliebe und Leben (Woman’s Love and Life)
Interval – 20 minutes
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Piano Trio no.24, in E flat major – 1st movement - Allegro
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Quintet for Piano and Winds, K452 – 1st movement, Largo – Allegro moderato
César Auguste Jean Guillaume Hubert Franck (1822-1890)
Prelude, Chorale and Fugue
Wellington’s Head of Piano, David Malusà, has devised a Wonderful programme around the musical talents of students from the College. From the Baroque of Bach to the French romanticism of César Franck, we have a treasure trove glorious music. We begin with the slow movement of Bach’s Double Violin Concerto. Composed around 1730 it was performed in the concerts the composer arranged for the Collegium Musicum of Leipzig University. The slow movement, a beautiful duet between the 2 soloists is sheer heaven.
Robert Schumann’s wife, Clara, was a very remarkable woman. One of the finest pianists of her day, she was also a composer of note and, in later years a great teacher as Head of the Piano Department of the Frankfurt Conservatory. Her compositions are mainly piano pieces and songs. There are 2 larger scale works – a Piano Concerto and, written in 1846, a Piano Trio, probably her masterpiece. She ceased composition after the death of her husband, Robert in 1856, but resumed her performing career with international concert tours. She bore Robert 8 children, including a daughter, Eugenie, who spent some years in England as a piano teacher. In 1931 she published a biography of her father.
Schumann stands beside Schubert as one of the great composers of German song (lieder). The great majority of his lieder were written in 1840, inspired by his passionate love for Clara Wieck, whom he eventually married. Many were arranged in collections or cycles. “Frauenliebe” and “Dichterliebe”, ( A Poet’s Love) are the most famous. This evening’s cycle of 8 songs, with text by Adalbert von Chamisso, traces the woman’s journey from love to marriage to the birth of her child and finally the sad death of her beloved husband. Typical of Schumann, he leaves the piano to express the final emotions in a short postlude to the last song. I am sure that this evening’s performance of this song cycle by eight different singers, each with their own pianist, is a first!
In the 18th and 19th centuries, chamber music – i.e. trios, quartets, quintets and the like, were composed to be played in the home, rather than before an audience in a concert situation. For the greater part of his life as a composer, Haydn was employed by the Esterhazy family. As Music Director for the Esterhazy Princes, he wrote string quartets and Piano trios as well as more than a 100 symphonies, operas and church music. There are 45 Piano Trios in all. Some of the later Trios were written with dedications – to Princess Maria Anna, to Princess Maria Josepha, to Rebecca Schroeter and Theresa Jansen Bartolozzi. The dedicatees were “amateur” musicians who would have performed the Trios dedicated to them.
Mozart, prolific as a chamber composer, wrote his wind / piano quintet in March 1784 and first performed in the same year in the National Court Theatre. Mozart thought highly of the work, writing later to his father, “I myself consider it to be the best thing I have written in my life.
César Franck began life as a child prodigy concert pianist, but spent his adult life as a composer, teacher and organist. His reputation as an organist lay in his performances of Bach and his considerable abilities in improvisation. Amongst his compositions are chamber works, including the famous Violin Sonata, his 3 Organ Chorales and some distinguished piano pieces, including this evening’s “Prelude, Chorale and Fugue”.
Programme Notes Copyright Alistair Jones, 2025
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