Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) — Nonet in F minor, Op. 2
Joesf Bohuslav Foerster (1859-1951) — Nonet, Op. 147

Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959) — Nonet, No. 2, H 374A nonet is a composition that requires nine musicians, usually a wind quintet plus a violin, viola, cello, and double bass. But our concert will feature ten musicians—why? Because one of our nonets calls for piano instead of flute. Our first work is by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a British composer of mixed-race descent (his father was from Sierra Leone) who was named after the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Like his namesake’s poetry, his music is filled with sweep and Romantic charm; his nonet is a major work that is both immediate and resonant. Works by two composers from Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) fill the second half of the concert. Despite their common heritage, these two men lived very different lives and their music reflects those differences. Foerster spent some time in Hamburg and Vienna but mostly stayed close to home. His nonet does too—it is pastoral and Bohemian in every best sense of those words. Martinů became a quintessential 20th-century composer living in Paris between the wars: urbane, witty, clever, and fun-loving—and his nonet displays the same characteristics.