Profiles

The Rodewald Concert Society (RCS), whilst concentrating on the core classical string quartet repertory, has a long tradition of promoting new music.  Significantly, the first concert started with the Quartet Op 13 by Ippolitov-Ivanov, a pupil of Rimsky Korsakov, whose music had never previously been heard in Liverpool.  The Quartet and Quintet of Elgar were performed at RCS concerts only a few weeks after their premières.  For the 50th Anniversary, the committee tried to commission a work from Benjamin Britten.  Unfortunately he was too busy with other commissions at the time but expressed an interest in composing more chamber music at some time in the future.  Although he did eventually write his third Quartet, for reasons which are not clear, the RCS was not involved with this.

In the circumstances, it is surprising to find that the Clarinet Quintet commissioned from Hugh Wood for the Liverpool European Capital of Culture 2008 was the society’s first commission.  This was made possible by setting up Sounds Creative, an initiative for raising funds for commissioning new chamber music.  This scheme is intended as an on-going project and two new commissions will be performed during the Society’s Centenary season 2011-12.

The RCS is one of the oldest promoters of chamber music in the UK, having given its first concert in Liverpool on 16th October 1911.  It was founded in memory of Alfred E Rodewald, a Liverpool Cotton Merchant who was also an outstanding musician.  He founded and conducted the Liverpool Orchestral Society as an amateur body but it soon became known as one of the best semi-professional orchestras in the country.  Rodewald championed the new music of his day and befriended the likes of Bantock (later taking over his famous New Brighton Tower concerts) and Stanford.  He became a particularly close friend of Elgar (who dedicated Pomp and Circumstance No 1 to him and the Liverpool Orchestral Society) and Elgar wrote much of his music at that time whilst visiting Rodewald at his home or on holiday at his cottage in Wales.  He greatly respected Rodewald’s views on his new compositions and often took his advice.  Elgar was mortified by his sudden death at the age of only 41.  The famous conductor, Hans Richter, also greatly respected Rodewald’s musicianship (it is said that Rodewald was his only conducting pupil) and volunteered to conduct the concert he was preparing at the time of his death and which became his memorial concert.  The programme included the first performance in Liverpool of Strauss’s Heldenleben following its English premiere in London, a very ambitious project for any orchestra at that time.  The RCS will also be celebrating, during season 2011-12, the 150th Anniversary of Rodewald’s birth on 28th January 1862.