Chester Philharmonic Orchestra

Katherine Lacy (Clarinet)

This evening’s soloist is the principal clarinet of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Katherine, a native of Wrexham, will perform Mozart’s beautiful and haunting Clarinet Concerto. The Concerto was written in the same year of Mozart’s death and the first performance took place only three months before he died.

Two pieces in this concert were inspired by paintings. Rachmaninoff saw Arnold Boecklin’s painting entitled Isle of the Dead and composed this splendid Tone Poem. Mussorgsky arranged an exhibition of paintings by Viktor Hartmann and painted musical impressions of the paintings for piano. We have Ravel to thank for the orchestration. We have bizarre subjects, the ballet of the unhatched chicks, the hut on hens legs etc. Perhaps the most famous “picture” is The Great Gate at Kiev, a gate which didn’t exist. Hartmann, an architect, submitted the picture of a proposed gate to celebrate the failed assassination attempt on Tsar Alexander II .