Our 2017–18 season's programmes range from intimate chamber music to arrangements that chronicle the grand sweep of European history... Emily Worthington writes about what's in store...

Sextets by Arrangement

In January 2018 we're hitting the road with a wonderful programme of sextets for clarinets, horns and bassoons. This is the quintessential 18th-century Harmonie lineup, and we really enjoy the intimate chamber music feel it has. Our programme includes some classics (the Beethoven Sextet Op. 81 and Mozart C minor Serenade), and our favourite arrangement: Robert's version of Mozart's Symphony no. 39, which you can hear an excerpt from below. From a wind player's point of view, the best thing about symphonic music arranged for sextet is that we can make it into chamber music, and explore ideas and interpretations that are impossible in the orchestra (plus there's no conductor telling us what to do!) We're touring this programme to Stamford Arts Centre, Skipton Music, and York University Concerts: see our events page for more details.

Decline and Fall

Our big project for 17/18 has grown out of last year's epic Harmonie in Beethoven's Vienna project. We're re-visiting the 7th Symphony for a concert in Durham University's MUSICON series, but pairing it with a new first half: arrangements of Beethoven's incidental music to Egmont, and Mozart's opera La Clemenza di Tito, both works that reflect the politically-charged atmosphere that surrounded the deline of the Holy Roman Empire in the 1800s. You can catch a shortened version of the programme at the University of Huddersfield, where we'll be giving our first concert as an official Ensemble-in-Association. The programme will also be making an appearance in the summer festival season (watch this space for details). We'll be blogging a bit more about this repertoire as the concerts approach, but for now, here's a reminder of the grandeur of Beethoven 7!