John Elwes

Saturday, February 13, 2010 at 6pm

Sunday, February 14, 2010 at 3pm

Santa Fe Pro Musica proudly presents romantic music for Valentine’s Day at the St. Francis Auditorium, Museum of Fine Arts.

The young Mendelssohn wrote his first violin concerto, Concerto in D minor for Violin and String Orchestra, for his music teacher and life-long friend.  In 1951, violin prodigy and celebrant Yehudi Menuhin purchased the rights to this piece from the Mendelssohn family.  He performed the work initially at Carnegie Hall, many times throughout his career and made three different recordings of it.  Even though Menuhin championed this piece, it is performed far less than Mendelssohn’s E minor concerto, composed 20 years later.

Death and the Maiden, Stephen Redfield

Pro Musica’s concertmaster, Stephen Redfield, and the Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra present this inventive, youthful violin concerto.

Next on our program is Benjamin Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and String Orchestra, a song cycle of English poems.  Britten knew tenor, John Elwes, from the time John sang solos as a choirboy at Westminster Cathedral in London.  Britten composed a Missa Brevis especially for the choir, then asked Elwes to join him in a concert of Canticle No. 2 and quickly recorded the piece while Elwes voice was still boyish.  They had other fruitful collaborations, culminating in A Boy Was Born, arranged for and dedicated to Elwes.  Elwes was “accompanied by the great man himself” in the recording.  Like much of Britten’s music, the musical talent of personal friends inspired the writing of Serenade.  It was dedicated to Edward Sackville-West, and written with virtuoso horn player Dennis Brain and the tenor Peter Pears, in mind.  The core of Serenade is a song-cycle of English poems about night falling and the ethereal dream world, framed by a horn solo.

The concert concludes with Franz Schubert’s Death and the Maiden (1826), arranged for string orchestra by Gustav Mahler.  The orchestral arrangement of Schubert’s famous quartet wasn’t published until 1984, after Mahler’s daughter discovered his annotations for the arrangement and two Mahler scholars completed the work.  The quartet followed Schubert’s song of the same name.  It is based on an old European myth, where the bride-to-be must spend her pre-nuptial night with Death.  If she refuses, Death will steal her beloved away on the day of their wedding.  Schubert evokes Death through the D minor key signature.  Pro Musica has recorded Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, and his Das Lied von der Erde, which earned a GRAMMY nomination.

The St. Francis Auditorium
Located in the Museum of Fine Arts
107 West Palace Avenue
Santa Fe

Saturday, February 13, 2010 at 6pm

Sunday, February 14, 2010 at 3PM

TICKETS:  $15 to $60 at the Santa Fe Pro Musica Box Office (505) 988.4640 ext. 1000

or (800) 960.6680 and Tickets Santa Fe at The Lensic (505) 988.1234

Group sale discounts for 10 or more are available through the Pro Musica Box Office.

Meet the Music:  Concert introduction one hour before performance

For more information, visit our website:

About Santa Fe Pro Musica, founded in 1980, is a non-profit performing arts organization dedicated to inspiring and educating audiences of all ages through the performance of great music.  Pro Musica performs a varied repertoire covering four centuries of music, on modern and baroque instruments, including works for chamber orchestra, small ensemble and large-scale works for orchestra and chorus. In 2008, Pro Musica’s recording of Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (chamber arrangement by Schoenberg) was nominated for a GRAMMY® award in the classical category of Best Small Ensemble Performance.  In addition to gaining national recognition over its 28 years for its artistry in performance, Santa Fe Pro Musica offers some of the most distinguished educational opportunities in northern New Mexico, reaching thousands of students every year with a Youth Concert series, a team-building ensemble-training program, and a statewide scholarship competition.

The 2009-2010 Season is partially funded by the City of Santa Fe Arts Commission, the 1% Lodgers Tax, and New Mexico Arts (a Division of the Department of Cultural Affairs) and the National Endowment for the Arts.