Archive

Hector Berlioz

Eurico Pereira

Berlioz

Ravel ‘Rapsodie Espagnole’ 

Rodrigo ‘Concierto de Aranjuez’ 
    Soloist Eurico Pereira (Guitar)

Respighi ‘Roman Festivals’ 

This programme burns with Mediterranean heat and passion, opening with an exuberant overture, one of Berlioz’s most popular works. Ravel’s Spanish “Rapsodie” has three short movements of sensuous colour and elegance and a dazzling finale. Staying in Spain, the Rodrigo is perhaps the most well known of all guitar concertos, especially its evocative slow movement. Respighi said that “Roman Festivals”, his vivid celebration of ancient Rome, represented his absolute peak of orchestral sonority and colour. It’s certainly that!

Sergei Rachmaninov

Masa Tayama

Tchaikovsky

RachmaninovPiano Concerto No.2
    Soloist Masa Tayama

Rimsky-Korsakov ‘Scheherazade’ 

In a programme of romantic Russian music, what could be more romantic than this lovely concerto, familar even to non-classical music lovers through its use in the classic film “Brief Encounter”? Before that,”Hamlet” captures the many moods of the Bard’s great play. In Rimsky-Korsakov’s colourful suite, based on the age-old “Tales of 1001 Nights”, the solo violin represents Scheherazade as she tells a series of enthralling stories that will spare her life.

Gustav Holst

Bax ‘Tintagel’ – Tone poem 

Arnold ‘The Inn of the Sixth Happiness’ – Suite

Holst ‘The Planets’ Suite
    with the choir of Newstead Woods School

Bax’s tone poem dramatically portrays the Cornish castle, high above rocks, battered by the waves. Its Celtic flavour hints at the legend of King Arthur. Sir Malcolm Arnold was a prolific composer, who wrote in many genres including music for over 100 films, winning an Oscar for ‘Bridge on the River Kwai’ and an Ivor Novello Award for ‘Inn of the Sixth Happiness’. Holst’s ‘Planets’ Suite was described by him as ‘a series of mood pictures’, and is based on astrological ideas. It uses a huge orchestra, sometimes with enormous power and sometimes with extreme delicacy, making a splendid sonic spectacular conclusion to our season.

Pyotr Tchaikovsky

Dvořák‘The Noonday Witch’

MendelssohnViolin Concerto
    soloist – Jeanine Thorpe

TchaikovskySymphony No. 4

Dvořák wrote some highly colourful symphonic poems, which graphically illustrate rather grisly stories. The Mendelssohn concerto is rightfully one of the most loved of all concertos. The symphony opens dramatically with a foreboding ‘fate’ motif which leads us through gloom, melancholy and recovery to a joyous finale based on Russian folksong.

Anton Bruckner

Schubert Overture – ‘Rosamunde’

Strauss Duett-Concertino
   soloists – Massimo Roman (clarinet)
   & Stephen Fuller (bassoon)

BrucknerSymphony No. 7

Schubert wrote much charming, tuneful music in his short life and this overture shows both these qualities. Strauss’s solo clarinet masquerades as a princess and the bassoon as a bear who turns into a prince when they dance together. Bruckner’s symphonies are like magnificent cathedrals in splendour, the famous slow movement of the Seventh being a glorious tribute to his idol, Wagner.

Sir Edward Elgar

Delius

Bloch ‘Schelomo‘ – Hebraic Rhapsody
    solo cello – Alice McVeigh

ElgarSymphony No. 2

The season opens with Delius’s seductive and melodious ‘Walk’, a perennial concert hall favourite. In ‘Schelomo’, Bloch personifies the cello as the reincarnated voice of King Solomon, giving the virtuoso soloist a magnificent emotional range. Our symphony celebrates the 150th birthday of arguably this country’s greatest composer with his wonderful evocation of Edwardian England.

‘Opera Evening’

Berlioz Royal Hunt and Storm

Mozart (arr Wendt) Marriage of Figaro (Suite)

Leoncavallo I Pagliacci – Prologue
    soloist: Edward Grint

Wagner Ride of the Valkyries & Die Walküre Act 3 extracts
    soloists: Christine Teare and Sir Donald McIntyre

This concert depicts storms – of emotions in Leoncavallo’s tragedy; of the elements pictured by Berlioz around the troubled romance of Dido and Aeneas; of domestic intrigue and upheaval in Figaro; and of the passions of Wagner’s Gods and warrior-maidens. But it also portrays the calm of emotion spent. A spectacular conclusion to our musical season.

Beethoven

Bliss Violin Concerto
soloist: Bernard Brook

Brahms Symphony No. 1

Beethoven portrays a heroic struggle for freedom from Spanish religious oppression in the Netherlands. Bliss lived through the upheavals of world wars, holding fast to his optimism. Brahms took up the challenge of Beethoven, in a symphony of titanic conflict, resolved in a blaze of light.

Bromley Symphony Orchestra gratefully acknowledges the financial support of The Bliss Trust for this performance of the Bliss Violin concerto. Fans of the composer may also be interested in the activities of the Bliss Society.