Winter Concert – Hensel, Copland & Brahms

Fanny Hensel – Overture in C

Aaron Copland – Clarinet Concerto

Johannes Brahms – Symphony No 3

A rarely heard Overture, a jazz-tinged concerto, and one of the great Romantic symphonies — this January concert brings together three works that each have something distinctive to say.

We open with a piece long overdue its moment in the spotlight. Fanny Hensel — sister of Felix Mendelssohn, and a composer of equal brilliance — spent much of her life barred from publishing her music simply because she was a woman. Her Overture in C, written in 1830, is confident and masterfully orchestrated: proof, if any were needed, that the world missed out by keeping her work from concert halls for so long.

Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, written for jazz legend Benny Goodman in 1948, begins with one of the most achingly beautiful slow melodies in the American repertoire — long, searching, utterly unhurried. A cadenza then launches us into the second movement, where Copland’s love of jazz and Latin rhythms takes over completely. It is a concerto of two worlds, and the effect is irresistible.

The evening closes with Brahms at his most personal. His Third Symphony, in F major, is quieter and more inward-looking than his other symphonies — it ends not in triumph, but in a hushed, mysterious calm that audiences have found spellbinding since its premiere in 1883. The glorious third movement, one of the most recognisable melodies he ever wrote, sits at the heart of it all.

Our tickets can be printed at home or just turn up with the email ticket with the QR code. Ticket sales via this website close 4 hours before the concert.