Concert-goers get double treat at Spa

3:41pm Thursday 15th May 2008

THE audience at Scarborough Symphony Orchestra's forthcoming concert at The Grand Hall is in for a double treat on Saturday.

Trumpet soloist Mark Bennett will be playing not one, but two concertos in the concert.

In a slightly unorthodox fashion, Mark will open the concert with Panufnik's charming Concerto in modo antico. A little known work, the concerto was adopted from a film score and is based upon old Polish tunes.

The second concerto to be performed by Mark is one of the most popular of works for solo trumpet, Haydn's Concerto in Eb.

Composed in 1796, for a newly invented keyed trumpet, the audience were amazed by the beauty of the music and the virtuosity required to play it. It remains one of the key works in today's trumpet repertoire.

Mark has made many recordings on both the modern and Baroque trumpet, and listeners to Classic FM can not fail to have heard his masterful performance of the concerto with The English Concert, which is played on a regular basis.

Other works to be performed in the concert are Wagner's beautiful Siegfried Idyll and Schumann's Symphony No.1 Spring'.

The Siegfried Idyll was written as a love poem and thanksgiving to Wagner's wife Cosima for the birth of their son Siegfried.

Performed outside of Cosima's bedroom on Christmas morning, Cosima's 33rd birthday, the work makes use of themes from an unfinished string quartet, motifs from his opera Siegfried, and a lullaby.

The concert concludes with Schumann's Symphony No. 1 Spring. The Symphony was written in 1841, five months after Schumann's marriage to Clara Wieck, who had been instrumental in encouraging Schumann to write his first symphony.

The work was inspired by a poem on spring, the opening fanfare taking the rhythm of the closing line.

Even without the title, listeners can not fail to appreciate the optimistic, fresh and exhilarating mood of the work.

A pre-concert talk given by Frank James will take place in the Vitadome Lounge at 6.45pm (entrance with concert ticket).

Tickets for the concert (£7/£6/free to students) are available in advance from the Spa box office (01723 357869) and Scarborough Tourist Information Centre (01723 383636), and at the door on the night.

Doors open at 6.45pm. Patrons are advised to arrive early to guarantee a good seat.

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