Concert Three

'Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s celebrated tenure as conductor and music director of the Gewandhaus Orchestra began in 1835. The composer’s Scottish Symphony and Violin Concerto were both premiered in the Gewandhaus and the Gewandhaus Orchestra’s sound identity is indelibly linked with the music of Mendelssohn. The Piano Sextet was composed when Mendelssohn was just 15 years old, one year before he completed his beloved String Octet. 

In singling out which composers had influenced him, Czech composer Antonín Dvořák recalled mainly German names, including Felix Mendelssohn. He composed his Serenade for Winds, Cello and Double Bass in 1878, having been impressed by a performance of Mozart’s Wind Serenade in Vienna. The work was also undoubtedly influenced by the two Serenades of Johannes Brahms, the first of which was composed twenty years before Dvořák’s Serenade and just after Brahms had suffered the humiliation of the first performance in Leipzig of his Piano Concerto No. 1 being jeered off stage.'

– Tahlia Petrosian, Curator

Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847)
Piano Sextet in D, Op. 110 (30′)

I. Allegro vivace
II. Adagio
III. Menuetto. Agitato
IV. Allegro vivace

Karl Heinrich Niebuhr | Violin*
Megan Yang | Violin^
Harry Swainston | Viola^
Daniel You | Viola^
Nadia Barrow | Cello^
Burak Marlali | Double Bass*
Reuben Johnson | Piano^

Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904)
Serenade for Wind Instruments, Cello and Double Bass in D minor, Op. 44 (25′)

I. Moderato
II. Minuetto
III. Andante con moto
IV. Finale

Alex Allan | Oboe^
Alexandra King | Oboe^
Edgar Hesske | Clarinet*
Clare Fox | Clarinet^
Axel Benoit | Bassoon*
Tasman Compton | Bassoon^
Kina Lin-Wilmoth | Contrabassoon^
Simen Fegran | Horn*
Ryan Humphrey | Horn^
Nicola Robinson | Horn^
Noah Lawrence | Cello^
Burak Marlali | Double Bass*


* Musician from the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
^ Musician from the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM)