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The latest of the Howard Assembly Room’s concerts featuring members of the Orchestra of Opera North offers the chance to experience a towering work of the twentieth century in its original setting, and in the round.
Samuel Barber was just 26 when he composed his Quartet in B minor. He quickly followed it with an arrangement for string orchestra of its extraordinary central Adagio, which found wide acceptance as an expression of mourning: at the funeral of Albert Einstein; at a memorial concert for JFK – it was one of his favourite works – and in films including The Elephant Man and Platoon. More recently, its building tension and atmosphere of intense emotion has made it an unlikely trance hit, ‘covered’ by the likes of William Orbit and Tiësto.
For the inaugural concert in our new Distilled series, players from the Orchestra perform the full Quartet, revealing the exquisite workings of the Adagio in its original context.
Opening the concert, the Overture on Hebrew Themes is scored for clarinet, quartet and piano and was commissioned by a group of Prokofiev’s former fellow students at the St. Petersburg Conservatory who presented the composer with a notebook of traditional Jewish folk tunes.
Start time
7pm
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String Quartet in B minor, Op. 11
Featuring players from the staff and Orchestra of Opera North, our Distilled series explores new ways in which to present classical music. A chance to experience small ensembles interacting at close quarters, each of these shorter chamber programmes offers an intense experience of orchestral music in its purest essence.
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