Arwen Newband & Nicholas Turner

Performers

Notes on the performers

Arwen Newband is a violinist with wide ranging experience as a chamber musician, soloist,
orchestral player and teacher. Originally from New Zealand, she studied at Auckland University
before travelling to the UK where she studied with Emanuel Hurwitz. She spent a few years
freelancing as an orchestral musician and more recently has devoted her energies to playing
chamber music. She has performed most of the standard repertoire for violin and piano, in particular
with her regular duo partner Anna Le Hair. She is a founder member of the Hertfordshire based
Icknield Ensemble and also has a busy teaching practice.

Nicholas Turner (Viola) started playing the violin at the age of 8 before transferring to the Viola at the age of 16. Whilst reading Law at University College London he was Principal Viola in the Nottinghamshire County Youth Orchestra and University of London Orchestra.

He has been Principal Viola of the Forest Philharmonic Orchestra, St Albans’ Amadeus Chamber Orchestra, and has recently appeared as a guest viola player with the Devenport and St Matthews Chamber Orchestras in Auckland New Zealand. He is viola player with the Icknield Ensemble, which has given recitals at this lunch time series, at the Trunch Music Festival in Norfolk, Benslow Music, St Albans and Wheathampstead. He has played at many of the major London halls and has given chamber music recitals throughout London, the home counties and farther afield. He also plays with the St Albans Chamber Opera Group.

On separate occasions he has given chamber music recitals at private functions before H.M. Queen Elizabeth, the Prime Minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury. He plays on a viola made to the Guarneri model in 1999 by the contemporary maker Paul Harrild, of Newark.

Programme

Programme notes

Ignaz Pleyel (1757-1831)

Duet  Opus 30 no. 2 in B flat

1. Allegro
2. Minuet

Ignace Joseph Pleyel was an Austrian composer, music publisher and piano builder of the Classical period.

Source: Wikipedia

Johann Sebastian Bach

Partita in E for solo violin

1. Preludio
2. Loure
3. Gavotte en Rondeau
4. Menuets (I and II)
5. Bourrée
6. Gigue

The Partita No. 3 in E major for solo violin, BWV 1006.1 (formerly 1006), is the last work in Johann Sebastian Bach’s set of Sonatas and Partitas.

Bach transcribed the Partita as a suite, cataloged as BWV 1006.2 (formerly 1006a). The music critic Wilhelm Tappert claimed in 1900 that this arrangement was for lute solo, but present research indicates that it was for an unspecified instrument.

Source: Wikipedia

Mozart (1756-1791)

Duo K424 in F 

1. Adagio allegro
2. Andante cantabile
3. Andante grazioso

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s String Duo No. 2 in B-flat major for violin and viola, K. 424, the second of the two Mozart wrote to complete Michael Haydn’s set of six for the Archbishop Colloredo, was written in the summer of 1783.

The last movement is a theme with six variations and a coda. As a whole, this duo blends in better with Haydn’s four because the viola is more limited to providing harmony than in K. 423. The set of six was presented as all Haydn’s, and Colloredo was unable to “detect in them Mozart’s obvious workmanship.

Source: Wikipedia

Handel – Halvorsen

Passacaglia  for violin and viola

The passacaglia is a musical form that originated in early seventeenth-century Spain and is still used today by composers. It is usually of a serious character and is often based on a bass-ostinato and written in triple metre.

Johan Halvorsen (1864 – 1935) was a Norwegian composer, conductor and violinist. Passacaglia in G minor is based on a Theme by George Frideric Handel (from Harpsichord Suite in G minor, HWV 432) for violin and viola or cello (1897).

Source: Wikipedia