Enjoy the Magic of Classical Music with Warwickshire Symphony Orchestra
Join us for unforgettable performances of timeless masterpieces
Summer Concert 13th June 2026
All Saints' Church Leamington
Concerts
Our next Concert
Summer Concert - Saturday 13th June 7:30pm
Fantasia on Greensleeves - Vaughan Williams
Lyric Movement - Holst
Romanze for Viola - Bruch
Symphony No 2 - Rachmaninov
Soloist - Jonathan Barritt
Conductor - Roger Coull
Next concert October 2026 - more to follow
Our Conductor
Principal Conductor - Roger Coull
Warwickshire Symphony Orchestra 's Principal Conductor is Roger Coull
Roger Coull’s route into conducting has come very much from the eyes and ears of a performer. As a string quartet leader of international standing he has always been used to interpreting music and every aspect of the process of turning a vision into performance.
Fantasia on Greensleeves - Ralph Vaughan Williams
This English folk song was first registered in September of 1580 under the title, “A Newe Northen Dittye of ye Ladye Greene Sleves.” According to myth, the melody was written by Henry VIII. Actually, it was based on an Italian compositional style that did not reach England until after Henry’s death.
Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on Greensleeves evokes serene, pastoral landscapes, timelessness and quiet mystery. Initially used in the third act of his Shakespeare-inspired opera, Sir John in Love, the Fantasia includes “Lovely Joan,” another folk song the composer discovered in the region of Suffolk.
Lyric Movement - Gustav Holst
The Lyric Movement for viola and small orchestra is a short concertante work. It was one of Holst's last compositions, being written in 1933 for the pioneering viola player Lionel Tertis, who gave the first performance with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Boult on 18 March 1934. With its shifting harmonies and haunted half-lights, this is an epitome of his late orchestral style; the work might almost have been called ‘Nocturne’. Here Holst achieves a remarkable eloquence, the clarity of his textures and the soaring solo viola reflecting an authority he had been searching for all his life.
Romanze for Viola - Max Bruch
Max Bruch's Romanze dates from 1911. Despite the fact that he was 73, Bruch was clearly at the height of his create powers as this work demonstrates. It was originally for viola and orchestra, however, its great popularity, led to the composer, at the publisher's demand, to arrange it for viola and piano. Its gorgeous melodies. lyricism and drama make it a superb recital work.
Max Bruch (1838-1920) enjoyed a long and fruitful career as a composer, conductor and teacher. He studied with Ferdinand Hiller and his talent was recognized early on by Schumann and Ignaz Moscheles. Today, Bruch is primarily remembered for his fine violin concertos and his choral works. However, as the esteemed chamber music scholar Wilhelm Altmann notes, Bruch's chamber music is beautiful and deserving of performance.
Symphony No 2 in E minor - Serge Rachmaninov
Rachmaninoff composed his Second Symphony from 1906 to 1907, a decade after the First Symphony, whose failure with critics and the public resulted in one of the most storied nervous breakdowns in musical history. But Rachmaninoff was creatively active again within a couple of years and in 1901 achieved what would remain his greatest popular success―the C-minor Piano Concerto, Op. 18.
The acclaim that came in the wake of the concerto was so great that by 1905 Rachmaninoff was in constant demand as a performer of his own works throughout Europe and had achieved celebrity status at home and abroad. The tall, gaunt Rachmaninoff was recognized and often mobbed by fans on the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Even for as sociable a man as he was at the time, it all became too much. He found it impossible to compose. Early in 1906 he, his wife, and their young daughter moved to quiet, dignified Dresden, a city Rachmaninoff had loved since his first visit there in 1891. The Saxon capital appealed not only for its own sedate charms but also for its proximity to Leipzig and the famed Gewandhaus Orchestra, whose conductor, Arthur Nikisch, Rachmaninoff admired above all others.
Rachmaninoff began composing the moment he arrived in Dresden, producing in rapid (for him) succession his First Piano Sonata; the songs of Opus 26; the finest of his symphonic poems, The Isle of the Dead; and his orchestral masterpiece, the Second Symphony.
Bringing classical music to life: WSO in concert
