Manchester Camerata: Beethoven Triple Concerto / Tue 23 Sept
Reshaping classical forms, inviting instruments into conversation, and capturing the spirit of a place: this is an evening that illuminates the many ways structure, dialogue, and setting can inspire musical imagination.
Caroline Shaw is a boundary-defying musician who moves fluidly between roles, genres, and mediums, shaping sound with curiosity and invention. Entr’acte is inspired by the minuet and trio of Haydn’s Op 77 No 2, which Shaw describes as a journey ‘through the looking glass’, where a familiar structure is transformed through subtle, technicolour shifts in harmony and texture.
Composed in 1803 for his pupil and patron, the Archduke Rudolph of Austria, Beethoven’s Triple Concerto brings violin, cello, and piano into vivid musical conversation. An unusual instrumentation for the time, the three soloists speak, interrupt, and support one another in a dynamic interplay that feels both intimate and exuberant.
Described by Mendelssohn as a ‘blue sky in A major’, his Symphony No 4 captures impressions from his Italian travels: Mediterranean sunshine, religious solemnity, monumental art and architecture, and open countryside. Connected to Mendelssohn through living and working in Leipzig, Benjamin Huth also brings to this performance the perspectives gained from travel, drawing on how music can express both observation and memory.
Programme
Caroline Shaw Entr’acte: A Minuet & Trio
Ludwig van Beethoven Triple Concerto for violin, cello and piano in C major Op 56
Interval
Felix Mendelssohn Symphony No 4 in A major Op 90 ‘Italian’
Performers
Benjamin Huth conductor
Kryštof Kohout violin
Findlay Spence cello
Susanna Braun piano
Manchester Camerata:
first violins
Bradley Creswick
Coco Inman
Rebecca Thompson
Orla McGarrrity
Edward Pether
Emily Pettet
second violins
William Newell
Gemma Bass
Mates Modafferi Danalo
Anna Tulchinskaya
Rebecca Gowell
Willemijn Steenbakkers
viola
Alistair Vennart
Miguel Rodriguez
Rosalyn Cabot
Rebecca Stubbs
Kim Becker
cello
Hannah Roberts
Graham Morris
Barbara Grunthal
Nathan Jackson-Turner
double bass
Diane Clark
Sian Rowley
flute
Amina Hussain
Aine Molines
oboe
Rachael Clegg
Mary Gilbert
clarinet
Kenny Keppel
Helen Blamey
bassoon
Sarah Nixon
Rachel Whibley
horn
Jenny Cox
Alex Hocknull
trumpet
Tracey Redfern
Pete Mainwaring
timpani
John Melbourne
Mills Williams Junior Fellowship 50th Anniversary
Tonight’s concert is conducted by Benjamin Huth and marks his final performance as the 2024/25 Mills Williams Junior Fellow in Conducting. It is also 50 years since the Junior Fellowship programme began, with the first students commencing their studies in September 1975 under the guidance of Timothy Reynish. In the intervening half century, the Fellowship has become internationally recognised as a leading opportunity for young conductors to bridge the gap between postgraduate study and professional life.
Alumni can be found conducting orchestras and opera companies all over the world. The current or designate Music Directors of Scottish Opera, Opera North, and English National Opera were all RNCM Junior Fellows: Stuart Stratford, Garry Walker, and Andre de Ridder. Yesterday Dane Lam opened the Hawai’i Symphony Orchestra’s season. Tomorrow Gergely Madaras conducts Tosca with Welsh National Opera, and the day after Ewa Strusinska leads the Polish Radio Symphony in Warsaw. Last week Sachio Fujioka was conducting the Kansai Philharmonic in Symphony Hall, Osaka, Paul Mann was with the Lviv National Philharmonic, and Baldur Brönnimann opened his third season as Chief Conductor of the Real Filharmonía de Galicia. Since 2003, our Masters programme has run alongside the Junior Fellowship, and the graduates of that course are now every bit as successful as the Fellows. But that’s a story for another time…
Crucial to the success of all our conducting programmes are the partnerships we enjoy with the region’s orchestras and opera companies, so thank you to Manchester Camerata for your fantastic support.
I hope you enjoy this evening’s performance.
Professor Mark Heron, Head of Conducting
