Nicholas Kraemer began his career as a harpsichordist, quickly moving from playing continuo at the back of the orchestra to directing from the harpsichord at the front. While performing with the English Chamber Orchestra in the 1970s, his repertory widened, taking in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as well as the baroque. In 1978, he formed Raglan Baroque Players, with whom he made several recordings, broadcasts and concerts. 

From 1983 to 1985, Mr. Kraemer was Associate Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and from 1986 to 1992 he was Artistic Director of the Irish Chamber Orchestra. He was Artistic Director of the London Bach Orchestra from 1985 to 1993. He is currently Permanent Guest Conductor of the Manchester Camerata and Principal Guest Conductor of Music of the Baroque, Chicago. 

Nicholas Kraemer has appeared with Kioi Sinfonietta and Ensemble Kanazawa in Japan, the Berlin Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Orquesta Sinfonica de Sevilla, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, London Mozart Players and the City of London Sinfonia and numerous other groups. Recent engagements have included performances with the Toronto Symphony, Philharmonia Baroque, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia, the Chicago, Detroit and Kristiansand Symphony Orchestras as well as appearances with the BBC Philharmonic. His plans include débuts with West Australia and Colorado Symphony Orchestras. 

Kraemer’s opera repertoire ranges from Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo and L’Incoronazione di Poppea to nineteenth- and twentieth-century works including Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos; Britten’s Albert Herring, Noye’s Fludde, and Paul Bunyan and Stephen Oliver’s Tom Jones. He has conducted many Handel operas including Arianna in Creta, Lotario, Tolomeo, Arminio, Ariodante, Il Pastor Fido, Rinaldo, and Orlando, as well as the major Mozart operas. He conducted at Glyndebourne from 1980 to 1983, and was the first music director of Opera 80, now English Touring Opera. Among his most recent opera engagements, he conducted The Magic Flute and Handel’s Jeptha at English National Opera, Agrippina for Theater Aachen, and made his U.S. opera début with Central City Opera (Colorado) in L'Incoronazione de Poppea. In the 2009/10 season he will conduct Le Nozze di Figaro for Den Nye Opera, Bergen. 

Among Nicholas Kraemer’s recordings are several discs of Vivaldi concertos with City of London Sinfonia for Naxos; Locatelli Concerto Grossi, Tartini violin concertos, and concertos by Durante, Pergolesi, and Leo with Elizabeth Wallfisch and Raglan Baroque Players for Hyperion; Handel’s Rodelinda for Virgin Classics; and works by Thea Musgrave with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra for Collins Classics. He has contributed to several feature films, most notably as Baroque music director for The Madness of King George.

Raphael Wallfisch  - 'cello

In 1835 Mendelssohn was appointed conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and in the years that followed he worked tirelessly to improve the city’s musical standing in the opera house, churches, schools and other music and arts institutions. In 1839 one of the city’s organisations, the Leipzig Theatrical Pension Fund, decided to put on a production of Hugo Wolf’s play Ruy Blas, and asked Mendelssohn to provide an overture and a song. On reading the play, Mendelssohn decided that it was ‘quite ghastly’. He produced a choral song but declined to write an overture, saying that he was too busy.

Later he changed his mind and produced one of his most powerful overtures in the space of three days. Solemn threatening chords intermingle with an agitated main idea on strings. There are some lighter moments but generally the three opening chords set the tone for what the composer called his Theatrical Pension Fund Overture.

Of this concerto Brahms exclaimed, ‘Why on earth didn’t I know that it was possible to write a concerto like this? If I had only known, I would have written one long ago’.

Written in three months, while Dvořák was in America, the work is said to have been inspired as Dvořák heard a performance of Victor Herbert’s Second ’Cello Concerto, with the composer as soloist. Dvořák’s reaction was similar to the above remark of Brahms and Op. 104 was completed in February 1895. It received its first performance in London the following year with Dvořák conducting.

I Allegro – a gentle statement by the clarinet is soon overtaken by a fierce orchestral outburst. A second theme is then introduced by the horn, a melody that, according to Dvořák, moved his whole being whenever he heard it. The soloist enters with a quasi improvisando passage and the writing for the ’cello throughout the movement varies between ‘display and heartfelt attention to Dvořák’s glorious melodies’.

II Adagio ma non troppo – melody is to the fore from the soloist, the three horns and the strings and woodwind. In the central section Dvořák gives the solo ’cello a melody based on a favourite song of his sister-in-law Josephina Kaunic. Dvořák had always had a very strong soft spot for her – it was Josephina he had really wanted to marry, but circumstances meant that he had married her sister.

III Allegro moderato – beginning with a tramping rhythm and quiet horn fanfares, the mood is established for a movement, infused ‘with the tone of happy anticipation of the composer’s return to his own country’. The generally buoyant mood changes towards the end of the movement as solo violin and ’cello combine in a further allusion to Josephina’s song. 

Dvořák had completed the finale, but on hearing of Josephina’s death, Dvořák inserted this lingering reminiscence of the song, altering the whole mood of the original ending. But ‘smiles triumph through the tears’ as, with a degree of reluctance, the orchestra sweeps the music to a brilliant ending.

For a man who once said that he preferred trees to people, it is not surprising that at some point, Beethoven’s immense love of nature would become a feature of one of his works.

His 6th symphony proved to be a compromise of the dilemma of his disapproval of ‘programme’ music, which he regarded as trivial, and his love of the countryside, which inspired in him the desire to write music to reflect this. 

It took five years, from preliminary sketches in 1803 to the first performance in December 1808, when it was labelled ‘No. 5’. Beethoven changed the numbering soon afterwards. Although he gave the five movements descriptive titles, Beethoven was at pains to make sure that those around him understood that the music was all about ‘feelings’ – about the pleasurable emotions the countryside roused in him. 

I Awakening of happy feelings on arrival in the countryside – the opening four bars provide the material from which the entire movement grows. There is a great deal of repetition of rhythmic patterns (just like walking) – at one point over 30 times without change.

II Scene by the brook – again much repetition as the water burbles along like Tennyson’s brook. Over the orchestral ripples a theme full of repetition and gaps is heard with two muted cellos lending sonority. A colleague once pointed out to Beethoven that the little phrase in the main theme was the fourth bird in the movement, probably a yellowhammer. Beethoven was of course quite scornful of the idea but  three birds in the movement – the nightingale, the quail and the cuckoo – are there for all to hear and named by Beethoven in the score. 

The remaining three movements are played continuously – a major innovation for a symphony.

III Peasant’s merrymaking – this happy movement with heavy accents eventually features the village band: the cocky clarinet, showing off for all it’s worth; the oboe, having trouble keeping the rhythm steady; and the bassoon, who only appears to be able to play the same three notes, cautiously. A speeding up of the music leads to another dance where droning harmonies suggest the arrival of bagpipes.

Warnings of approaching bad weather (trumpets) cause the festivities to pause as the peasants wonder what to do. At first they carry on and then everyone runs for cover as the wind flurries and the first heavy drops of rain appear…

IV Storm – this is a quintessential musical storm, providing all the effects composers were to turn to for many many years to come. Thunder and lightening are cleverly depicted with dramatic pauses and orchestral swipes as basses and ’cellos (playing groups of 5 notes against groups of 4 notes) rumble over the countryside and the piccolo imitates the shrieking wind.

Approaching calm is anticipated – orchestral chords sigh with relief as the odd rumbles of distant thunder show the passing of the brief storm…

V Shepherd’s song – glad thankful feelings after the storm – an oboe sings a simple melody, a flute plays an ascending scale that leads into this final section as first clarinet and then horn herald the song of thanksgiving given out serenely and simply by the upper strings.

There is little other material in this fifth section. The ‘song’ enjoys a variety of accompaniments before a great climax, after which a long gentle winding down of the music leads to the magical ending. A single muted horn, barely audible, draws a veil over a work that in its use of the orchestra alone shows Beethoven at his imaginative best.

© Barry Sharkey 2010