Musical Director's notes and sound files for the Autumn Term 2026

Beethoven, ‘Overture’ from Egmont, Op.84

Egmont was composed as a set of incidental music pieces to Wolfgang Von Goethe’s 1787 play of the same name. The play tells the story of Lamoral, count of Egmont, and his resistance against the nefarious Duke of Alba. After the Spanish forces of the Duke of Alba invade his lands in Holland, he refuses to submit to the invader despite losing the battle. The play ends with Egmont making a last call for independence before his execution, and his wife, Klärchen, committing suicide. Not a happy tale.

Beethoven was a great admirer of Goethe, so when the Burgtheater in Vienna asked him to set music to the play, the composer took up the task with enthusiasm: he composed the entire work in just 8 months. Beethoven’s interest in the play lay in its depiction of resistance against an oppressor, and Goethe’s exploration of what one would sacrifice for their ideals of liberty and beliefs. For Beethoven, the real world equivalent of Duke Alba was Napoleon. The composer was famously appalled by Napoleon’s behaviour after the French Revolution: having initially dedicated his third symphony, ‘Eroica’, to the autocrat, Beethoven scratched out his dedication in a rage of fury upon learning of Napoleon’s wars of aggression in Europe. He would not turn down the opportunity to denounce the French Emperor again. In this respect, Beethoven probably saw some of himself in the heroic protagonist - as kindred souls in their respective stands against oppressors. Beethoven makes a point of exulting this theme through the music of Egmont, and one can hear the heroic motif of the titular character in the allegro of the overture.

The Overture has become a staple of the orchestral canon and remains the most recognisable part of the Egmont incidental music.

Fun fact: the overture became the unofficial anthem of the Hungarian revolution in 1956. I’m sure Beethoven would have approved.

Mahler ‘Blumine’ from Symphony No. 1.

Blumine is a short work that was the original second movement of Mahler’s first symphony. However, it was not written for the first symphony. Blumine had been written in June 1884 as part of a collection of seven movements of incidental music used to accompany Joseph Victor von Scheffel’s play Der Trompeter von Säkkingen. The movement accompanied a scene in which the two lovers of the play exchange their feelings for one another under a starry night sky. Musically this is taken up by the trumpet and oboe most prominently throughout the movement. The former, representing the titular trumpeter, opens the movement introducing the lullaby-like motif before it is answered in a call and response style by the oboe, representing the lover. This continues throughout the movement, moving between the various sections of the wind and brass sections.

Despite its later removal from the published version of the first symphony, there is evidence to suggest that Mahler actually liked this movement. It seems his own doubts about the movement, however, were tied to what he called ‘too much sentimentality’. Apparently, Mahler had written the music to Der Trompeter in just two days and had done so, in his own words, under the inspiration of a “sentimentally impassioned... love-episode”: at the time of writing, he was infatuated with a leading soprano at Royal and Imperial theatre of Cassel, Johanna Richter. Later in life, he looked back on this as perhaps the reason for Blumine’s Bellini-esque light charm. Nonetheless Blumine was removed for the symphony after only three performances and not included in the first publication of the work. The driving reason for its removal was probably the sheer ferocity of the negative coverage from the press after those initial performances, who deemed it both uninventive and boring compared to the rest of the symphony.

This concession however should be seen as the composer giving into external feedback. It is completely in line with what we know of Mahler the man. Throughout his life he displayed a continued, somewhat self-flagellating, tendency in his works to revisit, revise, and - to his mind - improve them. Mahler was notorious for marking up scores and making changes during rehearsals, calling back manuscripts from publishers, and revising works from his youth in his later life. Mahler may have been happy with Blumine once, but even without negative critic feedback, he may never have been happy with it in the long run.

As a result, the work is rarely performed. We shall probably be the only orchestra to play it in the world this season!

Grace Williams (1906-1977) - fantasia on Welsh nursery tunes

Despite being widely regarded as Wales’ most well-known female composer, Grace Williams is probably not as widely known across the British Isles as she should be. Born in Barry, Glamorgan, to a musical household, Williams quickly became interested in composition at a young age. Winning a scholarship for musical composition to the University of Cardiff, she went on to study under Ralph Vaughan Williams at the Royal College of Music, before finishing her education in Vienna school of music, where she remained until 1931.

Upon returning to the UK, Williams began her early compositional career in London while teaching at Camden Girls’ school. Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes was written during this period in 1940 while Williams, with some of her students, was evacuated from London to Grantham, Lancashire.

As the title suggests, the work is made up of Welsh nursery rhymes with original music. Many of these were written from memory by the composer who remembered the songs of her childhood fondly. It is somewhat an atypical work within her oeuvre and considered to be the last major work written before her ‘mature’ phase - which begins with her Sea Sketches. Most of Williams’ later works display a late-romantic sentimentality heavily influenced by the rhythms and cadences of old Welsh poetry and oratory, often with loose, subversive structures. Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Rhymes is neither subversive nor ‘mature’ in the context of its musical or artistic inspirations. It is however consistent with her later works in one obvious way: it is grounded in Wales’s rich artistic culture, her greatest inspiration.

The Fantasia is a largely happy work, possibly written with the children in her guardianship in mind. The trumpet plays a central role in announcing the bouncier tunes that one imagines children skipping along to in playground. The strings in turn introduce the lullabies, often with simple but lush harmonies. Despite its childhood themes, it is not so much a work about the memories of childhood and does not seek to create a melancholic mood. It is rather a celebration of nursery tunes within the welsh cultural practice and the fun, youthful optimism they bring.

Through her letters, it is clear that while Williams was a passionate and caring musician, she was also a deeply self-critical one. This sense of perfectionism led her to throw aside sketches she didn’t like or older compositions she deemed ‘not worthy’ for others to hear. She claimed of the Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Rhymes that she ‘threw it together’ in one afternoon’s sitting. Nonetheless, it brought her to real recognition during her lifetime and remains one of her most popular works. It was first performed on BBC radio by BBC Northern in 1941 and was received extremely well, particularly in Wales. So well that it was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra shortly after its debut. To a war-weary public, the work’s light-heartedness and youthful energy probably provided some necessary musical relief to listeners.

It was in the war period that Williams began to experience episodes of severe depression which stayed with her for the rest of her life. The Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes may also be seen in this context as Williams reaching into her mind subconsciously looking for happier memories. One imagines her looking at the children in her ward and thinking back on her own childhood in Glamorgan during a time in history within which it was hard to find some day-to-day joy for many.

The nursery tunes in order are: Jim Cro – also known as Dacw Mam yn Dwâd (Here's Mummy coming) Deryn y Bwn (The Bittern) Migildi, Magildi (nonsense words imitating the sound of a hammer on an anvil) Si lwli mabi (Sleep my baby) Gee Geffyl Bach (Gee-up, little horse) Cysga Di, Fy Mhlentyn Tlws (Sleep, my pretty child) Yr eneth ffein ddu (Where are you going, my pretty maid?) Cadi Ha (Summer Katie)

Bizet Jeux d’enfants, Op. 22

Bizet wrote Jeux d’enfants (‘children’s games’) in 1871 for piano with four hands. The suite, which is made up of 12 movements was, as the title suggests, intended for children or young students to play. The composer orchestrated six (possibly seven) of these movements in what he would refer to as the petite suite: numbers 2, 3, 6, 11, and 12 were orchestrated by Bizet, with the others later orchestrated by Roy Douglas and Hershy Kay. We will be playing (in original piano number ordering) no. 6 Trompette et tambour (‘the march’), no. 3 La poupée (‘the doll’), no. 2 La toupie (‘the spinning top’), no.11 Petit mari, petite femme (‘little husband, little wife’), and no.12 Le bal )(‘the ball’).

Some scholars have argued that Jeux d’enfants marks a period of maturity and music rediscovery for Bizet. Melodically gifted with a penchant for styling chromatic harmonies that feel much more suited to the drama of the theatre than evoking the feelings of early-romantic (germanic) sentimental nostalgia, the Jeux d’enfants suite calls back to childhood with a boisterousness and self-consciousness of an adult seeing his past clear-eyed rather than with rose tinted glasses on. It feels distinctly ‘Bizet’ in its playfulness, its hints of operatic faux-drama, and its melodic framing that distinguishes it from Schumann’s nostalgic Kinderszenen or the later French school ‘scenes from childhood’ works by Debussy, Fauré, or even Ravel.

Reinecke Ballade for Flute, Op. 288

The Ballade was the last composition by Carl Reinecke (1824-1910). At the time of composition, Reinecke was 85 years old and nearing the end of a long and lauded career as a conductor, pianist, and pedagogue. Musicologists generally view the Ballade as Reinecke's "musical testament”. The piece is deeply introspective and elegiac, moving away from the virtuosic display of his earlier works like the concerto toward a more profound, "singing" narrative style. Reinecke viewed himself as a guardian of early German romanticism in the latter 19th century. Having been taught by Mendelssohn and Schumann, he saw it as his duty to continue the lyrical, formally conservative style of his teachers into the early 20th century. As such, while the Ballade makes use of the varied textures and richer harmonies of the late-romantic orchestra, it expresses its musical ideas within a simple music form designed to highlight the lyricism of the melody as much as possible - much how Schubert builds his forms around his vocal lines in his songs.

The music opens quietly and mysteriously, with the solo flute introducing a long, expressive melody over a dark D minor accompaniment. Listen for the way the flute seems to converse with different sections of the orchestra, and for Reinecke’s rich, changing harmonies beneath the simple melodic lines.

The mood changes dramatically as the music accelerates into a lively Allegro. Here the flute becomes increasingly agile, darting through quick, articulated passages and contrasting them with sweeping, lyrical phrases. The orchestra provides both rhythmic drive and colourful responses to the soloist.

Towards the end, the opening material returns, more reflective than before. The music briefly revisits the shadows of D minor before gradually finding its way into the brighter world of D major. Listen out for this transformation: after the drama and turbulence of the central section, the final moments feel almost like a quiet resolution.