CONCERTS

Mendelssohn

Overture, The Hebrides

Bruch

Scottish Fantasy

Zemlinsky

The Mermaid

Vasily Petrenko

conductor

Noa Wildschut

violin

Once upon a time… Felix Mendelssohn took a boat trip to the Hebrides, and heard the waves singing a timeless song. Max Bruch came to Liverpool – but imagined he was in the Scottish Highlands. And Alexander von Zemlinsky turned from the glitter of imperial Vienna to retell the heart-rending tale of the Little Mermaid, in music that anyone who enjoys Mahler or Strauss will simply love. Vasily Petrenko retells these three magical stories today, and joins the 18-year-old rising star violinist Noa Wildschut in the gloriously tuneful Fantasy that Bruch wrote for us, here in Liverpool, back in 1881!

Schubert

Extracts from Rosamunde

Beethoven

Piano Concerto No.1

Strauss

Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life)

Vasily Petrenko

conductor

Boris Giltburg

piano

Richard Strauss boasted that he could depict even a knife and fork in music – so when he came to paint a musical self-portrait, he wasn’t exactly modest! From earsplitting battles and roof-raising fanfares to shamelessly steamy love-scenes, everything about Ein Heldenleben is supersized. Vasily Petrenko conducts one of the real highlights of our season, with the sensational Boris Giltburg performing one of Beethoven’s earliest piano concertos.

Kabalevsky

Overture, Colas Breugnon

Prokofiev

Sinfonia Concertante for cello and orchestra

Shostakovich

The Age of Gold, Suite

Khachaturian

Spartacus, Suite

Vasily Petrenko

conductor

Alban Gerhardt

cello

‘Football is the ballet of the masses’ said Dmitri Shostakovich, and you won’t find anyone here disagreeing. But whatever your team allegiances, this concert is packed with tunes that everyone can cheer – whether Shostakovich’s outrageously tuneful football ballet The Age of Gold, the physical comedy of Kabalevsky’s Colas Breugnon, or the hard-hitting action and soaring romance of Khachaturian’s Spartacus. It’s another zinger of a concert from Vasily Petrenko’s native Russia – with, at its heart, Alban Gerhardt’s performance of Prokofiev’s Sinfonia Concertante. Because a truly epic cello concerto demands a truly great cellist.

Tchaikovsky

Cossack Dance from Mazeppa

Prokofiev

Sinfonia Concertante for cello and orchestra

Glazunov

Raymonda, Excerpts

Khachaturian

Spartacus, Suite

Vasily Petrenko

conductor

Alban Gerhardt

cello

Heroic gladiators, tragic lovers, fairytale princesses and Cossack riders: when you hear the music of the Russian ballet, it’s like stepping into a fabulous storybook. Vasily Petrenko adores it, and this afternoon he takes us from the Imperial splendour of Glazunov’s Raymonda to the hard-hitting action and soaring romance of Khachaturian’s Spartacus – plus a brilliant little vodka-shot of an opener from Tchaikovsky (it’s got snow on its boots). But at the heart of this concert is the bold, passionate poetry of Prokofiev’s Sinfonia Concertante: a truly epic cello concerto, played by a truly great cellist.

Nikolai Rimsky-KorsakovRussian Easter Festival Overture

Nikolai Rimsky-KorsakovCapriccio Espagnol

Maurice Ravel Sheherazade

Ottorino Respighi Feste Romane

Vasily Petrenko conductor

Veronique Gens soprano

Our season ends as it started: in Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s magical world of sound.

In Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter Festival Overture, the incense lies thickly over orthodox melodies while his brilliant Capriccio Espagnol basks in glittering colours and revels in fiery Spanish dances. In addition to this, you are invited to experience both ancient and modern Rome in Respighi’s spectacular Feste Romane. Shéhérazade herself is still very present − but this time Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian colours are replaced by Ravel’s French brushstrokes, with star soprano Véronique Gens as narrator.

Some might claim that Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844−1908) had a sole outstanding ability as a composer − he was able to put orchestral sound to use in very varied, elegant and inventive ways. In addition to his famed suite on the subject of Sheherazade, he is particularly known for his Russian Easter Festival Overture, and his Capriccio Espagnol. Both are brilliant, if very different, orchestral compositions, and both received their world premieres in St. Petersburg in 1887 and 1888 respectively.

In the first piece, Rimsky-Korsakov uses melodies from Obikhod, a collection of hymns from Russian orthodox liturgical practice. For the world premiere, the composer supplied the music with biblical verses from Psalm 68 and the Gospel of Mark, as well as his own description of the Easter holiday. The work has an indisputably solemn aura about it, but is at the same time replete with light, joy and a multitude of colours.

This is most certainly the case also in Capriccio Espagnol, where the composer uses the dances alborada and fandango asturiano from the Asturias region in Spain as a framework. The orchestration is, if possible, even more colourful and spectacular in this work than in the Easter Overture, especially thanks to the huge percussion section and the many imaginative harmonies and playing techniques. In the fourth movement the strings are even intended to imitate guitars!

While Rimsky-Korsakov drew inspiration from Russian orthodox culture, Ottorino Respighi (1879−1936) cast his gaze back in time to Italian music- and cultural history. He often used stylistic elements from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries in his unique form of modernism, which was full of fantasy, but he was also fascinated by even older tales from ancient Rome. He is best known for his three orchestral works Fountains of Rome, Pines of Rome and Feste Romane.

With the overwhelming brass fanfare in the first movement Circences, Respighi throws us straight into a bloodbath in the Colosseum where gladiators fight for their lives. In Giubilo, medieval pilgrims wander slowly and solemnly until they catch sight of Rome in the distance, when they break out in praise. L’ottobrata depicts an old-fashioned thanksgiving where both hunting and dance are guaranteed ingredients. In the last movement, La Befana, people are gathered on the Piazza Navona, ready for song, dance and celebration, joined even by a drunk tenor trombone. Feste Romane was performed for the first time by Arturo Toscanini and the New York Philharmonic in 1929.

Maurice Ravel’s (1875−1937) interest in Orientalism was equal to that of Rimsky-Korsakov, and he also shared the Russian composer’s interest in orchestration and orchestral colours. In his song cycle Shéhérazade (1904), Ravel has written music to three poems by Tristan Klingsor, who was inspired by namely Rimsky-Korsakov’s suite. In Asie, the protagonist loses himself in a fantasy about “The East”. La flûte enchantée is about a slave girl who overhears her beloved play the flute outside her window, while the protagonist fails to seduce his object of desire in L’indifférent. All this is wrapped in Ravel’s spellbinding sound.

Nikolai Rimsky-KorsakovRussian Easter Festival Overture

Nikolai Rimsky-KorsakovCapriccio Espagnol

Maurice Ravel Sheherazade

Ottorino Respighi Feste Romane

Vasily Petrenko conductor

Veronique Gens soprano

Our season ends as it started: in Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s magical world of sound.

In Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter Festival Overture, the incense lies thickly over orthodox melodies while his brilliant Capriccio Espagnol basks in glittering colours and revels in fiery Spanish dances. In addition to this, you are invited to experience both ancient and modern Rome in Respighi’s spectacular Feste Romane. Shéhérazade herself is still very present − but this time Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian colours are replaced by Ravel’s French brushstrokes, with star soprano Véronique Gens as narrator.

Some might claim that Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844−1908) had a sole outstanding ability as a composer − he was able to put orchestral sound to use in very varied, elegant and inventive ways. In addition to his famed suite on the subject of Sheherazade, he is particularly known for his Russian Easter Festival Overture, and his Capriccio Espagnol. Both are brilliant, if very different, orchestral compositions, and both received their world premieres in St. Petersburg in 1887 and 1888 respectively.

In the first piece, Rimsky-Korsakov uses melodies from Obikhod, a collection of hymns from Russian orthodox liturgical practice. For the world premiere, the composer supplied the music with biblical verses from Psalm 68 and the Gospel of Mark, as well as his own description of the Easter holiday. The work has an indisputably solemn aura about it, but is at the same time replete with light, joy and a multitude of colours.

This is most certainly the case also in Capriccio Espagnol, where the composer uses the dances alborada and fandango asturiano from the Asturias region in Spain as a framework. The orchestration is, if possible, even more colourful and spectacular in this work than in the Easter Overture, especially thanks to the huge percussion section and the many imaginative harmonies and playing techniques. In the fourth movement the strings are even intended to imitate guitars!

While Rimsky-Korsakov drew inspiration from Russian orthodox culture, Ottorino Respighi (1879−1936) cast his gaze back in time to Italian music- and cultural history. He often used stylistic elements from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries in his unique form of modernism, which was full of fantasy, but he was also fascinated by even older tales from ancient Rome. He is best known for his three orchestral works Fountains of Rome, Pines of Rome and Feste Romane.

With the overwhelming brass fanfare in the first movement Circences, Respighi throws us straight into a bloodbath in the Colosseum where gladiators fight for their lives. In Giubilo, medieval pilgrims wander slowly and solemnly until they catch sight of Rome in the distance, when they break out in praise. L’ottobrata depicts an old-fashioned thanksgiving where both hunting and dance are guaranteed ingredients. In the last movement, La Befana, people are gathered on the Piazza Navona, ready for song, dance and celebration, joined even by a drunk tenor trombone. Feste Romane was performed for the first time by Arturo Toscanini and the New York Philharmonic in 1929.

Maurice Ravel’s (1875−1937) interest in Orientalism was equal to that of Rimsky-Korsakov, and he also shared the Russian composer’s interest in orchestration and orchestral colours. In his song cycle Shéhérazade (1904), Ravel has written music to three poems by Tristan Klingsor, who was inspired by namely Rimsky-Korsakov’s suite. In Asie, the protagonist loses himself in a fantasy about “The East”. La flûte enchantée is about a slave girl who overhears her beloved play the flute outside her window, while the protagonist fails to seduce his object of desire in L’indifférent. All this is wrapped in Ravel’s spellbinding sound.

Programme to include some of the most loved film scores from the Spielberg films including:
Jurassic Park
Jaws
War Horse
Schindler’s List
Indiana Jones
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

From Neverland to the Western Front, from shark-cage to starship, whether you’re adventuring with Indiana Jones or cycling though the air with a little alien who just wants to phone home, you already know the music! John Williams has given us some of the greatest film music of the past five decades – movie themes that have become the soundtracks to all our lives. And they’ll never sound better than this: live in concert with Vasily Petrenko conducting the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. With cinematic visuals and spectacular, specially-devised lighting and digital effects, this should be a blockbuster night out.

Programme to include some of the most loved film scores from the Spielberg films including:
Jurassic Park
Jaws
War Horse
Schindler’s List
Indiana Jones
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

From Neverland to the Western Front, from shark-cage to starship, whether you’re adventuring with Indiana Jones or cycling though the air with a little alien who just wants to phone home, you already know the music! John Williams has given us some of the greatest film music of the past five decades – movie themes that have become the soundtracks to all our lives. And they’ll never sound better than this: live in concert with Vasily Petrenko conducting the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. With cinematic visuals and spectacular, specially-devised lighting and digital effects, this should be a blockbuster night out.

Holst

The Perfect Fool, Suite

Walton

Façade, Suite

Elgar

The Music Makers

Vasily Petrenko

conductor

Kathryn Rudge

mezzo-soprano

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir

‘We are the music makers, the dreamers of dreams…’ When Elgar wrote The Music Makers he reached deep into his own soul. The result was some of the most sincere and profoundly beautiful music even he ever wrote. If you haven’t heard The Music Makers, you don’t really know Elgar, and Vasily Petrenko, the Choir and Liverpool’s own mezzo-soprano Kathryn Rudge will strive to get closer than ever to this great but troubled genius. Holst’s devilish little ballet and Walton’s uproarious Façade both go to show that British music is never quite what you expect…