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In Classical Style

Sunday 5th October 2008 at 7.30pm
The Castle, Wellingborough
Tickets: £17.50, £15 concessions, £5 under 18's
Box Office: 01933 270 007
Online booking available

Cellist Thomas Carroll - photo by Hanya Chlala

sinfonia ViVA is conducted by Principal Guest Conductor Nicholas Kok and welcomes back former ViVA Bright Lights artist Thomas Carroll, Cello as the soloist for this concert of terrific classics by true giants of the classical universe.

Schubert's brief lifespan (he died aged 31) nonetheless generated a considerable volume of music, cementing his place as a leading figure of the early Romantic period. He wrote several overtures, amongst them Overture D470 in Bb, composed in 1816. Gluck's composition Paris and Helen came at a point where he had finally rejected the Italian conventions of opera in favour of the French, promoting a style where the dialogue and music worked closely together to dramatic effect. To this end, he collaborated with librettist Ranieri de' Calzabigi on this and several of his other operas of the time. The lovely Ballet Music from Paris and Helen was first performed in the full opera in Vienna in 1770. Stepping into the Classical period we come to Haydn's Cello Concerto in C which lay undiscovered for almost 2 centuries until it resurfaced in Prague in 1961, and which has since become hugely popular and a standard in the cello repertoire. Mozart's Symphony No.41 'Jupiter', his final and most complex symphony, was written in 1788 possibly for his Vienna subscription concert series later that year, but it is not known whether it - and the other two symphonies he composed that summer, having moved to less expensive lodgings on the outskirts of Vienna to ease his financial decline - were ever performed during his lifetime. The name 'Jupiter' came not from the composer, but from the London-based German musical impressario Johann Peter Salomon (who also introduced Haydn to London). A work of striking contrasts, its finale has been called one of the composer's finest achievements.

Supported by Orchestras Live, Arts Council England, Wellingborough Borough Council and Northamptonshire County Council.