ICO Sundays 2021

Sunday 28 March 1.30pm

Sherwood Districts Football Club, 41 Chelmer St East, Chelmer

Conductor – Greta Hunter

Guest soloist – André Oberleuter – Bassoon

Welcome to the first of our ICO Sundays 2021 series. An Italian style overture, a London Symphony and a bassoon concerto written for a German court. Schubert, Haydn and Weber. Immerse yourself in a classical Sunday afternoon with ICO.

We are delighted to be playing with André Oberleuter, joint winner of the QSO Young Instrumentalist’s Prize 2021.

The bistro will be open before, during and after the concert. Enjoy our Gold Class concert service.

Program

Schubert – Overture in the Italian Style (C Major) D591

Weber – Bassoon Concerto in F Major OP.75

 INTERVAL

Haydn – Symphony no. 104 in D Major “London”

JOIN US AT THE BAR FOR A DRINK AFTER THE PERFORMANCE

Greta Hunter – Conductor

Greta Hunter is a flutist, music educator, conductor, and musical director of three community ensembles in Brisbane.

Greta holds a Bachelor of Music with first class honours majoring in Classical Flute Performance from the University of Queensland.  She held the 2018 position of principal flute with the Queensland Youth Symphony (QYS) after previously performing as the orchestra’s principal piccolo.  Greta has toured regularly with the QYO Chamber Orchestra and in 2017 performed with the QYS on its major international tour to China and Germany.  She is the flute specialist tutor at the Westside Christian College, Brisbane.

Greta is an experienced conductor with a passion for community music.  In 2019 she attended the Melbourne Youth Orchestra’s conductor development program, and the advanced conducting program at the Australian Choral Conductors Education and Training (ACCET) Summer School.  Greta has also attended the Australian Conducting Academy in Tasmania and the Zlin International Conducting Masterclass in the Czech Republic, and was invited to guest conduct the QYS in its 2018 Strings Sensations concert.

Greta is the musical director and conductor of the Indooroopilly Chamber Orchestra, Songshine Choir and Queensland Korean Junior Strings.

André Oberleuter – Bassoon Soloist

Bassoonist, André Oberleuter is an active young performer and soloist.

At 17 years of age he has already three years’ experience as principal bassoonist in the Queensland Youth Symphony and is bassoonist in QLD Conservatorium’s Acetaria Wind Quintet.  He has also played with the Australian Honours Ensemble Wind Orchestra, Brisbane Philharmonic Orchestra, QLD Conservatorium Wind Orchestra, and QLD Conservatorium Ensemble in Residence.

In 2020 André was given the opportunity to perform the Mozart Bassoon Concerto as soloist with the QYS and has appeared as soloist with the QYO’s Chamber Orchestra in 2019. 

André has been awarded numerous prizes, most recently being the joint winner of the 2021 QSO Young Instrumentalist’s Prize. He was awarded the national prize in the 2020 World Music Competition for players under 17, first prize in the 2019 Australian Double Reed Society National Competition, third in the 2020 Queensland Symphony Orchestra’s Young Instrumentalist’s Prize, finalist in the 2020 Melbourne Recital Centres Online Bach Competition, and semi-finalist in the Acetaria Wind Quintet in the 2019 Queensland International Chamber Music Competition. 

André is privileged to study bassoon under David Mitchell, A/Principal Bassoon in the QSO, and has had the pleasure of working with world class musicians, Andrew Marriner (principal clarinet, London Symphony Orchestra), Geffery Crellin (principal oboe, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra), and attended masterclasses with Simon van Holen (principal contrabassoon, Royal Concertgeouw Orchestra) and Whittney Crocket (principal bassoon, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra). 

In 2021 André looks forward to participating in the Australian Youth Orchestras Spring Camp, as well as appearing as “Young Artist” in the Brisbane Music Festival.  When he is not playing bassoon, he is playing contrabassoon!  He also enjoys linguistics, swimming and going to the gym.

Program Notes

Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828)

Overture in the Italian Style in C Major D591

Franz Schuber is one of the best-loved and most important composers of the nineteenth century, his music consistently marked by a remarkable melodic gift, rich harmonies, and an expansive treatment of traditional forms.  During his short but extremely prolific career, he composed nine symphonies, dozens of chamber and solo piano works, and a host of operas and liturgical works.  His songs, numbering over 600, virtually created the genre of the art song.  He started composing in his teens, and some early works came to the notice of Antonio Salieri, who worked with the young composer on composition and music theory.

Schubert was among the many Gioacchino Rossini enthusiasts, and in 1817, he set aside the Symphony No. 6 that he was then working on to compose a pair of Overtures that evoke the world of Rossini. While the title they have since acquired, “in the Italian Style,” didn’t come from Schubert himself, the appellation is more than appropriate.

The Overture in C major is probably the more popular of the two, possibly because it was published many years before the other in D major.  It begins with a gently portentous slow introduction that leads into a duet for clarinet and bassoon. The strings then take up the tune.  After a brief pause, the tempo increases with a jolly melody with dotted rhythms that certainly calls Rossini to mind. Another theme is introduced by the flute and oboe before the eruption of one of those famous slow-building, repetitive “Rossini crescendos.”  A repeat of this music leads into another increase in tempo for the Overture’s exciting final moments.

Program notes by Chris Morrison – https://renochamberorchestra.org/program-notes-february-2019/

Carl Maria von Weber (1786 – 1826)

Bassoon concerto in F Major op.75

Carl Maria von Weber’s ever-popular Bassoon Concerto in F Major was originally composed in 1811, but was later revised in 1822.  Whilst visiting Munich in 1811, Weber was asked to put on a concert for the Queen.  After impressing the court with his Concertino for Clarinet and Orchestra, Weber was on the lookout to write a new concerto.  Weber took interest in German bassoonist, Georg Friedrich Brandt, and composed his Concerto for Bassoon. It took Weber a mere four days to compose the work, and the first performance took place in 1811.

The revisions took place four years before Weber’s death. He made a deal with Schlesinger to publish some of his older works, the Concerto for Bassoon being one of these. Not huge changes were made, but an expansion of some orchestral sections, and some re-scoring were made.

In the first movement the first theme is influenced by a military attitude. The second theme becomes more introspective. Of note in the development is the use of triplets and the increasing use of virtuosic running sixteenth notes throughout the remainder of the movement. The second movement is lyrical and songlike in its mood. The Rondo is structured A B A C A D A Coda. It is very humorous in attitude and almost flamboyant in its virtuosic display.

Program notes by Alex Burns and the University of Nevada Las Vegas

Additional information – https://www.chandos.net/chanimages/Booklets/LN0409.pdf

Joseph Haydn (1732 – 1809)

Symphony No. 104 in D major, “London”

Joseph Haydn was treated like royalty – or at least like Europe’s greatest composer – upon his arrival in England at the beginning of 1791 for a residency during which the first set of Salomon’s symphonies, Nos. 93-98, would be presented. Later, another series of six – the rest of the 12 so-called “London Symphonies” – was composed in Vienna. Haydn returned to a breathlessly expectant London in 1794. The English were not disappointed. 

The last symphony, the present work, to which alone among the 12 the name “London” has become particularly attached, was first heard in 1795, and was also the main event of Haydn’s London farewell concert, for his own benefit, three weeks later. Of the latter, Haydn recorded in his diary: “The hall was filled with a picked audience. The whole company was delighted and so was I. I took in this evening 4000 gulden. One can make as much as this only in England.”

Whether or not Haydn had decided that this would be his last symphony – which it is – everything about it projects the feeling of a “statement,” including the boldly decisive, symmetrical introduction, as distinct from the improvisatory feeling Haydn conveys in similar circumstances elsewhere: two portentous D-minor episodes framing a smaller one in the key of F major. The dark drama nonetheless gives way to something quite different (otherwise it wouldn’t be Haydn, master of the unexpected), a charging, joyous Allegro. 

Reversing the procedure, the Adagio begins with an innocent, lilting G-major melody in the first violins, which darkens almost imperceptibly as the other strings enter, then changes its personality as the winds play a little lament, whereupon the whole orchestra bursts out in (minor-key) fury.

The burly minuet has a particularly jaunty trio, dominated by solo oboe and bassoon, while the grand finale – to London and to Haydn, the symphonist – is a potpourri of Slavonic folk tunes which Haydn heard during his years on the Esterházy estates. The opening theme had long been thought of as a London tribute, quoting from the street-song “Hot Cross Buns,” but in recent years has been identified as “Oj Jelena,” a ballad sung by the Croatians living in Eisenstadt when Haydn made his home there.

Program notes by Herbert Glass – https://www.laphil.com/musicdb/pieces/3916/symphony-no-104-in-d-major-london

Indooroopilly Chamber Orchestra

Conductor – Greta Hunter

Guest Bassoon Soloist – André Oberleuter

Master of Ceremonies – Kymberley Jones (ICO Secretary)

Flute

Kerynne Birch

Kymberley Jones

Julie Stanton

Oboe

Clint Fox

Aichlinn Huang-Ryan

Clarinet

Daniel Byrne

Colleen Rowe

Robert Teakle

Bassoon

Sam Battock

Milly Yip

Horn

Paul Brisbane

John MacGinley

Piano

Gary Hunt

Timpani and Percussion

Janine Kesting