The Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra plays baroque and baroque-inspired music at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Auckland.
Robert Ashworth and the APO at Holy Trinity Cathedral, Auckland. Photo: Adrian Malloch
Like Handel, their fellow (adoptive) Englishman, Britten and Holst were both lifelong admirers of Purcell, and they wrote these arrangements partly so that more people would discover his bright, lively music.
Paying homage to John Dowland, the Elizabethan lutenist/composer, Britten wrote a ravishing set of variations for his own instrument, the viola. It’s contemplative, slightly melancholy music, and as Robert Ashworth will show, it suits the viola beautifully.
Programme:
PURCELL(arr. Britten): Chacony in G minor
BRITTEN: Lachrymae
HANDEL: Concerto grosso Op.6 No.6
HOLST: Lyric Movement for Viola and Small Orchestra
PURCELL (arr. Holst): The Virtuous Wife Suite
Find out more and Listen to this performance here:
Welcome to a concert of baroque and baroque-inspired music with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra. We’re at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Auckland. The orchestra is a bit slimmed down for this concert to a size befitting baroque music. They’re led by their concertmaster Andrew Beer, who is directing them from his seat up front in the first violins.
This concert also features the APO’s principle viola player Robert Ashworth as soloist in two pieces. But before he joins the fun in his bright white suit, the orchestra get us in the mood with a piece by Henry Purcell – Chacony in G minor.
Robert Ashworth. Photo: Adrian Malloch
This next piece was written by Britten for viola and piano. Twenty-five years later he arranged the piano part for orchestra. Lachrymae is similar to Chacony, in the sense that it is a series of variations on a musical phrase. Britten took the start of John Dowland’s song If my complaints could passions move as the source of his variations. But he also references another song by Dowland – Flow My Tears.
And in this concert the viola soloist is no other than the APO’s principle viola player Robert Ashworth. Once again the APO is directed by their concertmaster Andrew Beer from his seat at the front of the first violins.
Georg Friedrich Händel's Concerto grosso Op.6 No.6 was written in 1739 as part of a set of twelve concerti, which he quickly finished within one month. It’s in the tradition of the Italian concerto grosso by composers like Corelli. But the music is distinctly Händel.
Here’s the APO, directed by Andrew Beer from the front of the first violins.
We just had a baroque piece, so let’s move beyond. And we welcome back Robert Ashworth as viola soloist for Holst’s Lyric Movement for Viola and Small Orchestra. It was one of the last pieces Holst wrote, it was composed in 1933.
Andrew Beer leading the APO. Photo: Adrian Malloch
There’s just one piece left in this concert at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Parnell, Auckland. We’re coming full circle back to Purcell. Like Britten, who arranged the first Purcell piece in this programme, Gustav Holst was also a great admirer of the baroque era composer. He arranged this next piece in 1925 to be played by a modern orchestra. It’s Purcell’s The Virtuous Wife Suite. The music was originally written as incidental music for the stage play of the same name by Thomas d’Urfey.
Here again is Andrew Beer to lead the APO.
Recorded by RNZ at Holy Trinity Cathedral, Auckland on 27 April 2022.
Produced and engineered by Adrian Hollay.
