Moritz and Leopold Ganz: Duo Concertante: Fantasy on themes from Der Freischütz *
Beethoven: Septet in E-flat, Op. 20
*Alexander Janiczek, violin
Diyang Mei, viola
*Philip Higham, cello
Graham Mitchell, bass
Robert Plane, clarinet
Alec Frank-Gemmill, horn
Ursula Leveaux, bassoon
More than 20 years ago, the very first event took place which would lead to the creation of ENF – a performance of Beethoven’s Septet in Elie Church. Following its success, one thing led to another and suddenly here we are welcoming back some of the players from that original performance to perform it afresh. It is the perfect festive piece for our 20th birthday. In many ways it is the opposite of Beethoven’s late quartets: there is no sense of him striving to write the music of the future – he simply scores a popular hit with irresistible zest and joy. Famously, its runaway success came to irritate him so much he disclaimed authorship on several occasions.
To open we have a proper rarity – and we believe, a Scottish premiere, c. 200 years after it was written! Moritz and Leopold Ganz were brothers and pillars of the Berlin music scene in the 1820s and 1830s. Berlioz, visiting in 1843, wrote “The strings are nearly all first-rate, but one should particularly single out the brothers Ganz (the admirable first violin and first cello)…” Both played in the pit for the opera on occasion, and tapped into the popularity of fantasias on operatic themes in works like the Grand Duo we will hear, prepared especially for the occasion by Alexander Janiczek and Philip Higham.
