Across the Atlantic at St Mary's Church, Throwleigh on Friday 19th September 2025

Across the Atlantic

Part of the Whiddon Autumn Festival 2025

Add to my Calendar 19-09-2025 11:00 19-09-2025 13:00 36 Across the Atlantic Join the Whiddon Autumn Festival String Quartet on a journey across the pond to hear some of the finest American music for string quartet. The programme is framed by movements from Antonín Dvořák's "American Quartet", one of the most enduringly popular works of the string quartet repertoire. The quartet was composed on a summer holiday in Spillville, Iowa, in 1893 (a town with a strong community of Czech expatriates), during his stint as Director of the National Conservatory of Music of America in New York in the 1890s. Dvořák described the quartet as "the second composition written in America" after his iconic New World Symphony, and it went on to influence a whole generation of American composers. At the centre sits Valencia by Caroline Shaw, winner of a Pulitzer Prize and multiple Grammy Awards. Rather than depicting the architecture of the Spanish city, Valencia is "an untethered embrace of the architecture of the common Valencia orange", a billowing musical homage to a natural phenomenon "so simple, yet so complex and extraordinary" in Shaw's words. Also included are the Elegies for Violin and Viola by Aaron Copland, one of the most influential American composers of the 20th Century. He composed his Elegies in 1932, but went on to withdraw them when he used the same musical material in his orchestral work Statements a couple of years later. The Elegies were dedicated to Copland's former pupil and long-time lover, the photographer Victor Kraft, who Copland variously described as his "pupil, companion, secretary and friend". St Mary's Church, Throwleigh DD/MM/YYYY

Details

St Mary's Church
Church Lane
Throwleigh
Devon
EX20 2HU
England

Friday 19th September 2025
11:00 AM

Tickets

Prices: £15, £5, free
Book Tickets

Programme

Caroline Shaw – Valencia
Antonin Dvorak – String Quartet no.12 in F major 'American', Op.96
Aaron Copland – Elegies for Violin and Viola

Performers

Whiddon Autumn Festival String Quartet

Other concerts in this Series (+)

Programme Note

Join the Whiddon Autumn Festival String Quartet on a journey across the pond to hear some of the finest American music for string quartet.

The programme is framed by movements from Antonín Dvořák's "American Quartet", one of the most enduringly popular works of the string quartet repertoire. The quartet was composed on a summer holiday in Spillville, Iowa, in 1893 (a town with a strong community of Czech expatriates), during his stint as Director of the National Conservatory of Music of America in New York in the 1890s. Dvořák described the quartet as "the second composition written in America" after his iconic New World Symphony, and it went on to influence a whole generation of American composers.

At the centre sits Valencia by Caroline Shaw, winner of a Pulitzer Prize and multiple Grammy Awards. Rather than depicting the architecture of the Spanish city, Valencia is "an untethered embrace of the architecture of the common Valencia orange", a billowing musical homage to a natural phenomenon "so simple, yet so complex and extraordinary" in Shaw's words.

Also included are the Elegies for Violin and Viola by Aaron Copland, one of the most influential American composers of the 20th Century. He composed his Elegies in 1932, but went on to withdraw them when he used the same musical material in his orchestral work Statements a couple of years later. The Elegies were dedicated to Copland's former pupil and long-time lover, the photographer Victor Kraft, who Copland variously described as his "pupil, companion, secretary and friend".

Your events at Classical Events