03 Sep 2026
St Albans’ best known chamber orchestra gets their season off to a flying start with a programme conducted by Lewis Gaston who makes a welcome return to Amadeus Chamber Orchestra.
The concert, which takes place at 7.30pm on Saturday September 26 in St Saviour’s Church, starts with Maurice Ravel’s ‘Pavane pour une infante défunte’.
This piece began life as a piano solo in 1899 when Ravel was studying at the Conservatoire de Paris under Gabriel Fauré. He later orchestrated it (in 1910) using two flutes, an oboe, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, harp and strings. It has become recognised as a masterpiece. Ravel described the piece as “a pavane that might have been danced by a little princess (infanta)”. The pavane was a slow and stately courtly dance, popular in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Amadeus follow this with the Clarinet Concerto No. 2 in E flat by Anton Weber. Written in 1811 and dedicated to Heinrich Baermann, the famous clarinettist who was the soloist at its first performance.
There are three movements, the last being titled Alla Polacca (like a polonaise) which some soloists take much faster than a polonaise which was a slow dance.
The soloist is Boyan Ivanov (pictured above) who has been described as “a versatile and virtuosic Bulgarian/British clarinettist”. Amadeus has something of a reputation for finding brilliant soloists.
Carl Maria von Weber is perhaps best known as a composer of operas (Der Freischutz was considered the first German opera) and was also a virtuoso pianist and guitarist. The Concerto is full of good tunes – not surprising for an operatic composer – and is generally cheerful in mood.
The final work in Amadeus’ programme is Der Geburtstag der Infantin (the birthday of the Infanta) – a dance pantomime by the Austrian composer Franz Schreker.
Schreker was commissioned by Grete Wiesenthal to write it for the opening of the Kunstschau (an art and craft exhibition) in Vienna in 1908. Although known as an opera composer, working at the Vienna Opera House cured him of any ambitions to spend the rest of his life conducting opera and he founded the Vienna Philharmonic Chorus in 1907 which he conducted until 1920. He was married to an opera singer with whom he performed his own operas. He knew Arnold Schonberg and had an influence on Alban Berg.
Der Geburtstag der Infantin shows off Schreker’s melodies and free harmonic language and will be a fascinating glimpse into Viennese music in the early part of the 20th century.
Tickets are available in advance from TicketSource or on the door.
