Music from two of the 19th century's greatest musical prodigies

	One of Franz Schubert’s lesser-known masterpieces was performed at a lunchtime concert in Rickmansworth on Wednesday, December 5.   Schubert was fantastically prolific and composed more than 600 pieces of music before dying at the age of 31. He wrote operas, symphonies, masses, string quartets and hundreds of songs.

But his Piano Trio No 2 in E flat, which was written towards the end of his short life, is among his most astonishing achievements. It is rarely performed in concert halls but has featured on the soundtracks of some memorable films, such as The Piano Teacher, starring Isabelle Huppert, and Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon.

TRMS's December lunchtime concert was given by the Midlands-based Jayne Walker Piano Trio, which has played for the society on two previous occasions.

The trio – Jayne Walker (violin), David Butterworth (piano and organ) and Steven Halls (cello) -- performed variations from another seldom-heard work, Josef Rheinberger’s Suite in C minor for organ, violin and cello. This highly original composition is one of very few pieces written for this unusual combination of instruments.

Although little known today, Rheinberger displayed his musical precocity at an even younger age than Schubert. He was only seven when he became the parish church organist in Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein, and he caused a sensation by composing a Mass one year later.

Rheinberger went on to become a music professor in Munich and taught some of the most famous German musicians of the late 19th and early 20th century, including the conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler.

The concert took place on Wednesday 5 December 1.00 - 2.00 pm

Franz Schubert (1797-1828) Piano Trio No.2 in E flat op.100 D929-
1. Allegro;  2. Andante con moto;  3. Scherzando: Allegro moderato;  4. Allegro moderato

Joseph Rheinberger (1839-1901) Variations from Suite in C minor op.149, for organ, violin and cello

Concert poster
Concert notes

Doreen Carwithen

Two works by unfairly neglected women composers featured in the lastThree Rivers Music Society concert in Rickmansworth on Wednesday, November 21. Symphonia Academica, one of the country’s most versatile chamber ensembles, performed string quartets by Doreen Carwithen and Fanny Mendelssohn, older sister of the more celebrated Felix. Buckinghamshire-born Doreen Carwithen studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music and went on to write the scores for more than 30 films in the late 1940s and 1950s – many of which were shot at Rank’s Denham Studios.

She also composed the music for Elizabeth is Queen, the official film of the 1953 coronation, as well as two prizewinning string quartets. But as music publishers at that time were very reluctant to publish work by women, she went into premature retirement in the early 1960s after setting up home with her future husband, the composer William Alwyn.

Like her brother, Fanny Mendelssohn was a musical prodigy. She composed more than 460 pieces of music during her relatively short life but she too found that her gender ruled out a career as a composer. Even her father is said to have told her: "Music will perhaps become his [Felix's] profession, while for you it can and must be only an ornament."

The November 21 concert included rare performances of Doreen Carwithen’s String Quartet No.1, which was admired by Vaughan Williams, and Fanny Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in E flat. Symphonia Academica also played Arthur Bliss’s Oboe Quintet Opus 21 and Benjamin Britten’s Phantasy Quartet for oboe and strings.

Photos from the concert -