Concert with Barratt Due’s Junior Orchestra

Sunday March 10, 19:00
(Doors open at 18:00)
Oslo Cathedral

Adult: 350 NOK
Senior/student: 250 NOK
Child: 100 NOK

Duration: 1 hour

Barratt Due’s Junior Orchestra

Barratt Due’s Junior Orchestra, Young Strings of Norway, is an important part of Barrat Due’s commitment to young talents, and maintains a high musical standard. Among the orchestra’s previous members, we find a long list of musicians with leading roles in Norwegian and international musical life. At the festival concert, they perform several historic master-pieces arranged for string orchestra. The concert opens with Concerto Grosso Op. 6, No. 5 in D major by G.F. Handel (1685–1759). Handel composed all of Concerti Grossi, Op. 6 in only six months, during autumn 1739: 12 concerts, each consisting of four to six movements. Incredibly enough, he maintained this pace in the rest of his career as well. In addition, the music consists of mainly newly composed material, and very little is borrowed from other pieces. The concerts became extremely popular, and by 1800 five English and two French editions had been published. Young Strings of Norway also performs the well-known adagio movement from Anton Bruckner’s (1824–1896) String Quintet in F major, on occasion of his 200th anniversary. He is today best known for his 11 symphonies (the first two without numbers, the last incomplete). In addition, he wrote both church and chamber music, and the quintet in F major holds a unique position here. The concert reaches its peak with the Goldberg Variations BWV 988 by J.S. Bach (1685–1750). The work consists of an aria and a set of 30 variations, and is considered to be one of the most important piano cycles from the 18th century. Goldberg Variations from 1741 has an iconic status today, amplified by legendary interpretations, mostly on keyboard instruments, but the work has also attracted a number of composers and arrangers – something Bach’s music is well suited for.

Programme:
G.F. Handel: Concerti Grossi Op. 6, No. 5 in D major, HWV 323
01. Ouverture. Larghetto
02. Allegro
03. Presto
04. Largo
05. Allegro

A. Bruckner: Adagio
from string quintet WAB 112, arrangement by Lucas Drew

J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988

Aria
Variation 8
Variation 13
Variation 14
Variation 15: Canone alla Quinta
Variation 16: Ouverture
Variation 25: Adagio
Variation 26
Aria da capo

Barrat Due’s Junior Orchestra, Young Strings of Norway, is a chamber orchestra for talented youth between the ages of 13 and 19, coming from all over Norway. The orchestra was founded by artistic director Soon-Mi Chung Barrat-Due in 1985. In line with Barrat Due Musical Institute’s educational idea that playing together is at the core of educating young musicians, the junior orchestra has been an important part of the Young Talent division since the beginning. The orchestra has toured all over the world, performed at all of the important chamber music festivals, and taken part in a large number of radio and TV programmes, and has made several recordings, among them works especially written for the junior orchestra.