Archive

Guest conductor Gerry Cornelius

Adrian Connell The Flower Will Bloom  (first performance)

The symphonic scherzo by Bromley’s Adrian Connell was developed from an original commission for a small song cycle emanating from his association with the Bromley Œcumenical Singers.

Nielsen Violin Concerto Violin Natasha Elvin

Nielsen wrote his first concerto for Peder Møller of the Royal Danish Orchestra, who gave the première on 28 February 1912 in Copenhagen. Wonderful musical invention blends with pyrotechnics for the soloist.

Carl Nielsen wrote his Flute & Clarinet concertos for members of the Copenhagen Wind Quintet.

Mahler Symphony No. 1

First performed in Budapest in 1889, the symphony embarks on a journey through the countryside. The second movement has a rustic feel in the style of a Ländler. Death is introduced by solo double bass in the third movement’s ghostly canon based on ‘Bruder Jakob, schläfst du noch’ (Frère Jacques). The last movement bursts in with ‘the cry of a wounded heart’, but concludes triumphantly with the full, enlarged orchestra.

Background Picture: Egeskov, on the island of Fyn, Denmark. Page design David Young..

Guest conductor Mark Fitz-Gerald

Schumann Konzertstück for 4 Horns

Soloists Gillian Jones, Oliver Tunstall, Mary Banks & Roy Banks

Schumann composed this showpiece exploiting the capabilities of the recently introduced valved horn while he was living in Dresden in 1849. It demands extraordinary virtuosity and stamina from our ‘home’ team of soloists.

Janacek Taras Bulba

Janacek composed many of his finest and most original works when he was over the age of sixty. This portrayal of Gogol’s story of the Ukranian Cossack partisan’s campaign against the Poles is perhaps influenced by the Czech strive for independence during the first world war. Organ and bells augment the normal full orchestra.

Dvorak Symphony No. 5

Although less often performed than the later symphonies, the F-Major symphony, first performed in 1879, has all their tunefulness and ebullience.

Guest conductor Mark Fitz-Gerald

Mark Fitz-Gerald completed his studies at the Royal College of Music in 1977, where his professors included Norman Del Mar and where he won all the major prizes for both orchestral and operatic conducting. From 1983 to 1987 he was Artistic Director of the RIAS Jugendorchester (West Berlin ) where his innovative Filmharmonic Concerts received much acclaim and were later made available on CD. He returned there to continue the series with the Berlin Rundfunkorchester in 1992.

Background picture: Brno station, towards the end of Janacek’s life. Page design David Young.

Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis

In the rich writing for double string orchestra and string quartet, we are simultaneously listening to something very old and new. First performed in Gloucester cathedral in 1910, the Fantasia is based on a hymn in the Phrygian mode contributed by Tallis to Archbishop Matthew Parker’s Psalter of 1567.

Haydn Sinfonia Concertante

Violin Bernard Brook, Cello Alice McVeigh, Oboe Sara Grint, Bassoon Stephen Fuller.

The delightful Sinfonia Concertante gives a showcase for our ‘home’ team of BSO soloists. It was composed in London in 1792 where Haydn also produced his last 12 symphonies, as well as arranging British folk-songs.

Bruckner Symphony No. 4

The first, and most popular, of his great major key symphonies, Bruckner called this majestic work in E-flat ‘The Romantic’, the only time he used a descriptive sub-title.