SCO 22/23: Felix Yaniewicz and the Scottish Enlightenment

Update 2 December:

We regret to announce that Colin Scobie, who was due to lead the SCO and perform Felix Yaniewicz’s 3rd Violin Concerto, has had to withdraw from these concerts due to unavoidable personal circumstances.

We are grateful that mezzo soprano Tara Erraught, with whom conductor Peter Whelan has worked before, will join the Orchestra to perform songs* that may have found themselves in one of Yaniewicz’s concert programmes back in the 19th century. These songs will replace Yaniewicz’s 3rd Violin Concerto and the Maxwell Quartet arrangements of Scottish songs.

The programme has been revised as follows:

MOZART Overture, Die Entführung aus dem Serail
GIORDANI Caro Mio Ben*
YANIEWICZ Go Youth belov'd*
THOMAS ERSKINE, EARL of KELLY Overture in C Op 1 No 2
MOZART Exsultate Jubilate*
HANDEL (arr MOZART) Overture, Alexander’s Feast
JC BACH Four Scotch Songs No 3 Lochaber + No 4 The Broom of Cowdenknows*
HAYDN Symphony No 100 ‘Military’

We are very sorry for this unavoidable, late change in this programme and hope that you will nevertheless enjoy this revised programme.

Peter Whelan Conductor/Harpsichord
Tara Erraught Mezzo soprano

Largely forgotten today, Felix Yaniewicz was a remarkable figure in Scottish music: a Polish-Lithuanian composer and virtuoso violinist, and co-founder of the very first Edinburgh Music Festival, way back in 1815.

Celebrate the grandeur of Scotland’s own historic music – with a bracing Overture by Fife-based Thomas Erskine, Scotland’s most illustrious 18th-century composer, as well as Scottish song settings by JS Bach’s most pioneering son, plus new arrangements of traditional tunes by Niel and Nathaniel Gow.

Haydn’s stirring ‘Military’ Symphony – which Yaniewicz performed under the composer during his visits to London – brings the evening to a majestic close.