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sinfonia ViVA ensemble at Buxton Festival

Wednesday 21st July 2009 at 3.00pm
St. John's Church, Buxton
Tickets: £18 (children £9) on sale from 2 April 2010
Contact Box Office on 0845 1272 190 for details

A ViVA ensemble will delight in Buxton on 21 July

A terrific ViVA ensemble conducted by Nicholas Kok entertains this afternoon as part of the Buxton Festival.

Mozart's Divertimento K136 is one of a collection of three divertimenti he wrote in Spring 1772. Its warmly resonant themes have a youthful nature, and the piece displays a lively energy.

Metamorphosen was composed at the conclusion of WW2 and epitomises the despair Strauss felt both at the physical destruction of Germany – embodied particularly in the ruined architecture of many famous music venues beloved to him – and also the shattering of the German artistic and cultural society. Whatever Strauss's personal feelings towards the regime that had led Germany to this point, the music is a powerful lament which grows in intensity and tells its own story.

The Strauss opera Capriccio was begun in 1940 and completed the following year. It was to be his final operatic composition, and one that he professed he could never better. The opera opened with a prelude in the form of a string sextet, heard offstage, the musicians rehearsing a piece. Today we get to hear that String Sextet music played centre stage!

Verdi wrote his one and only chamber work in spring 1873 during an enforced break in the production of a revival of Aida in Naples when a soprano fell ill. Its low-key April premiere to friends in the hotel where he was staying was reinforced by Verdi's own comments at the time, suggesting he attributed little importance to it beyond being an academic study. However, over time, the significance to history of both it and the chamber orchestra version has grown.

Visit the Buxton Festival website for more details of the Festival.

Supported by Rolls-Royce plc, Orchestras Live and Arts Council England