Northern Sinfonia of England ... Wednesday, October 17, 1984, Jesse Auditorium
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"The history of British music has been compared to a river--sometimes rushing along with a vigorous current for all the world to see, at other times flowing with little purpose underground. This simile is an apt description because England, unlike other important musical regions in Europe, has not produced a consistently high number of master composers through the centuries. In terms of the water imagery invoked above, there has been a decided ebb and flow in the fortunes of musical creativity in Great Britain. The periods of vigor, however, were extraordinary ones and are easy to identify: the later Middle Ages, the "golden age" of Elizabeth I (the renaissance spirit from the Continent coming finally and emphatically to England), and the age of Henry Purcell near the close of the seventeenth century. Each era can boast of significant composers and enduring masterpieces. The periods surrounding them, on the other hand, are generally lacking composers who compare favorably to their Continental counterparts. Ironically, the cause for this turn of events is probably related to the love of good music so common among the British, and it is tempting to suppose that they were victims of themselves . Their hospitality to foreigners--particularly the Italians and later the Germans--seems to have had a deleterious effect on the course of native composition. In the musical market place of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries especially, the works of native composers were not able to compete very successfully with undeniably impressive imports."--Program Notes.
Table of Contents
Sinfoniette, Op. 1 -- Serenade for Strings in E Minor, Op. 20 -- Horn Concerto No. 2 in E-Flat Major, K. 417 -- Intermission -- Notturn for Horn and Strings -- Symphony No. 5 in B-Flat Major, D. 485