Ripon’s St Cecilia Orchestra opens its 2023/24 season on Saturday (November 11) with a programme, featuring the work of three major composers.

Beginning with Grieg’s ever-popular Holberg Suite and culminating in Tchaikovsky’s virtuosic tour-de-force for strings: Souvenir de Florence, the concert at Holy Trinity Church will also include Benjamin Britten’s atmospheric song cycle exploring the calm and sinister aspects of night: Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings.

The Holberg Suite  harks back to the music of the 1700s but with a distinctly Romantic twist. It is one of most readily recognisable pieces of the string orchestra repertoire, with its rhythmic and driving opening Prelude, lyrical Sarabande and boisterous Rigaudon (featuring sparkling solos from the first violin and viola).

Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings was composed for his partner, Peter Pears and horn player Dennis Brain, who premiered the work together in 1943.

The 6 sung movements draw on poetry from across the ages, from an anonymous writer in the 1400s through to Blake, Keats and Tennyson, framed at the opening and close by two movements played by the horn alone.

St Cecilia Orchestra will accompany soloist performances from Yorkshire tenor, Nicholas Watts, known to local audiences for his work with Opera North and French horn player, Catherine Hewitt, who enjoys a busy freelance career across the north of England.

After the interval the orchestra will perform Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence. Originally composed for string sextet, but often played by full string orchestra, this is a hugely challenging work, which reflects the composer’s delight in writing for string instruments.

A real virtuosic tour-de-force, promises to send the audience away musically fulfilled and uplifted

Tickets for the concert priced at £20 for adults and free for under 18s can be obtained online from Ticket Source (www.ticketsource.co.uk/st-cecilia), They can also be purchased in person from Harrogate Theatre and the Little Ripon Bookshop, or can be bought on the door from 7pm on Saturday.

The choice of music signals a busy Saturday evening for the string section of the orchestra (pictured above) Picture: St Cecelia Orchestra

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Ripon’s St Cecilia Orchestra returns to Holy Trinity Church this month with a programme featuring music for dance, drama and romance.

Following the success of their Rachmaninov festival weekend with pianist Peter Donohoe in October, the orchestra is looking forward to a change of pace with this varied programme of chamber orchestra gems.

The first concert of the year will be held at 7.30pm on Saturday, January 28.

Conductor Xenophon Kelsey said 

“It’s pretty rare for us to do a concert without a soloist.  This is a glorious opportunity for all the players to develop the sense that, in a smaller, chamber-sized orchestra, everyone is a soloist – at least some of the time!

“We all need to listen to each other, react to musical shapes and ideas and not simply ‘follow the conductor.’ That is what makes it such a delight to conduct concerts like this and to really feel you are part of the team, not just the boss at the front.”

The concert will open with Richard Strauss’ Serenade for 13 Wind Instruments, a single-movement piece completed when the composer was just 17 years old and the first work to gain him recognition as a composer outside his native environment.

The serenade makes strong use of the French horn, having  in the ensemble line-up – perhaps evidence of his father’s musical influence (Franz Strauss was principal horn player of the Munich Court Orchestra).

Next on the programme, is Sibelius’ Pelléas and Mélisande suite, written in response to a commission by the Swedish Theatre in Helsinki as incidental music for Maurice Maeterlinck’s 1892 play of the same name.

The play inhabits a medieval world of dream and fantasy and tells of Pelléas’ love for Mélisande, who is unhappily married to his brother, Golaud. The story has inspired several more musical works, including an opera by Debussy.

After the interval the orchestra will play Bartók’s energetic Romanian Folk Dances in the chamber orchestra version. Originally written for piano, and based on tunes that would have been played on violin or a shepherd’s flute, the work consist of six short movements that should according to the composer take just four minutes and three seconds to perform.

The concert concludes with Mozart’s rarely-played symphony 25. In the key of G minor, the symphony is written in the sturm und drang style, characterised by emotional extremes and sudden changes in tempo and dynamics – a piece sure to leave the audience feeling energised!

Tickets for the concert, priced at £15 for adults and free for under 18s, can be obtained online at www.ticketsource.co.uk/st-cecilia, from the Little Ripon Bookshop and on the door, or can be reserved by calling 01423 531062.