2015 Annual Jacqueline du Pré Charity Concert

The Jacqueline du Pré charity concert supports Britain’s oldest musical charity, The Royal Society of Musicians, which has been providing assistance to musicians in need since 1738. This year's concert, the 20th annual concert, is being performed in what would have been Jacqueline du Pré's 70th birthday year. The concert takes place at the Wigmore Hall on 3 March 2015 when two young quartets, the Sacconi Quartet and the Navarra Quartet are joined by cellist Guy Johnston for a programme which includes three marches specially composed for the concert by Peter Maxwell Davies, Robert Saxton and Toby Young plus Frank Bridge's Novelletten for String Quartet, Ravel's String Quartet and Schubert's String Quintet in C major, D956. 

Bridge's Novelletten date from 1904 and were the composer's first venture in chamber music, a preparation for his writing the Phantasie for the Cobbett Chamber Music Competition. Ravel's quartet was premiered the same year, and was the composer's final submission to the Prix de Rome (which he failed to win).

The commissioning of short marches from contemporary composers is a tradition that stretches back to the very founding of the Royal Society of Musicians in 1738. In 1792 Haydn was invited to the annual dinner in 1792 and composed a short march for orchestra, the manuscript for which is still in the possession of the society. All three cellos being performed on at this concert are on long-term loans to the cellists by the Royal Society of Musicians.

Further information from the Wigmore Hall website.