This year’s eagerly anticipated Scottish Ensemble Christmas concerts will take place between 11 and 18 December 2004. Opening at the Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, the Transfigured Night tour will also visit Aberdeen, Inverness, St Andrew’s, Glasgow and Perth. Following last year’s acclaimed performances of the Eight Seasons , the 2004 candle-light tour will now see the Ensemble perform a selection of achingly romantic music.

The programme opens with one of Mozart’s most popular pieces, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. At the heart of the work, whose origins are shrouded in mystery, lies a beautiful Romanze; a movement which is a powerful illustration of Edwin Fischer’s assertion that “Mozart is the touchstone of the heart”. The programme continues with Elgar’s Serenade Op 20 and Bruckner’s Adagio, the former written as a wedding anniversary gift by the composer for his wife, and it culminates with Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht .

Heather Duncan, General Manager of the Scottish Ensemble, said:

“Schoenberg’s exquisite rendition of the triumph of romantic love is surely one of the most ravishingly beautiful pieces of programmatic music ever written. We hope that these performances of Verklärte Nacht , which will be accompanied by readings of the poem on which it is based, will enchant our audiences and prove a suitable finale for an evening of truly romantic music.”

Highly controversial in it’s time, Richard Dehmel’s poem, Weib und Welt, is a frank depiction of sexual indiscretion and its consequences – two lovers take a walk in the woods in the cold moonlight; one makes a soul destroying confession of despair, infidelity and pregnancy; what future awaits them? Against all the odds the sequence ends in the triumph of romantic love: “the lovers sink into each other's arms. Their breaths meet in kisses in the air. Two mortals wander through the wondrous moonlight .”

Schoenberg’s music, which with the exception of a few unorthodox chords, shows nothing of the atonality that was to characterise his later work, depicts the moods of the lovers. The melodic development captures the shifting emotions from exposition through the crisis to the eventual, transfigured conclusion.

In addition to the six concert Christmas tour, the Scottish Ensemble will also give two performances of the Eight Seasons in December 2004 (Rothes Halls, Glenrothes on Thursday 16 December and Tolbooth, Stirling on Monday 20 December). Reprising their acclaimed interpretations will be the Scottish Ensemble’s current Artistic Director, Clio Gould  (Vivaldi: Four Seasons) and Jonathan Morton (Piazzolla:, Four Seasons of Buenos Aires ) who will take over as Artistic Director of the Scottish Ensemble in the Autumn of 2005.

Tour Schedule

Saturday 11 December 2004 at 7.45pm
Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh
Tickets from £3 - £13.50 with full range of concessions.
Box Office: 0131 668 2019

Tuesday 14 December 2004 at 8pm
Inverness – SOLD OUT
Box Office: 01463 234 234

Monday 13 December 2004 at 7.30pm
The Sanctuary, Queen’s Cross Church, Aberdeen
Tickets priced £13.50, £9.50 (Senior Citizens), £6 (Students), £3 (Children).
Box Office: 01224 641 122

Wednesday 15 December 2004 at 8pm
Byre Theatre, St Andrew’s
Tickets priced £13.50. £9.50 (Senior Citizens), £6 (Students), £3 (Children).
Box Office:  01334 475000

Friday 17 December 2004 at 7.45pm
Strathclyde Suite, GRCH
Tickets from £3 - £13.50 with full range of concessions.
Box Office: 0141 353 8000
 
Saturday 18 December 2004 at 7.30pm
St John’s Kirk, Perth
Tickets priced £13.50, £9.50 (Senior Citizens), £6 (Students), £3 (Children).
Box Office: 01738 621 031

The Eight Seasons
Soloists: Clio Gould and Jonathan Morton
Vivaldi  Four Seasons
Piazzolla The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires

Thursday 16 December 2004 at 8pm
Rothes Halls, Glenrothes
Tickets - £12 (£11 & £10 concession)
Box Office: 01592 611101

Monday 20 December 2004 at 7.30pm
Tolbooth, Stirling
Tickets - £15
Box Office: 01786 274000