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

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

Carl Nielsen: Wind quintet op.43

I. Allegro ben marcato

II. Menuet

III. Praeludium – Thema con variazioni

Interval

Erik 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