Upcoming: Two Unmissable Concerts
VICTORIA KINGHAM
In 2024, St Leonards Concerts once again take an innovative approach. The eclecticism of what they present has always been in evidence – what is maybe less apparent is that the performances generally have a theme and a raison d’être that makes them more memorable still. These new programmes are no exception.
Concert organiser and solo violinist Max Baillie writes: “In February we present two specially-curated programmes featuring star guest artists: the first is on a theme of Love and Mania with award-winning singer Alice Zawadzki and string quartet. It includes music by Caetano Veloso, Janacek, folk songs, Schubert, and more. The second is on the theme of Transfigured Night, featuring Schoenberg’s epic string sextet of the same name (Verklärte Nacht), set in a dark wood and written at the cusp of modernist classical music meeting the high romantic old style of the 19th century, plus music by Tchaikovsky and Widmann.
Concert 1: Love & Mania will feature music for voice and string quartet by Caetano Veloso, Janáček (the fiery Kreutzer Sonata), de Falla (Spanish Folk Songs), Schubert (Death and the Maiden), and more. The singer will be Alice Zawadzki. Besides being a wonderful singer, Zawadzki is an accomplished linguist and will sing the songs, which include Veloso’s haunting Cucurrucucú Paloma, in the original languages. Dmitry Smirnov is a very young, brilliant Russian violinist who, like Baillie, is interested in, and can present with excellence, an extraordinarily wide range of styles and genres. Max Baillie, ever versatile, plays viola rather than violin. The Australian violinist Bridget O’Donnell already collaborates with the great Misha Mullov-Abbado (superb and gifted bass player whom we have been fortunate to see in St Leonards for a number of performances) presenting programmes of folk music and jazz as well as notable classical pieces. Kirsten Jenson is a chamber music specialist and teacher, having already performed a similarly broad range of solo concerts throughout the UK and Europe.
Concert 2: Transfigured Night will allow us to hear some of the greatest music for string sextet. If you haven’t heard Schoenberg’s transcendent Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) go immediately, find it, listen, and weep at its spectrographic movement, its icy chromatics, its querulous melodic searchings and yearning resolutions. Astonishing to think that a young Schoenberg composed it over just three weeks one summer over a hundred years ago, yet it retains a unique, complex, and dramatic modernity. Jörg Widmann’s 180bpm by contrast was written almost a hundred years later, in 1993. It’s frighteningly intense, insistent, equally dramatic, with some surprisingly folksy melodic lines somewhere inside the techno-inspired overall form.
There is a significant commonality of interest in all these musicians: all of them are interested in moving away from the rather staid niche position formerly held by classical music, and by nature of their highly-developed gifts they are able to bring this exceptional program to the public eye. This promises to be one of the best concerts of the season here, or indeed anywhere.
Love and Mania and Transfigured Night will be performed at Christ Church, Silchester Road, St Leonards, on 3 and 4 February, at 7.30 pm and 5 pm respectively. These are guaranteed to be sell-out concerts. Tickets can be obtained now at stlconcerts.co.uk. Children under 13 are admitted free. Half-price concessions are offered for artists, professional musicians, and all under-30s, who should email [email protected] for a discount code before booking.
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