Thursday
27th April 2023
12.30 lunchtime

Tailleferre Ensemble

Nicola Hands & Penelope Smith, oboes
Helen Pierce, clarinet
Holly Redshaw, bassoon


Programme


Eugène Bozza (1905-1991)
Shepherds of Provence Op 43 (for oboe & cor anglais/English horn)
    I    Pastorale Provençale
    II   Chants des Bergers Provençaux (Call at Dawn)
    III  Sous les Étoiles (Beneath the Stars)
    IV  Fête Villageoise


Sally Wave (Savelina Kancheva, b1970s)
Song of Orpheus Op 24 C for cor anglais


Rudolf Maros (1917-1982)
Serenata for Oboe, Clarinet and Bassoon
    I    Allegro moderato
    II   Adagio
    III  Allegro molto

​
Bill Douglas (b1944)
3 Lyrical Pieces (2 oboes & bassoon)
    Wings of the Wind
    Hills of Glencar
    Autumn Song


Cecilia McDowall (b1951)
Century Dances for oboe, clarinet & bassoon (2005)
    I    Allemande
    II   Menuet – ghost dance
    III  Mazurka
    IV  Tango
    V   Last Dance
​

Concert duration approx:  45-50 minutes


Please donate to help fund these concerts at: cafdonate.cafonline.org/14455

Tailleferre Ensemble


The Tailleferre Ensemble is a UK-based chamber collective, founded in 2019 by Nicola Hands and Penelope Smith, whose aim is to promote women in music. The group is a chamber ensemble of flexible line-up and size, offering recitals of varied instrumentation and musical genre, including established, lesser-known and contemporary works.

They have a special interest in redressing the balance of works performed by male and female composers, and in promoting new works.

The group perform regularly around the UK, and have recently played for the Nottingham Chamber Music Festival and at St John's Smith Square. They have also played for Aylesbury Lunchtime Concerts, Music-at-Hill, Leatherhead's Music on Thursdays, at St James's Piccadilly, St Martin’s Epsom, Chapel Royal Brighton, and All Saints High Wycombe.

The group has also collaborated with Façade Ensemble and the South Florida Chamber Ensemble (SFCE) in London. In October 2019 they premiered work by Welsh composer Rhian Samuel, who has since dedicated new work to the ensemble.

In March 2020 they gave a special performance to mark International Women’s Day at Conway Hall, London, and in 2022 marked the day with a concert in Clerkenwell.

Their debut album "There Are Things to be Said" was released in February 2023.  Reviewers have praised the group's "superb musicianship" and "effortless" performance on the recording, and Textura magazine said "The beauty and precision of the musicians' playing and their sensitivity to dynamics all help to distinguish this exceptional debut."

​The Tailleferre Ensemble offers flexibility in programming and instrumentation, and their members are female musicians of very high calibre with impressive individual biographies. As a group, they have been praised for their fine performances and “extensive palette of timbres”.


Recordings of the works in today's concert
this section not yet updated

​Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Flute Quartet in D major K285 (arr CarmenCo)
    1 Allegro    •    2 Adagio    •    3 Rondo

​Ensemble Connect are performing in the Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall, Manhattan:

​Sir Edward William Elgar (1857-1934)
Sea Pictures Op 37 (1897-99) (arr CarmenCo)
    Sea-Slumber Song (text: Roden Noel)
    In Haven (Capri) (text: Caroline Alice Elgar, composer's wife)
    Where Corals Lie (text: Richard Garnett)

Sea-Slumber Song is performed​ here by Niamh O'Sullivan, mezzo-soprano, and Chia-Lun Hsu, piano, at Munich's Hochschule für Musik und Theater.

​In this instrumental version of In Haven (Capri) Julian Lloyd Webber plays cello, John Lenehan is at the piano.


We are going to make the potentially rash assumption that you are up to speed with popular Christmas music.

Here are some less frequently heard parts of the repertoire, beginning with Buxtehude's lovely In Dulci Jubilo, performed in St Peter's Lutheran Cathedral, Hamburg, by Catherina Witting, soprano, Tiina Zahn, alto, Dávid Csizmár, bass, with Katharina Wulf, violin, Verena Fischer-Zernin, violin 2, and Lukas Henke, directing from the organ.

Standing under the Great Octagon is the Choir of Ely Cathedral. They will help us to cover one of the ethnic minorities we so rarely consider. How will they do so? By singing While Shepherds Watched their Flocks by Night, to a great Yorkshire tune. Please enjoy this familiar melody and this wonderful choir and organ:

For the next item, let's stay IN a church, but not with churchy music. Here is Thomas Trotter's arrangement for organ of Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride. The organist in Waltham Abbey Church is Jonathan Lilley.

Here comes a lockdown special from our very own Jonathan Holmes, playing the Father Willis organ at St Mary's Ewell (on which he gives frequent recitals). It is Canadian composer Denis Bédard's Toccata on Il Est Né le Divin Enfant.

Georgi Muschel's Toccata from his Suite Ouzbèke builds to a proper bit of "chucking out music" - a less polite interpretation of the term "postlude". It does what is required quite nicely and fits well for Christmas.

The organist here is Marie-Agnès Grall-Menet, and the organ is in the church of St-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet Paris 5e. The instrument has had so many builders, rebuilders, and restorers that you are best watching the screen closely at the start if you want to know who has had a hand in it!

You are probably ready for a cup of tea by now. You should be able to get a table in this food court:
Previous concert
20 Apr 2023 - Solis Brass (trumpet, horn, trombone) - click here
Next concert
4 May 2023 - Trio Aziz (baroque violin, bass viol, harpsichord) - click here