3pm, Thursday 23rd February 2017

Side by Side

Jan Assersohn

&

Ian Assersohn


Venue: Leatherhead Methodist Church

Sponsor:

2017 Season Sponsor:
Patricia Morgan Optician

Supported by:
Leatherhead Concert &
Arts Society

Programme

Side by Side

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)
from the opera Solomon HWV 67
Sinfonia II - The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba

Arthur Benjamin (1893-1960)
Jamaican Rumba (1938)

Achille-Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
from Petite Suite L65 (1886-1889)
En Bateau

Harry Warren (1893-1981) arr Assersohn
Jeepers Creepers (1938)

Harry Akst (1894-1963) arr Assersohn
Dinah (1925)

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
from Hungarian Dances Book 1 (1869)
No 1 in G minor Allegro Molto
No 5 in F# minor Allegro - Vivace

Peter Warlock (1894-1930)
3 movements from Capriol Suite (1926)

Billy Mayerl (1902-1959) arr Assersohn
Honky-tonk

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
Italian Polka (1906?)

Antonìn Dvořák (1841-1904)
Slavonic Dance No 8 in G minor, B172 Op 46/8 (1891)



Copies of the Duo's CD Side by Side will be on sale after the concert

Jan and Ian Assersohn met at the Royal College of Music in 1977 - Ian studying piano and composition, and Jan piano and clarinet. After leaving the RCM and getting married they set up a music school together in Fetcham named The Monro School of Music which they ran successfully for several years.

After moving to Bookham Jan established a private teaching practice which has thrived ever since and  has also been an ABRSM examiner for 12 years. These days she is also busy as a choir accompanist as well as accompanying instrumentalists and singers.

Ian has had a varied career, first as a composer of music for TV, then as a software product manager before returning to music. He is a busy piano teacher and ABRSM examiner, Musical Director of Leatherhead Choral Society and Epsom Male Voice Choir and an award-winning composer/arranger whose music has been widely performed both in the UK and abroad.

Jan and Ian have been playing duets together ever since they met and have performed together many times. Their extensive repertoire encompases well-known and less-well-known classical duets as well as a number of Ian’s unique arrangements.

Free Concert, with a retiring collection to cover costs. Tea and coffee will be available after the concert.

The LCAS/Leatherhead Trinity Project

Leatherhead Trinity School Key Stage 1 pupils enjoying Mardi Brass, in June 2016

Jan and Ian Assersohn
come to us today after a morning performing for the pupils
at Leatherhead Trinity School.
We hope to raise enough today to fund
both the afternoon concert and the work with the School.

Picture: Leatherhead Trinity School KS1 pupils enjoying Mardi Brass, in June 2016

This is the third time LCAS Music on Thursdays has engaged in this outreach work. It is a worthwhile project that our Trustees and our audience of music-lovers are keen to develop.

We are extremely grateful for financial support for the project given by Julie West Solicitor and by a former pupil of the Poplar Road School, one of the schools that merged to form Leatherhead Trinity.

If you would like to contribute to our project
which aims to bring the sounds of orchestral instruments to the pupils of Leatherhead Trinity School, please send your donation to us at:
LCAS Treasurer, 1 Monks Green, Fetcham, KT22 9TL
or print out the donation form on this link ►►►

Side by Side

Poetry Page

At 3 pm, the day of Storm Doris,
huge crowd of people flocked to see and hear
two pianists in perfect synchrony
upon the keys of our Grand Schiedmayer.

Arrival of the Queen of Sheba made
a rousing start, from opera Solomon –
such vacuous plot, set in Handelian vein.
(Light hearted quip – was less than three hours long!)

Breathtaking rhythm and variety
then followed, classical and popular;
they swapped positions, but still side by side
both breathed as one harmonious bright colour
through Dinah, Jeepers Creepers, Honky-tonk,
Debussy, Benjamin, Warlock and Brahms;
explored wide-ranged emotional nuance –
Rachmaninov, Dvorak – at their command.

Outside, the unabated gale still raged,
belied this music from a gentler source,
by inspired duo on a magic stage;
here the only storm – of rapturous applause!


Peter Horsfield 25/2/2017

Inspired by the concert recital performed at Leatherhead Methodist Church on
23rd February 2017 by Jan and Ian Assersohn, piano duo.

Concert at Home

If you cannot be with us at the lunchtime concert
you can enjoy a similar Concert at Home by clicking through the buttons below:

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We open with a novelty item. So you're sitting in the garden, with a friend. Lovely afternoon. Let's play the piano, together. How's your Polish ?
Utwór G.F. Haendl'a w wykonaniu na dwa fortepiany. Wykonawcy: Leszek Furman i Jan Kwaśnicki. Aranżacja w oparciu o transkrypcję fortepianową Richarda Simma. Realizacja filmu - Wiesław Gawryś.
So that's Leszek Furman & Jan Kwasnicki, playing Handel's Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, from his opera Solomon.

Next we have the George Johnson Duo rehearsing for their debut concert in Jamaica (Jamaica Rumba) one of their prime pieces being displayed here.

Debussy Petite Suite - En bateau

The first thing to learn in this little encore from two absolute masters of the piano is to sit on the short end of the piano stool.

Once you see it it makes sense! Well, if it's good enough for these two, it's probably good enough for the rest of us. A real treat here from Lang Lang and Christoph Eschenbach.

Jeepers Creepers... on a pianola roll
recorded by J Lawrence Cook.

We're going international again, this time to Argentina, for Dinah by Harry Akst, and it's another piano roll performance.

Rollo PAMPA B 4061 de Industria Argentina, Arreglo de A R Marengo,de Industria Argentina, rollo en buen estado, carreteles de pasta con inscripción, caja original, Origen: E. Castiglioni -- Gualeguaychú. E. Rios.-
Grabación realizada en Patriarca Nº 218 - Viedma, Capital de la provincia de Rio Negro e historica de la Patagonia, el dia 14 de Noviembre de 2013 en Pianola Piano marca Chickering & Sons, (The Ampico) numero de serie 143922, fabricada en Boston USA en 1928, restaurada personalmente en 2004.

Hungarian Dances No 1, J Brahms - Passepartout Piano Duo - Alexandra Zlătior and Nathan Tinker

Brahms Hungarian Dances No 5, Passepartout Piano Duo Alexandra Zlătior and Nathan Tinker

Peter Warlock's Capriol Suite
i) 0:00 Basse Danse
ii) 1:21 Pavane
iii) 3:04 Tordion
iv) 4:05 Bransles
v) 6:20 Pieds-en-lair
vi) 7:55 Mattachin
The duo seem to be Richard Evans and Naoko Inoue

Sergei Rachmaninov: Italian Polka, arrangement by Igor Roma

You might think I'm cheating by including two chaps at one piano each. But if you watch they are clearly each confined to their one end of the piano, only occasionally reaching up or down into the other half.
Enrico Pace and Igor Roma play two pianos in the Fazioli Concert Hall, at the Fazioli piano factory, Sacile, about 60km from Venice.

Benjamin and Christopher Yeh play Antonin Dvořák's Slavonic Dance Op. 46 No. 8 in G Minor in April 2010.

I couldn't find a duet version of Billy Mayerl's Honky-Tonk (not to be confused with Honky Tonk Train). Here, though, is a recording of Billy Mayerl himself that will take you all the way back to his era - 1935. He's playing a Challen piano, the biggest in the world !

It is thought to be in a French chateau these days.

If you would like to follow me just slightly further along the path of ever larger pianos, I can offer one more (although I have seen pictures online of several more claimants, including a steel one that looks like a fighter plane).

Here's a Beethoven recital by Thomas Duis on the
Klavins Klavier Model 370 in Pfleghofsaal, Tübingen, Germany.

We hope you have enjoyed your Concert at Home.

Our next chamber concert will be at 12.30pm on Thursday April 6th 2017.
Concerts will then continue weekly to the end of November.

Meanwhile, there will be an organ concert at Christ Church (United Reformed) on Wednesday 15th March at 12.30. Organ concerts continue monthly to November. Please consult our Organ Diary.

We are grateful to Julie West Solicitor
of Leatherhead, for sponsoring the LCAS/Leatherhead Trinity Project,
bringing the sounds of professional performance
to pupils at the School.

LMC - map

Directions to
 Leatherhead Methodist Church

Previous Concert

Andrews Massey
Flute & Guitar Duo
24 Nov 2016

15 March Organ Concert

Jonathan Melling
Organist & Director of Music
All Hallows by the Tower
15 Mar 2017

6th April Alice Concert

excerpts from family opera
Alice's Adventures
in Wonderland
6 Apr 2017