STRINGS AND ORGAN – West Riding Ensemble String Orchestra

Here WRE brings together professional players and students of artistic director David Milsom in a string orchestra tour de force, featuring two concerti, and one of the most celebrated British string orchestra compositions.

Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis stands as a pinnacle of a peculiarly British association with the string orchestra as an ensemble, and is paired in this programme with the poignant Romance for string orchestra by Gerald Finzi.

A total melodic and harmonic contrast is provided by Poulenc’s electrifying, modernist Organ Concerto, in spite of a gap in time of only 28 years after the Vaughan Williams Fantasia. This work (which also includes timpani) sees St Marie’s Cathedral’s Director of Music and organist Robert Webb as soloist on the fine, restored but unmodernised three-manual Lewis organ, which is in its 150th anniversary year.

The focal point for WRE founders David Milsom and Maria Nikolaeva is performing the world premiere of Vermeer Music, a work written by Ian Crew for them as violin soloists with a string ensemble. The work uses Baroque forms, including divisions (florid variations), and a fugato, separating the players into ‘concertino’ (soloists) and ‘ripieno’ (ensemble) in the tradition of the Baroque concerto grosso. The work acts as a deep contemplation of the musical relationship of the two soloists, initially as student and teacher, but increasingly as colleagues and collaborators, brought together with the inspiration of several paintings by the Dutch artist, Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675). This makes for a complex, interwoven texture which links to perfection WRE’s union of scholarship, performance passion, and pedagogy.

In keeping with the raison d’être of WRE, the string ensemble includes a number of students. WRE is a not-for-profit organisation that aims to give a professional platform to emerging young musicians in an ‘apprentice’ model, and pays students a fair fee for their work.

PROGRAMME

CREW: Vermeer Music Concerto Grosso for two solo violins and string orchestra (2026)
POULENC: Organ Concerto (1938)
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis (1910)
FINZI: Romance (1928)

PERFORMERS

David Milsom & Maria Nikolaeva – solo violins
Robert Webb – organ
WRE String Orchestra
Conductors: Ian Crew, John Lyon, and Wilf Dingle