Yehudi Menuhin School

For Dvořák, Serenade for Strings came at a critical moment in his life. In 1875, Antonín Dvořák was not yet the composer we love today. Symphony No. 9 “From the New World”, one of the landmarks of 19th-century orchestral writing, was still almost two decades away. Even to Johannes Brahms and Joseph Joachim, who would later become his greatest champions, he was simply a name atta...

A specialist music school in the heart of Surrey, founded in 1963 by celebrated violinist, Yehudi Menuhin

Opening this year’s Summer Festival, this is a piece that encapsulates one of Britain’s best-loved composers. The Simple Symphony has become a staple of music for orchestra that reflects Britten’s early music. Written around the age of 20–21, it draws extensively not just from material that he composed from the ages of 9–13 but also the music he would have heard as a child. Refe...