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THE Atkinson has a celebratory year coming with a superb live concert at the Theatre. The world of the arts has always been very much a reflection of the world at that time. The various branches of the arts have generally followed the prevailing tastes and styles of the period in which it was created. Not just music, but also painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry and prose have more or less followed the changing styles as the years have gone by.

Music has certainly followed the changing styles of the arts. However, not all composers have followed the pattern; some stayed faithful to their original ideas, sometimes right through their life.

If we listen to the music of J S Bach and Vivaldi, both composers writing in the Baroque style, we can see exact reflections of the way the music is written in the heavily ornamented and complex interiors of Baroque churches and cathedrals. As musical instruments, especially the piano, developed and became easier to play and more flexible in terms of tone and power of sound, composers took advantage of this new facility and wrote music that perhaps would not have worked so well previously.

Mozart and Beethoven made significant progress in the development of musical style. Emerging from the Baroque, the world of the arts morphed into the Classical era, and these two luminaries fitted perfectly into this new style. Known also as the Age of Enlightenment, this new period emphasised reason, individual liberty and human progress. Building styles changed. Out went the elaborate ornamentation of the Baroque, and in place of this came starker, 4 square pillars and far plainer styles.

Changing styles in music advanced over the years right up to Modernist times. Parallels can be easily seen between the paintings of Jackson Pollock and a range of experimental composers. The changes continue across the whole range of artistic endeavour.

However, certain composers have decidedly not followed any such trends. 2 of these that held out for their old, original styles throughout their whole careers are Richard Strauss and Franz Lehar. Strauss, in particular, steadfastly produced the same wonderful, lush music at the beginning of his career as he did at the end, many years later. Franz Lehar is known for writing operettas in the style of Old Vienna, even though he was still doing so well into the 20th Century.

We will be examining music from Strauss and Lehar and showing how they held on to their musical roots when the Orchestra dell’Arte perform Sound and Splendour at the Atkinson centre in Southport, on:- 20 September 2025. The concert is part of the celebrations that the Atkinson is holding as part of its 150 year history. We have taken this as our pattern for the choice of music, all of which has been written over the past 150 years.

Getting the concert off to a rousing start will be the Vienna Philharmonic Fanfare. Written by Strauss as a tribute to the orchestra, he even assigned all the royalties from performances of the piece to the orchestra’s pension fund. The main work in the programme is the effervescent Second Piano Concerto by Saint-Saëns. The soloist is Tom Kimmance.

Also included will be the little gem of a waltz by Dvorak, and the Serenade, again by Strauss, but written when he was just 17. Glazunov features items from his masterful Scènes de Ballet. Franz Lehar winds up the concert with his most well-known work, a grand orchestral tone-poem from The Merry Widow.

This promises to be a wonderful celebration of music and the arts in Southport. Join us on:- Saturday, 20 September 2025, at the Atkinson Centre for Sound and Splendour. The concert starts at:- 2.30 pm.

Tickets are available from the Atkinson Centre website.