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OAE Experience at Daylight Music

Extraordinary People and Extraordinary Music. The talented young musicians of OAE Experience perform a programme of Saint-Georges, Sirman and Haydn.
London, Saint Matthias Church £0 - £11.37 More Info

PROGRAMME & TIMES

 

12.00 noon
OAE Experience Ensemble

CHEVALIER SAINT-GEORGES Symphony No 2, ‘L’Amant anonyme’
SIRMAN Violin Concerto Op 3 No 1

12.45pm
Istante Collective

MATTEIS Ground on the Scotch Humor’ from Airs for the Violin Book IV
HAYDN ‘Rondo a l’Ongarese’ from Piano Trio No. 39
BARTÓK Rumanian Folk Dances
TELEMANN Canonic sonata No. 5
ALLY SINCLAIR The Dancing Poet Loses His Shoes

1.30pm
OAE Experience Ensemble

HAYDN Symphony No 74

OAE Experience is a year-long scheme aimed at players who have already finished or are finishing their studies and allows participants to be involved in and be mentored by OAE musicians in a variety of events across the year. Directed by Margaret Faultless, today they perform music by three remarkable composers from the classical period; Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Maddalena Lombardini and Franz Joseph Haydn. The ensemble will also be joined by members of the Istante Collective who will perform music by Matteis, Haydn, Bartók and Telemann.

This course and performance by the OAE Experience ensemble is kindly supported by Henoq Law Trust.

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About the composers.

In an age when slavery was endemic, Saint-Georges, who was from a French and African background, was one of its most celebrated men. Not only was he among the most important musicians in pre-revolutionary Paris but he was considered one of the finest swordsmen in Europe, a fencer of extraordinary speed, flexibility and grace, qualities which he also exhibited as a violinist and composer.

Maddalena Lombardini Sirman isn’t a household name today but she was quite a superstar in her lifetime. As a childhood prodigy she caught the attention of the most famous violinist of the time, Tartini, who wrote a lengthy letter to her telling her how to practice! This must have paid off, because she became a celebrated travelling performer – bringing her husband on tour to look after their child; not a typical state of affairs at all. She composed, and was published and re-published; an astute business woman. Later on in life she attempted a career as a singer, (not quite so successfully),  but she remains one of the first female musicians with a substantial and varied career. And, one might suggest, quite a feminist icon.

Franz Joseph Haydn was the ultimate musical inventor.  He composed as if he were in a laboratory. His nickname ‘Papa Haydn’ referred not only to the fact he virtually invented the form of the symphony and string quartet but also that he was a genial personality, and composed for the musicians whom he knew personally at the court in Estarhaza. He invented the symphony, but then reinvented it with each one he composed – making then breaking the rules. Symphony 74 is no exception, with twists and turns in the music that set up our expectations and then thwart them with innovation and vitality.