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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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Radio 3 in Concert

Music: Classical

The best concerts from across the UK and Europe. Available to listen online for 30 days

Experience the best concerts from across the UK and Europe. Available to listen online for 30 days

Radio 3 in Concert: 12 Ensemble play John Dowland, Tansy Davies, Britten, John Woolrich and Schubert

12 Ensemble play John Dowland, Tansy Davies, Britten, John Woolrich and Schubert

BBC Radio 3 - Radio 3 in Concert, 12 Ensemble play John Dowland, Tansy Davies, Britten, John Woolrich and Schubert

12 Ensemble play John Dowland, Tansy Davies, Britten, John Woolrich and Schubert.

12 Ensemble's new programme Reborn ties the past with the present. With works by Dowland, Tansy Davies, Britten, John Woolrich and Schubert, at St George’s Bristol.

Recorded at St George's Bristol last week, 12 Ensemble perform their new programme "Reborn", a contrasting sequence of music that explores the ways in which artists find inspiration in the work of previous generations. 

Founded in 2012, 12 Ensemble, who always play without a conductor, are known for their deep commitment to chamber music and for the energy and innovation of  their music-making.  Linking the past with the present, "Reborn" begins with an arrangement by one of the group's founders, Max Ruisi, of Renaissance composer John Dowland's "Lachrimae". Tansy Davies reaches back in her 2005 piece"Residuum" to a Galliard in Dowland's Lachrimae; she describes the connection she makes as "an echo of ancient music in a modern time". This link to our past is captured by Benjamin Britten in "Lachrymae" in which he references  Dowland's songs "If my complaints could passions move" and "Flow my tears" in the course of the piece. Written in 1950 for the celebrated viola player William Primrose, the soloist joining 12 Ensemble is one of the 21st century's virtuosos, Maxim Rysanov.  A solo viola takes the role of Ulysses in John Woolrich's 1989 work after two arias from Monteverdi's opera Il ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria. Mahler's richly sonorous arrangement for 12 strings of Schubert's "Death and the Maiden" quartet brings the evening to a fulfilling conclusion.  

John Dowland, arr. Max Ruisi: Lachrimae for strings  
12 Ensemble 

Tansy Davies: "Residuum" for two solo violin, a solo cello and strings. 
12 Ensemble 

Britten: Lachrymae, Op 48a for solo viola and string orchestra
Maxim Rysanov, viola
12 Ensemble 

John Woolrich: "Ulysses Awakes" for solo viola and strings 
Maxim Rysanov, viola 
12 Ensemble 

Schubert, arr. Mahler,  edited by David Matthews and Donald Mitchell: 
Quartet in D minor, D810 (Death and the Maiden) for string orchestra
12 Ensemble

Presented by Nicola Heywood Thomas
Produced by Johannah Smith for BBC Wales

Photo: c/o St George's Bristol (credit Evan Dawson)

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12 Ensemble play John Dowland, Tansy Davies, Britten, John Woolrich and Schubert

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