30th Wellington Lecture - A musical performance by Professor David Owen Norris, Professor of Musical Performance at the University of Southampton and Visiting Professor at the Royal College of Music and at the Royal Northern College of Music

Wednesday 17 October 2018 | 18:00, teas & coffees will be served from 17:30

Venue: Turner Sims

It is said that the young Arthur Wellesley could not settle to soldiering until he had burned his violin. Political cartoonists were unable to resist the idea of the Duke, as Prime Minister, conducting his Cabinet in a Concert of Ancient Music. That venerable London institution would have been wholly to the musical taste the Duke inherited from his father, the Earl of Mornington (a rare example of a noble composer, whose music still lives in the cathedral repertoire): and yet the Duke entertained Rossini at Apsley House and escorted Queen Victoria to the 1848 London concert of Frederic Chopin, most modern of the moderns.

Wellington’s name attached itself to many a piece of music. Beethoven’s orchestral piece Wellington’s Victory, after the Battle of Vitoria in 1814, made its composer more money than any other work. John Clare’s manuscript book of violin tunes contains a jig entitled ‘Marquis Wellinton’. Princess Charlotte of Wales composed ‘Lord Wellington’s March’, the sumptuous gold-leafed manuscript of which is preserved here in Southampton amongst the papers of the Duke’s valet.

The Duke’s papers also include a piano sonata descriptive of the Battle of Bella Rosa – the Spanish name for Waterloo – a fine complement to The Marquis of Wellington’s Victory at Salamanca by Mathias Holst, great-grandfather of the composer of The Planets.

About Professor David Owen Norris:

David Owen Norris, Professor of Musical Performance at the University of Southampton, and Visiting Professor at the Royal College of Music and at the Royal Northern College of Music, has broadcast much of this music, playing the Duke’s own grand piano, the earliest piano-with-pedals in the world. He is the only composer to have set speeches by the Duke, in his political oratorio Turning Points. This evening of live performance, with a number of musical guests, will explore the multi-faceted musical world of the first Duke of Wellington.

David Owen Norris is a pianist, composer and broadcaster. He has performed all over the world since his appointment as the first Gilmore Artist in 1991. His compositions include a Symphony, a Piano Concerto, the oratorios Prayerbook and Turning Points, and the multi-media tribute to the passing seasons, HengeMusic. His Chord of the Week programmes on BBC2 television, now in their sixth season, are a popular feature of the Proms. His many radio presentations have included the Playlist series on Radio 4, and In Tune and The Works on Radio 3, where this autumn sees his 26th appearance on Building a Library. He has just recorded Mozart Concertos on fortepiano for Hyperion, and will shortly record a third disc of Sullivan songs for Chandos.

‘The incomparable David Owen Norris’ – The Three Choirs Festival on ‘Building Jerusalem’, a 2018 lecture on Sir Hubert Parry’s political songs.

‘Out-of-this-world superstar’ – BBC2 on Chord of the Week, sixth series 2018.

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