RTWSO Official Website: Concerts

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About the RTWSO concerts

The RTWSO has long been established as an important arts organisation in Kent. The orchestra presents six concerts each year in the Assembly Hall Theatre, Tunbridge Wells, starting at 3pm on Sunday afternoons.

The 2009/10 season will appeal to music-lovers of all ages. RTWSO concerts are an ideal way to experience entertaining and accessible live music. Support the RTWSO by going to its concerts, booking early, booking often and spreading the word to your friends about the joy of listening to classical music.

Sunday 4 October 2009 – Romantic Spectrum
	Roderick Dunk conductor Nicola Benedetti violin Copland Fanfare for the Common Man Schubert Symphony No. 5 Glazunov Violin Concerto Shostakovich Symphony No. 1	Click on picture to find out more about Nicola Benedetti What the critics say 'Benedetti’s playing is beautifully precise, her keen intonation has that glass-shattering perfection, and she has a deliciously unaffected charm that simply allows the music to kindle its own irresistible momentum.' The Sunday Times
	The stirring sound of Copland’s iconic Fanfare for the Common Man launches the RTWSO’s 88th season. His visionary work starts the musical journey encountering a galaxy of star soloists including Nicola Benedetti. Schubert’s Symphony No. 5 is one of the most engaging of early 19th century symphonies. Fashioned on Haydn and Mozart, it displays an emotional intensity that marks out the composer as the first great Romantic. At the other end of the scale, Glazunov’s Violin Concerto has the hallmarks of the composer’s opulent late-Romantic style with beautiful craftsmanship and rich orchestral colour. A work of immense charm, it’s a tuneful and harmonically lush concerto. There are cascades of highly brilliant passages, sardonic arpeggios and successions of harmonics. Symphony No. 1 by Shostakovich has influences of Tchaikovsky and Mahler. This strikingly precocious and inventive work gives prominence to the piano. It’s busy music of great economy, where each note has a place in the overall plan.

Sunday 1 November – Classically Crafted
	Christopher Adey conductor Robert Plane clarinet Elgar Introduction and Allegro for Strings Mozart Clarinet Concerto Beethoven Symphony No. 2	Click on picture to find out more about Robert Plane What the critics say 'Plane’s clarinet has an eloquent and expressive voice. He can be clownish, rude, barracking and sneering; he can weep, simper and smarm; he can joke, crackle and cheer. He can also produce whispered tone from nothing, bite the air with a chisel edge, roar low down like a didgeridoo or soar with the pure white sound of a cathedral treble.’ The Times
	The distant singing of Welsh folk tunes supposedly inspired Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro for Strings. Featuring a solo string quartet accompanied by strings, this work is full of richly sonorous melodies, virtuoso violin parts and an Allegro bristling with energy. Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto is an undisputed masterpiece. His deeply personal work gives the sensation of inexhaustible and continuous melodic line. The tone is one of intimacy. The liquid beauty of the clarinet writing is expressed in a structure that is a paragon of classical balance and poise. An unjustly neglected work, Symphony No. 2 by Beethoven is vigorous and fiery. This essentially classical work is perhaps the sunniest of his nine symphonies. But there are wilfully harsh contrasts going through many keys, often punctuated by characteristic explosions. From its serious moments to playful passages of humour, Beethoven sets a new template in the way that he varies, grows and develops his music, all ending in true majestic splendour.

Sunday 6 December 2009 – Something Seasonal
	Neil Thomson conductor Jack Gibbons piano Rimsky-Korsakov Suite, ‘The Snow Maiden’ Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue Vaughan Williams Concerto Grosso for Strings Bryan Kelly Improvisations on Christmas Carols Ernest Tomlinson Fantasia on ‘Auld Lang Syne’	Click on picture to find out more about Jack Gibbons What the critics say ‘There’s no finer player of Gershwin around than Jack Gibbons.’ The Daily Telegraph
	You can hear icicles etched by piccolo and violins in the introduction of Rimsky-Korsakov’s enchanting Suite from his opera The Snow Maiden. Mythological characters, real people, and those in-between are identified musically in the tale about the clash of forces of nature. Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue is packed full of sensual melodies that swagger above slinky, slithering harmonies. This famous piece abounds in syncopated rhythms and classical virtuosity, not forgetting that notorious, bluesy glissando on clarinet with which the work begins. Vaughan Williams divides the strings into three sections based on technical skill in his Concerto Grosso. Children from local schools will join the RTWSO to play the unique piece including its humorous Burlesca Ostinata. Each movement of Bryan Kelly’s Improvisations is based on a well-known carol. Like the ingredients of a Christmas cake, fine tunes are mixed and decorated, ready to be enjoyed. British light music is also showcased in Tomlinson’s seasonal arrangement. Sponsored by the RVW Society

Sunday 7 February 2010 – Scottish Sounds
	Roderick Dunk conductor Peter Moore trombone Brahms Serenade No. 2 Jacob Trombone Concerto Mendelssohn Symphony No. 3 ‘Scottish’	Click on picture to find out more about Peter Moore What the critics say ‘Peter Moore, aged just 12, took the coveted title against stiff competition from talented young musicians around the UK to become the youngest ever winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition.’ BBC
	The breadth of Brahms’s imagination is apparent in his Serenade No. 2. The sombre colouring is touched with national idioms. The first movement opens with a Mozartian grace, but cross-rhythms and woodwind 3rds and 6ths soon reveal the composer’s fingerprints. Jacob wrote concertos for most of the common orchestral instruments. His work for trombone includes a solo part that is flexible and agile, as well as being powerful and regal. It sings a plaintive song in the second movement in a register higher than an accompanying flute. The march theme of the finale rounds off the concerto in rousing style. In ‘misty Scottish mood’, and inspired by the scenery, literature and romance of Scotland, which he visited in 1829, Mendelssohn composed one of his most characterful symphonies. Its haunting recurring motto came to the young romantic composer in the ruined chapel of Holyrood Palace and the scherzo draws ‘on an old Scottish bagpipe melody’. Sponsored by Peggy Bradley, a Patron of the Orchestra

Sunday 7 March 2010 – Russian Roots
	Roderick Dunk conductor Yevgeny Sudbin piano Rimsky-Korsakov Capriccio Espagnol Borodin In the Steppes of Central Asia Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 2 Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4	Click on picture to find out more about Yevgeny Sudbin What the critics say ‘Yevgeny Sudbin is already hailed as potentially one of the greatest pianists of the 21st century.’ The Daily Telegraph
	Spanish melodies of dance character provided Rimsky-Korsakov with fertile material for his brilliant showpiece, Capriccio Espagnol. Unity is achieved by the lively main melody, Alborada, played by varying instrumental combinations. A concert favourite, Borodin’s In the Steppes of Central Asia was written as incidental music to illustrate Russian history. This tableau depicted an Oriental caravan crossing the Steppes escorted by Russian soldiers. From a simple melody, the music builds to create a sense of height for the Steppes. The vigour and simplicity of Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2 have ensured its popularity. The piece is full of a light-hearted energy with a brilliant tone and brisk tempos coupled with repeated notes in the first and third movements. After the break up of his marriage in 1877, Tchaikovsky sought solace in composing and produced one of his best works. The harsh, fanfare-like introduction is the essence of Symphony No. 4 which symbolises a journey from darkness to light. Sponsored by The Friends of the RTWSO

Sunday 11 April 2010 – The Civic Concert
	Neil Thomson conductor Guy Johnston cello Dvořák Czech Suite Schumann Cello Concerto Brahms Symphony No. 2	Click on picture to find out more about Guy Johnston What the critics say ‘Guy Johnston gave a lucid performance that was coloured equally with passion and intensity.’ The Strad
	The people and landscape of the country for which Dvořák had great affection are richly celebrated in his Czech Suite. Three folk dances are used and lilting themes bring to mind the countryside. The style incorporates patterns of modulation, plus rhythmic devices and articulation, to create a strong sense of nationalism in the romantic idiom. We celebrate the 200th anniversary of Schumann’s birth with his Cello Concerto. It’s a sublime work that is full of lyrical beauty, as well as flashes of fire. The graceful music flows like dream-landscapes, even in the faster sections, creating a seamless extended fantasy. The pastoral mood of Brahms’s Second Symphony is closer in spirit to Schubert’s symphonies than Beethoven’s. His radiant score is bathed in a mellow glow of instrumental sound. Using instruments in small ensembles and with luscious infilling of the strings, the work makes an impression of warmth, spontaneity and total unification building to one of the most affirmative endings in musical history.

The RTWSO reserves the right to vary the advertised programmes and artists without notice.