John Wilson on ‘Serenade’, our tour of English music for strings

Ahead of rehearsals starting for our tour of music by Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Britten, Bliss and Delius, we caught up wth conductor John Wilson to ask him a little about the programme.

Could you tell us a little about the forthcoming tour and the repertoire featured?

Everything in the concert is scored for strings only, in various different permutations: string quartet, first orchestra, second orchestra and the Britten has two soloists, a tenor and a horn player. All of the music is by British composers and is from the great English music renaissance of the first half of the twentieth century.

How do you approach conducting works like the Elgar and Vaughan Williams which are so very well known?

By going right back to the score and trying to be as true to the composer as possible.  Harder than it sounds.  Wasn’t it [the American violinist] Nathan Milstein who, when asked a similar question about approaching a masterpiece, replied ‘I just try not to spoil it’?

Arthur Bliss’s music on the other hand is not that well known nowadays – could you tell us a little about him and his ‘Music for Strings’?  

I have loved this piece for decades.  Like so much of Bliss’s music, it is both muscularly rugged and exquisitely tender.  Music For Strings is one of his finest pieces, every note earns its keep and it’s a tremendous showpiece for the orchestra.

Likewise with Delius – his best known work is probably ‘On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring’, but ‘Late Swallows’ is probably less familiar to audiences – could you tell us a little about it?  

Originally the third movement of his String Quartet, Late Swallows was transcribed for string orchestra by Eric Fenby and is one of the composers’ most characteristic creations: a wistful, ravishingly beautiful and deeply felt miniature the kind of which Delius was an absolute master. Very few composers can pack as much emotion into such a short space of time as he.

And the centrepiece of the programme is Britten’s Serenade. Can you tell audiences about the work and its original soloists?  

Written in 1943, Britten’s Serenade is a song cycle for tenor, horn and string orchestra and all of the poems deal with various aspects of the night.  The work was tailored to exploit the genius of soloists Peter Pears and Dennis Brain and is universally recognised as one of the great masterpieces of the last century.

Serenade: English Music for Strings tours from 17-22 October with soloists Laurence Kilsby (tenor) and Christopher Parkes (horn). Full details can be found on our Concerts page.

17 October, The Glasshouse, Gateshead. Details
18 October, Perth Concert Hall, Perth. Details
19 October, Sands Centre, Carlisle. Details
22 October, Barbican Centre, London. Details