Leamington Music Festival Weekend 2021

Leamington Music Festival Weekend 23 - 26 September 2021 Royal Pump Rooms | Leamington Spa www.leamingtonmusic.org

principal sponsor

Welcome The Leamington Music Festivals planned to take place over the first bank holiday weekend in May, as has happened every year since 1990, were cancelled this year and last. The recent, hastily arranged, Warwick & Leamington Midsummer Music Festival in late June and early July showed we were back in business, as capacity audiences thrilled at the resumption of live music-making.

We have salvaged a significant amount of the 2021 May Festival to present this Festival Weekend in late September.

Just as the 2020 Largely Ludwig Festival was to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Beethoven, so 2021 must mark the centenary of the birth of Robert Simpson in Rosefield Street in Leamington. Not only with some of his music, but also works by composers he championed in his writings and time at the BBC – and Beethoven heads that list.

Simpson wrote eleven symphonies, fifteen string quartets, and concertos and chamber music for a range of soloists and groups. The Coull Quartet, which premiered a number of his works, opens the Weekend and we finish with the Dante Quartet. Richard Watkins has recorded the Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano and Mark Bebbington is making recordings this year. He is one of six outstanding pianists here for the Weekend, with Peter Donohoe playing a wonderful Schubert and Beethoven programme on the Saturday evening, to be followed on Sunday at lunchtime by a recent winner of the Leamington Music Prize, the Russian, Roman Kosyakov.

The Leamington Music Autumn Season will follow this Weekend, opening on 5 October with Stile Antico in St Mary’s Church in Warwick. There will be four string quartet concerts including the Marmen Quartet playing Simpson’s first quartet on 29 October. Two days after that, the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Brass Band will perform with the Shirley Band at the Royal Spa Centre offering a programme that includes Volcano, one of Simpson’s brilliant works for brass band and a reminder that he was born into a Salvation Army family and played the cornet and trumpet in his youth.

We trust you will enjoy these concerts and that come 29 April next year, we can enjoy the Leamington Music Festival at its usual time and celebrate Ralph Vaughan Williams at 150.

Richard Phillips MBE

Festival Director

Please see back page for full Box Office information

Thursday 23 September 7.30pm

Coull Quartet Roger Coull and Philip Gallaway violins Jonathan Barritt viola Nicholas Roberts cello

with Martin Outram viola Schubert Quartettsatz in C minor D703 Simpson String Quintet No 1 Beethoven String Quintet in C Op 29

With such close ties to Robert Simpson, only the Coull Quartet could be the right fit to open a Festival celebrating the composer’s works and the music of those composers he loved, especially Beethoven whose 250th birthday was to have been celebrated with the 2020 Festival.

The Coull enjoyed many years of working with Simpson, commissioning the Quartet No 10 to celebrate their tenth anniversary in 1984, in the early days of their residency at Warwick University. They premiered three of his Quartets and this Quintet, and have recorded all of these works for Hyperion over the years.

Joined by Martin Outram from the Maggini Quartet, this concert also gives a rare opportunity to hear Beethoven’s Quintet, which paired with the Simpson offers a beautiful synergy with which to begin our much-loved Festival.

Tickets: £25 centre | £15 sides

Friday 24 September 12 noon

Leonore Piano Trio Benjamin Nabarro violin Gemma Rosefield cello Tim Horton piano

Haydn Trio in C Hob.XV:27 Beethoven Trio in B flat Op 97 ‘Archduke’

We look forward to welcoming back Leamington Music favourites, the Leonore Piano Trio, to the Royal Pump Rooms for the first time since May 2019 - the last Festival we were able to put on there!

This delightful programme brings works by two of Robert Simpson’s most championed composers. Simpson referenced Haydn’s music in many of his own works, and this joyful Trio was one of the last that Haydn wrote.

The ‘Archduke’, too, was the last of Beethoven’s contributions to the genre. It is a grand work of vast proportion and emotional depth, which can surely go to show why Simpson - and so many others - held Beethoven’s music in such high esteem.

Tickets: £16 centre | £12 sides

7.30pm Richard Watkins horn Magnus Johnston violin Michael McHale piano Maxwell Davies Fanfare Salute to

Dennis Brain Op 227b Beethoven Sonata for Horn and Piano

in F Op 17 Simpson Trio for Horn, Piano and Violin Brahms Trio in E flat Op 40 Another champion of the music of Robert Simpson, Richard Watkins recorded the Trio nine years after its completion in 1984, and we begin the concert with a tribute to the great horn player, Dennis Brain, who shares Simpson’s centenary this year.

Beethoven’s Sonata was written at an exciting time of the most important developments in all wind instruments. And to follow, with the addition of the violin, this unusual combination of instruments brings the concert to a wonderful climax in Brahms’s glorious composition.

Richard Watkins is joined by two illustrious colleagues for this wonderfully crafted programme.

Magnus Johnston is well known to Leamington audiences having performed here with both the Navarra Quartet and the Aronowitz Ensemble. Michael McHale is much in demand as a collaborator, and last played for Leamington Music with clarinettist Michael Collins in the 2017 Festival.

Tickets: £25 centre | £15 sides

Saturday 25 September 12 noon

Mark Bebbington

piano

Simpson Variations and Finale on a

theme of Haydn Beethoven Sonata in F minor Op 57 ‘Appassionata’ Coventry-born, and a noted pupil of Aldo Ciccolini, The Times has called Mark Bebbington “truly a remarkable pianist”; his international career has taken off in recent years, and we welcome this great champion of British music back to Leamington.

Mark has recorded extensively for the Somm label to critical acclaim, with no fewer than nine of his recent CDs awarded 5 stars by BBC Music Magazine.

Simpson’s Haydn Variations dates from 1948 and, with the Piano Sonata, represents the absolute best of his writing for keyboard. This paring with Beethoven’s most explosive and tempestuous sonata is an absolute must-hear.

Tickets: £16 centre | £12 sides

3pm | All Saints Church, Leamington

Christopher Cromar organ Organist and Director of Music St. Andrew’s Episcopal Cathedral, Aberdeen

Bach Prelude & Fugue in D BWV532 Haydn Pieces for a Musical Clock Simpson Eppur si muove Retiring collection

7.30pm

Peter Donohoe piano

Schubert Four Impromptus D899 Schubert Sonata in C minor D958 Beethoven Sonata in B flat Op 106 'Hammerklavier'

Peter Donohoe’s contribution to music is immense, with a reputation built internationally, nationally, and here in the Midlands - particularly with the CBSO from Simon Rattle’s time, but in recent times too.

Leamington Music welcomes him back with a programme that will thrill and delight – late Schubert and Beethoven’s Hammerklavier, the colossus among his thirty-two piano sonatas, needing Herculean strength and surpassing tenderness. This is a truly Festival programme, most eagerly awaited.

Tickets: £25 centre | £15 sides Concert generously supported by Peter Glanfield

Sunday 26 September 12 noon

Roman Kosyakov piano

Bach Partita No 1 in B flat BWV825 Schumann Novelette in F Op 21 No 1 Schumann Kreisleriana Op 16

We are delighted to offer a concert to a 2019 Leamington Music Prize winner, following some excellent concerts by winners in the recent Midsummer Music Festival, and the success of Claire Barnett-Jones, a winner in 2013, who took the Audience Prize in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition earlier this year.

Roman, who came to the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire from the Tchaikovsky Moscow Conservatoire in 2017, has won many prizes in Britain and the USA and has made a recording of works by Liszt for Naxos. He includes Schumann’s masterpiece, Kreisleriana, as we prepare for his Piano Quintet to finish the Festival in style in the evening.

Tickets: £16 centre | £12 sides

7.30pm

Dante Quartet Zoë Beyers and Ian Watson violins Ben Newton viola Richard Jenkinson cello

Benjamin Frith piano Haydn Quartet in B flat

Op 76 No 4 ‘Sunrise’ Simpson Quartet No 8 Schumann Piano Quintet in E flat Op 44

The Dante Quartet returns to Leamington after a four year gap and with a new line-up. Simpson’s Quartet No 8 dates from 1979 and shows the composer at his best in an attractive, powerful and gripping work which, dedicated to an entomologist, includes a most intriguing depiction of the mosquito.

With the concert having started with Haydn at his sunniest, the Festival will close with Schumann’s sparkling Piano Quintet, with Benjamin Frith back here after too long a time. Known as a soloist and member of the Gould Piano Trio, he was a pupil of the legendary Fanny Waterman and, among many awards, won the Gold Medal in the Arthur Rubinstein Competition in Israel in 1989.

Tickets: £25 centre | £15 sides

Thanks The 2021 Leamington Music Festival Weekend is made possible by its principal sponsor, Presto Music, with further generous support from Peter Glanfield and Paul & Jane Watts.

The Robert Simpson Society and the RVW Trust have also made important contributions and Leamington Town Council and Warwick District Council have helped with grant-aid.

Join the Friends!

The Friends of Leamington Music play an invaluable role in helping to sustain the leading music promoter in the area. If you are not already a Friend, please think about joining up to enjoy a very sociable group of music lovers. Your support helps to pay for the annual Leamington Music Prize and the Leamington Music Education Programme.

The Friends of Leamington Music benefit by being the first to receive publicity about future events, have priority booking for the Leamington Music Festival and the Autumn and Spring Seasons and, throughout the year, there are a number of special events unique to the Friends. There are also many ways in which Friends can be involved in voluntary capacities.

The Friends' year runs from 1 April to 31 March and the annual subscription is £25 for a single person or £40 for a couple.

Visit www.leamingtonmusic.org or call the Leamington Music office for an application from.

Leamington Music | Northgate Warwick | CV34 4JL www.leamingtonmusic.org | 01926 497000 Registered Charity No 1117723

How to book To ensure audience safety, all seats are numbered and are reserved at time of booking; we also encourage you to wear a face covering in line with current Government guidelines. Leamington Music reserves the right to change artists and programmes if necessary

Box Offices:

Leamington Visitor Information Centre, Royal Pump Rooms, Parade, CV32 4AA Visit Warwick, The Court House, Jury Street, Warwick CV34 4EW

Telephone:

01926 334418

Hours:

Monday to Friday: 10am - 4pm Saturday & Sunday: 10am - 3pm

Book online:

www.royalspacentreandtownhall.co.uk

Festival Weekend Saver Ticket: £120

in best available seats for all concerts, saving £28

Call the Leamington Music office on 01926 497000 to book your Saver

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Leamington Music Festival Weekend 23 - 26 September 2021 Royal Pump Rooms | Leamington Spa www.leamingtonmusic.org

principal sponsor