Classical Masterworks Concert

Music lovers will have the rare opportunity of hearing the Trumpet as a solo instrument, when Naveen Fernando performs a trumpet concerto with the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka on the 22^nd of February, at the Ladies’ College Hall.

Naveen Fernando, Sri Lanka’s leading Trumpet player and leader of the Colombo Brass Ensemble, will perform Hummel’s Trumpet concerto, considered one of the most significant pieces of the instrument’s repertoire. The composer, Johann N. Hummel who was born in Hungary, was a student of Mozart’s.  He was looked upon as being a Mozart-calibre child prodigy and, during his lifetime, became one of Europe’s greatly admired composers, pianists, conductors and teachers.  Although his reputation thereafter was mitigated by the success of his contemporaries Mozart,Beethoven and Schubert, Hummel undoubtedly enjoyed material comfort and artistic admiration during his career.

This trumpet concerto is described as being in the Mozart mould with Classic Viennese influence in its style. It was premiered in 1804 for a New Years dinner dance concert at the Imperial Court in Vienna.

Mozart first operatic success The Abduction from the Seraglio premiered one month before his wedding to Constance Weber.  The music of the opera is described as exuding “boundless energy and good humour”, which is attributed to his happy frame of mind when composing this music. It is said that the poet Goethe said that Abduction "knocked everything else sideways."  Anything Turkish was the flavour of that time and Mozart’s use of extra percussion in the overture, in particular, evokes the sounds of the military Janissary bands of Turkey which gives the overture a ‘bright and cheery’ feel.
Bizet’s Symphony No. 1, written at the tender age of seventeen,  was never performed during his lifetime. His untimely death at the age of thirty seven cut short this talented composer’s life. Following his death many of his works were acclaimed as masterworks, leaving musicologists to wonder what more this remarkable composer could have achieved.
The symphony was discovered in the Paris Conservatoires’ archives about eighty years after his death. It received its premier in 1933 and has been considered a staple of the repertoire ever since. The symphony is acclaimed for its ‘beautiful melodies, rich orchestration, and elegant charm.’

Ajit Abeyesekerahas been a Co-conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka since 1996. One of Sri Lanka’s leading clarinettists he takes up the baton to conduct CLASSICAL MASTERWORKS.
Tickets and box plan at www.tickets.lk or in person at 113, Fifth Lane, Colombo 05, (opposite Café on the 5^th), Abans Colpetty and Sarasavi Bookshop, Nugegoda.