Lakeland Sinfonia Concert Society

Nicholas was born in Manchester in 1952. His parents were both in The Hallé and his father, Paul Ward, formed the Manchester Mozart Orchestra in 1963. He began violin lessons at the age of eight. The discovery of the string quartet, with its rich repertoire and, above all, player satisfaction, was the main impulse to study violin during school and college years.

Nicholas was something of a perpetual student, spending six years at the Royal Northern College of Music and a further year in Brussels, studying in turn with Barry Griffiths, Vimos Schummy, Rudolph Botta, Yossi Zivoni and Andre Gertier.

After five years with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra there were two years playing mainly with the London Mozart Players and the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields and, since 1984, leadership of the Northern Chamber Orchestra. Nicholas is also leader with the City of London Sinfonia.

Angela studied the trumpet at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in her native Scotland. In 1995, she became the first female brass player in twenty years to win the coveted gold medal for the Shell/LSO Music Scholarship. She followed this, in 1996 - the year of her graduation from the RSAMD - by taking first prize in the 1996 International Brass Explosion Trumpet Competition.

As soloist she has given recitals around the world from the Wigmore Hall, London to the Sydney Opera House, Australia and has played concertos with many of the UK's leading orchestras such as the Philharmonia, LSO, BBCSSO and RSNO. Angela now features regularly as trumpet soloist in Raymond Gubbay's festivals around the UK.

Written in 1807, this dramatic music was inspired by the work of his friend, Heinrich Josef von Collin but there is no evidence that it was ever intended for the theatre, although overture and drama were united for just one performance in April 1807, by which time the popularity of the play was waning after some three years of success.

There is no introduction as in many overtures of that time; the music takes us straight into the angry world of Coriolanus, the exiled Roman warrior intent on attacking the city of his birth. His music is restless and agitated but there is a total contrast in mood as the music depicts the tender pleadings of his mother, Volumnia, in a simple yet beautiful theme. The conflict between these two is charted throughout this terse and compact overture and when the Coriolan theme elongates and stumbles, it is clear that Volumnia’s pleadings have prevailed. The energy in the music fades as Coriolanus realises that not going through with the attack will mean certain death. His anger and energy fade, depicted by long quiet notes and the three quiet plucked notes of the final bars.

Here are two quintessentially ‘English Pastoral’ pieces from the pen of the son of a Bradford wool merchant, but with a twist.

On Hearing the first Cuckoo in Spring, written in 1912, is based on a Norwegian folk song In Ola Valley, in Ola Lake, collected and harmonised by Grieg in 1896 and one of Grieg’s collection of Nineteen Norwegian Folk Songs Op. 66. The rich harmonies are those we associate with Delius but they are remarkably similar in the Grieg version. Grieg and Delius were great friends for many years. The cuckoo appears to be English, however, as it does not appear in the Norwegian folk song!

Summer Night on the River (1911) – the river is the one that flowed past his garden in Grez-sur-Loing, near Fontainbleu. This was an early favourite place to which Delius returned to spend the last years of his life blind and paralysed. The croaking of frogs may be heard in this balmy evening idyll.

‘As a man, Delius was as hard as nails, cold and cynical, yet his music is as soft as butter, warm and romantic’.

The trumpet in Haydn’s day was a basic instrument with the available notes limited by the length of the brass tube from which the instrument was made and the player’s lip pressure.

Haydn’s friend, Anton Weidinger, who was a court trumpeter in Vienna, was anxious to amend this. He experimented with an instrument where holes drilled in the metal tubing could be opened and closed with keys, rather like the finger-pads on a saxophone, for example. This made it possible to play scales and extend the range of notes.

In late 1795, having just returned from London, Haydn was keen to help out his friend and so in 1796 he wrote this ‘youthful and brilliant’ concerto. He had not written a concerto for some 10 years but his boundless creativity showed no signs of flagging and the fact that he was in his 63rd year seemed not to matter!

Weidinger appears to have performed the concerto a number of times around the turn of the century but, as time went by, new and improved solutions to the limited trumpet problem were created. The Haydn concerto outlived the Weidinger trumpet, whose pads apparently dulled the trumpet’s naturally brilliant tone but friendship and experimentation gave us tonight’s ever popular concerto.

I Allegro – one would expect a trumpet concerto to begin with some sort of brilliant flourish, but Haydn’s begins quietly with the main theme on the strings and it is with this theme that the trumpet enters.

II Andante – this quiet, somewhat reflective, movement sees Haydn making full use of the ability of the ‘new’ trumpet to play elaborate melodies and to wander off into various keys, an ability way beyond the standard trumpet of the day.

III Allegro – the finale opens quietly with the major theme of the movement, which is then seized upon by the orchestra and the soloist in turn. The soloist is provided with a mixture traditional trumpet flurries and lyrical ideas. The ending is magical, with shimmering strings, both loud and soft, and a wistful wander into a minor key before a traditional triumphant conclusion.

The young Sibelius had ambitions of becoming a virtuoso violinist, but a combination of technique and concert nerves caused him to put aside his dream. The Violin Concerto and other pieces that he wrote up to 1929 are evidence, however, that the violin remained his instrument. The Two Humoresques of 1917 were followed by four more humoresques the following year; although the six short pieces are not particularly ‘humorous’ they move between, as Sibelius put it, ‘the pain of life and glimpses of the sun’.

No.1 in D minor – a rather serious but nevertheless dance-like piece with delicacy both in the solo line and in the orchestra, almost in mazurka style.

No. 2 in D – a busy perpetual motion accompaniment while the solo line busies itself in a show of agility before a rather abrupt (humorous?) ending.

During Schubert’s early teenage years he played in a family string quartet in Vienna at the time of French occupation. The occupation from 1809 onwards caused Vienna’s system of aristocratic patronage and private orchestras to collapse and amateur groups like the Schubert family quartet sprang up all over the city.

The Schubert group expanded as musicians joined them and became large enough to play symphonies by Haydn, Mozart and Pleyel. This was the young Schubert’s grounding and his first six symphonies were written between 1813 and 1818 shortly after the occupation had ended.

His Third Symphony was started on 24th May 1815 and was completed on 9th July. His fluency was astonishing as the manuscript shows very little rewriting. At the time, Vienna was in the grip of Rossini-mania and in the finale in particular we hear many of that composer’s fingerprints.

I Adagio maestoso – Allegro con brio – a solemn chord heralds an introduction where repeated notes and scales dominate. The clarinet opens the movement proper with a slightly ‘Tyrolean’ theme and when the oboe presents a perky rhythmic second theme, we have all that Schubert needs for a first movement.

II Allegretto – a gentle theme on the strings opens this delightfully relaxed movement. The clarinet offers a second theme before the opening returns – simple and so effective.

III Menuetto: vivace – here there is a rustic minuet with a heavy upbeat and a trio that is clearly influenced by the Landler, the predecessor of the waltz.

IV Presto vivace – a tarantella in which the unexpected noisy orchestral outbursts and frequent crescendos show that the young Schubert had heard Rossini’s music and had loved what he had heard. The finale is said to have been written in a few days and is a delightful feast of exuberance, enthusiasm and vivacity, not forgetting melody, of course.