Originally scheduled to come as the wonderful Marsyas Trio, due to an international tour in South America, Helen and Olga will today perform as a duo. They will perform the 1st movement of the Roussel piece and the 3rd movement of the Bach Toccata
i Allegretto, ii Rondo presto
CPE Bach was a German Classical period composer and musician, the fifth child and second surviving son of Johann Sebastian Bach. He was an influential composer working at a time of transition between his father’s Baroque style and the Classical style that followed it. He was the principal representative of the empfindsamer Stil or ‘sensitive style’. The qualities of his keyboard music are forerunners of the expressiveness of Romantic music, in deliberate contrast to the statuesque forms of Baroque music.
French classical composer Georges Hüe (1858-1948) studied under the guidance of Charles Gounod and César Franck, excelling in composition. In 1879, he achieved notable recognition by winning the prestigious Prix de Rome with his captivating cantata, Médée. This accolade marked the beginning of Hüe’s promising career in the world of classical music.
i Pan, ii Tityre, iii Krishna, iv Mr de la Péjaudie
Joueurs De Flute Op.27, was composed in 1924 for the flautist Louis Fleury. Each movement is based on the 4 mythical flute players, Pan, Tityre, Krishna and Monsieur de la Péjaudie.
i Pagodes (Pagodas), ii La soirée dans Grenade (Evening in Granada), iii Jardins sous la pluie (Gardens in the Rain)
Estampes (Prints), L. 100, is a composition for solo piano by Claude Debussy. It was finished in 1903.
Lili Boulanger wrote the Nocturne aged eighteen, in 1911, originally scored for violin and piano. It shows, in its clean lines, lightish texture and the almost ironically sudden dismissal of its pseudo-romantic climax, a move back in tone towards the music of earlier French composers, while the little quotation at the end from Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune surely looks forward to a future in which Wagner would no longer hold the reins of power. (Roger Nichols)
i [no tempo indication], ii Un Poco Allegro, iii Adagio, iv Fuga: Allegro
The Toccata in E minor, BWV914, is a well-constructed and appealing work. Adagio is the third of four movements. The cadenza-like adagio is written over a descending bass line and is marked ‘Praeludium’ in one copy made by a Bach student, which leads us to think that it was perhaps an independent composition before being recycled as part of the toccata.
i Allegro malinconico, ii Cantilena: Assez lent, iii Presto giocoso
The Sonate pour flûte et piano, FP 164, by Francis Poulenc, is a three-movement work for flute and piano, written in 1957.
Helen Vidovich - Flute
Australian flautist Helen Vidovich works as a freelance orchestral and chamber musician throughout the UK and internationally. As an orchestral player she has performed at venues including the Sydney Opera House and Royal Albert Hall in London. Recent career highlights include work with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra. Helen auditioned successfully as an extra player for the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Welsh National Opera, and in Australia has appeared on several occasions as a soloist with the Sydney Chamber Orchestra, including performances of Mozart’s Flute and Harp Concerto with harpist Marshall McGuire.
Helen completed postgraduate study at the Royal Academy of Music, London, following a Master’s degree at the Sydney Conservatorium. In 2006 she received an Australian Bicentennial Scholarship from King’s College London to assist her postgraduate studies in London. Her teachers have included Michael Cox (BBC Symphony Orchestra) and Sharon Williams (LSO). She has performed in masterclasses throughout Europe with international soloists including Jacques Zoon, Peter-Lukas Graf, Peter Lloyd, Philipe Bernold and William Bennett. Helen has a keen interest in contemporary music and regularly works with composers both as a soloist and within an orchestral context.
Olga Stezhko - Piano
Olga Stezhko is an award-winning concert pianist and critically acclaimed recording artist. Her striking and idiosyncratic programmes often explore hidden connections between music, science, and history across the past four centuries.
Acclaimed by Classical Source in a Wigmore Hall review as ‘a supremely delicate master of her instrument’ who possesses ‘an extraordinary presence’, Olga has performed worldwide from the Barbican Hall in London to Salle Cortot in Paris to the Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Recent highlights include performances in Bridgewater Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Palermo Classica Festival, the Ulverston International Music Festival and a tour in Norway where Olga premiered her multimedia project ‘Red, Green, Blue’ and a new work for piano, chamber orchestra and narrator ‘Blooming’ by Kari Beate Tandberg, based on the book ‘The Unwomanly Face of War’ by Belarusian Nobel Prize laureate Svetlana Alexievich.
Olga is the winner of many international competitions and awards including the Grand Prix at the ‘Halina Czerny-Stefanska In Memoriam’ International Piano Competition in Poland and the First Prize at the Nikolai Rubinstein International Piano Competition in France.
Born in Minsk, Olga was educated in Belarus, Italy and the UK where she completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees with distinction at the Royal Academy of Music.
Olga’s debut album ‘Eta Carinae’ (Luminum Records) combined her passion for astronomy with music by Scriabin and Busoni and was hailed by the Gramophone Magazine as ‘an outstanding debut’ and ‘not a record for the faint-hearted but rather for those who enjoy dark and menacing regions of the mind’. Her second all-Debussy album ‘Et la lune descend’ (Palermo Classica) received unanimous critical acclaim in the publications including International Piano Magazine and BBC Music Magazine.
Helen and Olga are members of the Marsyas Trio (flute, cello, piano) – one of the UK’s foremost mixed chamber ensembles and the current Artist By-Fellows at Churchill College, University of Cambridge and FUAM Ensemble in Residence at the University of Leeds.
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