London Concertante present a programme headlined by the effervescent Four Seasons alongside exquisite romantic endeavours by Mendelssohn and Dvorak.
London Concertante was founded in 1991 and has gone on to garner an outstanding international reputation. Alongside regular series of concerts at St. Martin-in-the-Fields and Southwark Cathedral, the ensemble also performs at the Southbank Centre, Cadogan Hall and Wigmore Hall, as well as performing across the length and bredth of the UK. International tours have taken them to the USA, Spain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, Finland, and they will be touring to Italy and again to Spain later in the year. Their numerous recordings receive regular airplay on global radio stations.
Composed at the tender age of only 14, Mendelssohn’s String Symphony No.10 features all the maturity and elegance of composers more than twice his age. Despite being one of the shortest of his string symphonies, the work traverses a plethora of moods and characters that one would expect in a work of the Romantic period. Opening with a short, solemn passage, the performers indulge you in a real variety of compositional contrasts through stormy passages, energetic moments, and a gentle melancholic section, resulting in a calculated, yet greatly impassioned finale – a real crowd pleaser! Dvorak’s Serenade for Strings, said to have been written in only 12 days, opens with a luxuriously lyrical melody before developing effortlessly into a more energetic dance like figure. The fourth movement is of particular interest, with a stunningly tranquil and peaceful melody and a heart-warming tenderness that compliments the spritely Minuet and lively Scherzo movements wonderfully. All of this before Vivaldi’s remarkable Four Seasons, which musically traces the seasons; the joys of the harvest, the struggles of the storms and the occasional delights of the weather.
If you don’t consider yourself ‘in the know’ about Mozart, Beethoven, or Bach, fear not, this is the orchestra for you. The London Concertante boasts an impressive audience record in which an impressive 50% of spectators are first time classical concert goers! The London Concertante has its audience laughing at jokes, gasping at virtuosity, moved by gorgeous string playing, and leaving with a smile on their faces.
“Beautiful music. Amazing experience.”
– a happy audience member! (March 2017)
“beautiful... [the] experience was fantastic... simply magical.”
– another happy audience member! (September 2017)
“They play with tone as soft as velvet, bow strokes that really sing and a Romanticist's wide volume range”
– Evening Standard