Scottish Ensemble: For A Winter's Night
String orchestra concert by candlelight.
For A Winter’s Night:
Concerts by Candlelight
Flickering candlelight, atmospheric architecture, and music of illumination and warmth...
Scottish Ensemble's much-loved December concert provides an alternative to the usual musical offerings of the season, filling the beautiful surrounds of St Machar's Cathedral with evocative music from across centuries and styles.
Celebrating its 50th anniversary, this year the UK’s leading string orchestra offers a jigsaw of significant snapshots and fragments from across its history, from pieces that have particularly resonated with audiences to some of its most significant commissions and musical moments. Between Sibelius’s Rakastava, Tavener’s Tears of The Angels, and extracts from Bach’s Goldberg Variations will come arrangements of melodies from a golden era of music, Scottish traditional tunes, and a haunting carol. Step out of the winter cold, and into a space of reflection, contemplation and inspiration.
Scottish Ensemble (SE) is Scotland’s pioneering string orchestra; a collective of outstanding musicians, championing music for strings across Scotland, the UK and the world. Celebrating 50 years, across its 2019/20 Anniversary Season SE presents thought-provoking programmes and events that cross genres, styles, musical periods and art forms to shed new light on classical music - and the many ways it can be shared.
Chamber Notes
with guest director Marianne Thorsen (violin)
Felix Mendelssohn
String Octet in E-flat major
George Enescu
Octet for Strings in C major
Although written for just eight instruments, both of these sophisticated works have the drama, richness and depth of a full-blown symphony. They also make for an excellently contrasting pair. From Mendelssohn’s exuberant opening bars, we’re swept through music that is impressively complex yet captivatingly, joyously melodic throughout, whilst Enescu’s is moody, breathlessly dramatic, and, in parts, simply volcanic.
Guest directed by Marianne Thorsen - a passionate chamber musician - at this concert Scottish Ensemble explore the specific charm of seeing a small group of musicians performing live. With fewer instruments, the fabric of the music becomes more tangible, subtle shifts in mood may have a new-found presence, and pieces you think you know well might offer surprising new colours when
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