The Full Works Concert - Wednesday 2 October 2013

Our concert tonight spans Ancient Greece, 18th century Vienna and 21st century Wales!

It was thanks to Cambridge University that Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote the music for a satirical production of the Aristophanes comedy, The Wasps. He was invited to compose it by the Cambridge Greek Play committee. Several of Vaughan Williams’s composition tutors – among them, Charles Villiers Stanford and Hubert Parry – had been similarly commissioned by the committee in previous years so Vaughan Williams was following in illustrious footsteps.

Salieri's Flute and Oboe Concerto in C major was written in 1774, the year he gained his court appointment in Vienna. It's a charming, often brilliantly dramatic dialogue between the two solo voices, complete with a romantic duet in the Largo, supported by a colourful orchestra of strings, trumpets, horns and bassoons.

Mozart's Serenade for orchestra in D major is a lengthy work, popularly known as the Haffner Serenade. It was named for the Haffner family after Mozart's friend and contemporary Sigmund Haffner the Younger commissioned the work to be used in the course of the festivities before the wedding of his sister Marie Elisabeth and her intended, Franz Xaver Spaeth. The Serenade was first played on 21 July 1776, on the eve of the wedding.

The concert ends tonight with Karl Jenkins' piece In These Stones Horizons Sing. It was commissioned for the opening of the Wales Millennium Centre and first performed at the building's opening on 29 November 2004. It's performed tonight by a distinguished Welsh line-up including Bryn Terfel, harpist Catrin Finch and the Cardiff Choir.


Ralph Vaughan Williams: The Wasps – Overture
Vernon Handley conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra 


Antonio Salieri: Flute and Oboe Concerto in C major
Flute: Susan Milan
Oboe: David Theodore
Richard Hickox conducts the City of London Sinfonia

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Serenade in D major (‘Haffner’)
Claudio Abbado conducts the Berlin Philarmonic Orchestra

Karl Jenkins: In These Stones Horizons Sing
Bass-baritone: Bryn Terfel
Harp: Catrin Finch
Karl Jenkins conducts the West Kazakhstan Philharmonic Orchestra, Serendipity, the Cardiff Choir and Cytgan