Sarah Williamson & Viv McLean

Performers

Notes on the performers

Sarah Williamson

Sarah Williamson has toured the world, playing at major concertvenues and collaborating with numerous leading orchestras. Sarah achieved international fame in 2002 following her success in the BBC Young Musician Competition and Eurovision Competition for Young Musicians. Sarah Williamson studied at Le Conservatoire Superieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris with Pascal Moraguès, principal clarinettist of the Orchestre de Paris, Jean-Francois Verdier and Olivier Derbesse, graduating with the Premier Prix and a ‘Laureate’,the highest honour. She is active in the field of contemporary music, championing the music of Edward Longstaff, Philip Grange, Joseph Phibbs, Graham Fitkin, and Benjamin Baczewski. Sarah Williamson has performed and toured extensively with The Academy of St Martins in the Fields, The City of London Sinfonia, the BBC Concert orchestra, the LSO, BBC Concert Orchestra (broadcast live), The European Union Chamber Orchestra, The Brighton Philharmonic, The Royal Philharmonic (Classic FM livebroadcast) and the Orchestra of the Swan. Sarah continued her studies at Le Conservatoire Superieur de Musique et de Dance de Paris, graduating with the Premier Prix and where she was awarded a ‘Laureate’, the Conservatoire’s highest honour in recognition of her reflecting her ability and musicality.

Viv McLean

Described by Le Monde as “possessing the genius one finds in those who know how to forget themselves”, since winning First Prize at the Maria Canals Piano Competition in Barcelona, British pianist Viv McLean has performed in all the major venues in the UK as well as throughout Europe, Japan, Australia and the USA. Viv’s concerto work includes appearances with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Halle Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Sinfonia Viva, Orchestra of the Swan, Orchestra of St John’s, Northern Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Concert Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of such conductors as Daniel Harding, Wayne Marshall, John Lubbock, Christopher Warren-Green, Owain Arwell Hughes, Philip Hesketh, David Charles Abell, Stephen Bell, Carl Davis, Rebecca Miller and Marvin Hamlisch.

Programme

Programme notes

Anthony Horovitz

Sonatina For Clarinet and Piano

1. Allegro Calmato
2. Lento quasi andante
3. Con brio

Joseph Horovitz (1926 – 2022) was an Austrian-born British composer and conductor best known for his 1970 pop cantata Captain Noah and his Floating Zoo, which achieved widespread popularity in schools. Horovitz also composed music for television, including the theme music for the Thames Television series Rumpole of the Bailey, and was a prolific composer of ballet, orchestral (including nine concertos), brass band, wind band and chamber music. He considered his fifth string quartet (1969) to be his best work.

Source: Wikipedia

Francis Poulenc (1899 – 1963)

Sonata For Clarinet and Piano

1. Allegro tristamente
2. Romanza
3. Allegro Con Fuoco

The Sonate pour clarinette et piano (Clarinet Sonata), FP 184, for clarinet in B-flat and piano by Francis Poulenc dates from 1962 and is one of the last pieces he completed. It is dedicated to the memory of Arthur Honegger, who like Poulenc had belonged to the group Les Six.

Source: Wikipedia

Matthew Williamson

Boreas blows across the icy lakes (from the Interlude Pieces)

Matthew Williamson is a composer from North Barnet, London.

Boreas is the god of the winter winds, eerily wailing and wandering around the mountain plateau, down lonely mountain passes and valleys, and over frozen lakes to the snowline and the foothills beyond, to mingle and be comforted by the warmer air of the lowlands. The mood is lyrical and yearning but becomes warm and resolved.

Source: Matthew Williamson

Johannes Brahms

Sonata No 1, Op. 120

1. Allegro Appassionato
2. Andante un poco Adagio
3. Allegretto graziozo
4. Vivace

The Clarinet Sonatas, Op. 120, Nos. 1 and 2, are a pair of works written for clarinet and piano by the Romantic composer Johannes Brahms. They were written in 1894 and are dedicated to the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld. The sonatas stem from a period late in Brahms’s life where he discovered the beauty of the sound and tonal colour of the clarinet. The form of the clarinet sonata was largely undeveloped until after the completion of these sonatas, after which the combination of clarinet and piano was more readily used in composers’ new works. These were the last chamber pieces Brahms wrote before his death and are considered two of the great masterpieces in the clarinet repertoire. Brahms also produced a frequently performed transcription of these works for viola with alterations to better suit the instrument.

Source: Wikipedia