Harmony Beyond Music is a series of chamber music concerts exploring themes of equality and diversity, performed by Reiko Fujisawa and friends, and introduced by Peter Quantrill.

Outsiders

A quartet of composers who never fitted into polite society. Satie and his music took a sideways look at Belle Epoque Paris, while Rued Langgaard stuck to his Romantic voice in a Danish world of music dominated by Carl Nielsen. Growing up as a labourer’s son on a small island, Nielsen himself never fitted other people’s ideas of a sophisticated artist, while Beethoven tugged at the strings of patronage which dictated the terms of a composer as servant to his masters. Compromise was an alien word to all four composers, and their music is proud to be different.

Programme

Langgaard: Som en tyv en natten (As a thief in the night) BVN.211

Nielsen: Wind quintet op.43

I. Allegro ben marcato

II. Menuet

III. Praeludium – Thema con variazioni

Interval

Satie: Prélude d'Eginhard and Prélude du Nazaréen for solo piano

Beethoven: Quintet in E flat major for piano and winds op.16

I. Grave - Allegro ma non troppo

II. Andante cantabile

III. Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo

Performers

Reiko Fujisawa, piano

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Wind Principals:

Emer McDonough, flute

Patrick Flanaghan, oboe

Katherine Lacy, clarinet

Richard Ion, bassoon

Alex Edmundson, French horn

with introductions and insights from Peter Quantrill