The Kelvin Ensemble - 15th Anniversary Concert
Conductor - Kenneth Woods
Viola - Veronika Toth

It was a cold and rainy evening.. (as usual..) hahaha..
However, the sound of music beckons me to Bute Hall, University of Glasgow on the 2nd of December 2006 (7.30pm)...

The Kelvin Ensemble is a student-run chamber orchestra of the University of Glasgow. It was set up in 1991 by a group of enterprising students with the main aim of providing a forum for musicians from all faculties of the University to perform challenging music to the highest level and present public performances led by professional conductors.

How good is that?

Concert Programme
Tommy Fowler - Rappezzatura Barocco
William Walton - Viola Concerto (Viola - Veronika Toth)
Antonin Dvorak - Symphony No. 8 in G Major, Op.88

Rapezzatura Barocco
The music opens quietly and slowly with "majestic grace" featuring the lower strings and the solo winds. As the harpsichord joins the "play" the volume builds up with the full strings emerge ebbing and flowing adding up to the intensity... A splendid performance indeed!

William Walton - Viola Concert0
The first movement, Andante comodo, beings with a lyrical melody in the viola that suggests both major and minor harmonies. The second movement, Vivo, con molto preciso, is a brief, dizzying scherzo. The viola trades fast rhythmic figures with the orchestra, until the brass introduces a second, equally energetic theme. A solo bassoon introduces the triplet-heavy first theme of the final movement, Allegro moderato. Both the solo viola and various sections of the orchestra take it up, until the viola introduces a new, more plaintive theme. The final fugue is a tour de force of compositional planning, including some portions of all three themes, then ending with an epilogue in which the soloist returns to a melody from the Andante, while a bass clarinet (originally the cellos in in Walton's earlier version) plays the first theme from this Allegro underneath. The piece ends quietly, once again contrasting both major and minor harmoniesm and focussing on the viola's greatest strength.
~ Heartfelt, moving and captivating performance by Veronika Toth!

Antonin Dvorak - Symphony No. 8 in G Major, Op. 88
The symphony begins with a hint of darkness to come, with a long lyrical and melancholy melody played by the cellos (I love the mellow 'voices' of the cellos!). In this symphony the cellos carry so much of the melodic weight that they take on the role of something like a narrator. The finale, which begins with a bracing fanfare in the trumpets, is made up of a series of wild variations, summing up everything in the symphony so far. Having said goodbye for the last time, the music storms back to life, and ends in the highest possible spirits.

A very entertaining evening indeed.

For photos, please visit: http://s56.photobucket.com/albums/g198/peterchai82/Kelvin%20Ensemble%2015th%20Anniversary%20Concert/