CONCERTS

Vasily Petrenko Conductor
Simon Trpčeski Piano
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Programme
Journeys of Discovery: Awakening
Wagner: Faust Overture
Grieg: Piano Concerto
R. Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra

Romanticism in all its colours: epic scores that retell existential quests and the heroic struggle for enlightenment, with a concerto inspired by nature and simplicity.

This programme starts and ends in utter darkness, casting the moments of light and revelation in sharp relief. In his Overture, Wagner underscores Faust’s pact with the devil with music of fear and trepidation. After its famous sunrise, Strauss’s tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra fades into a question mark at the stroke of midnight.

Both give us heroes that are reaching desperately for enlightenment, either grappling with evil forces or declaring ‘God is dead’. For Faust the struggle is between faith, intellect and passion. For Zarathustra the prophet, only humanity can solve its own riddles.

This is German Romanticism at its headiest, with music that is both brooding and bold. Wagner’s ‘unending melody’ is the perfect match for Faust’s yearning and deep-held passions, while Strauss takes us in nine imaginative scenes from desolation to a mountain-top awakening and the dawn of a new understanding.

Mountains of a different kind define Grieg’s piano concerto, whose melodic richness echoes the beauty of the fjords. The finale is inspired by a folk fiddle dance that challenges how high the dancers can jump. This is a work that invites you to embrace the simpler pleasures in life.

Programme
Journeys of Discovery: Redemption
Mahler Symphony No.8, ‘Symphony of a Thousand’

A rare treat for Mahler-lovers and anyone who likes their symphonies on the grandest scale.

‘Can you imagine a symphony that is, from beginning to end, song?’ This was the ambitious vision that struck Mahler ‘like lightening’ and had him composing in a frenzy. Within three months he had sketched his most epic work, echoing religious themes from earlier symphonies while taking them to a whole new level.

The first half is a celebration of the divine spirit. The second half, inspired by Goethe’s Faust, starts with ‘woodlands wavering into view’ and ends with dazzling visions of angels and the life eternal.

From the thundering organ chord and the double choir of the opening to the amassed brass at the end, the symphony delivers its message of redemption with the largest forces imaginable on stage . Initially promoted as the ‘Symphony of a Thousand’ due to the numerous performers, Mahler is both exuberant and restrained. His more subdued, economic writing is every bit as powerful as the big set-pieces.

Neither cantata nor opera, the composer’s lightening-strike vision was for how the worlds of instrument and voice might come together: a ‘True Symphony’, in Mahler’s words.

Cast includes:

Sarah Wegener Soprano
Jacquelyn Wagner Soprano
Regula Mühlemann Soprano
Jennifer Johnston Mezzo-soprano
Claudia Huckle Contralto
Vincent Wolfsteiner Tenor
Michael Nagy Baritone
Shenyang Bass-baritone

This concert has been rescheduled from Sun 18 Oct 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Programme
Journeys of Discovery: Ecstasy
Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet (excerpts)
Ravel Piano Concerto in G
Wagner Tristan und Isolde: Prelude and Liebestod
Scriabin The Poem of Ecstasy

A programme that celebrates music as the supreme language of longing and ecstasy.

These are works that operate at the edges of our experience: where fantasy meets myth, the soul escapes its earthly bounds, and where the passion of young love consumes all before it.

To capture such ecstatic states requires a special gift. Few composers can stretch a languorous melody over endlessly twisting chords like Wagner or Prokofiev, or suspend time like Ravel, or summon up a trippy universe like Scriabin.

Prokofiev and Wagner give new life to the tales of star-crossed lovers, whether Romeo and Juliet or Tristan and Isolde.  Sriabin then takes Wagner’s theme of transfiguration to the point of full orchestral explosion in his Poem of Ecstasy. ‘Like a bath of ice, cocaine and rainbows’ was how Henry Miller described it.

Ravel offers a moment to step back from the emotional fray with his piano concerto, capturing the innocent excitement and wonder of a child. The simple allure of the music belies much sophistication.  In the case of the slow movement, where time seems to stop, the exquisite balancing of parts brought the composer ‘to the edge of despair’. He persevered, and the result was perfection.

Programme
Journeys of Discovery: Discovery
Mahler Symphony No.2, ‘Resurrection’

The thrill and sheer emotional impact of hearing this symphony live never diminishes: from the paroxysms of death to the affirmation of the life hereafter.

Mahler’s ode to life may end in glory, but the route there is full of twists and turns. Burlesque folk tunes sit alongside funeral marches, gentle nocturnes alongside storms. In Mahler’s deft hands, what might otherwise be jarring juxtapositions become vital pieces of the overall jigsaw. His Second Symphony is a panorama of life, death and resurrection, the musical equivalent of a vast Michelangelo mural.

With the glorious choral finale, Mahler provides his own unique response to the challenge set by Beethoven in his Ninth Symphony: how to bring voices into the symphonic ideal. Having been through the twisting journey, we find ourselves, as Mahler wrote in his own programme notes, in a place where there is ‘no judgement… no punishment and no reward. Just an overwhelming love illuminates our being. We know, and are.’

This concert has been rescheduled from from Wed 3 March 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Programme
Journeys of Discovery: Destiny
Dukas The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Elgar Cello Concerto
Tchaikovsky Manfred Symphony

Dukas and Tchaikovsky spirit us away into worlds of sorcerers and ghosts, while Elgar’s bittersweet concerto grounds us in the fragility of life.

Right from jaunty trio of bassoons that dance the first theme of Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Dukas offers us a masterclass in orchestral colour. Each episode of Goethe’s ballad is imagined in playful detail, from the march of the brooms to the raucous mayhem that ensues.

Elgar’s concerto brings us back to the somber realities of life. Part lament for the First World War, and written in the autumn of his life, it yearns for a simpler, untainted past. It is a moment of contemplation in an otherwise energetic programme.

The writer Harold Schonberg once described Tchaikovsky’s music being ‘as emotional as a scream from a window on a dark night.’ His Manfred Symphony is a perfect example. In Byron’s dramatic poem and ghost story, Manfred is a man tormented by guilt and remorse who uses the dark arts to summon spirits to help him forget his past and escape his fate.

Tchaikovsky’s fateful music makes the perfect partner for Manfred’s travails while also delighting in his escapes into fantasy. The work contains both the lightest, most impressionistic moments and the loudest climax he ever wrote.

Programme
Journeys of Discovery: Dreams
Mahler Symphony No.3

Riotous, hallucinatory, extraordinary: Mahler’s Third Symphony knows no bounds, taking us from the smallest flower to the mystery of divine love.

Mahler’s famous quote about ‘embracing the world’ in his symphonies finds its fullest expression in this, his longest symphony. In six movements he charts the evolution of nature and mankind. The elemental power of summer is set against the delicacy of the natural world. And the dark night of the soul is broken by the sounds of angels and a ‘great summons’ to love more deeply than ever before.

A symphony filled with music of life-enhancing physicality and breathtaking melodic beauty, it is a story of such breadth and ambition that only Mahler could have dreamed of it, let alone write it.

This concert has been rescheduled from from Thu 8 April 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Programme
Journeys of Discovery: Psychedelia
Jennifer Higdon blue cathedral
Prokofiev Violin Concerto No.2
Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique

Dukas and Tchaikovsky spirit us away into worlds of sorcerers and ghosts, while Elgar’s bittersweet concerto grounds us in the fragility of life.

Right from jaunty trio of bassoons that dance the first theme of Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Dukas offers us a masterclass in orchestral colour. Each episode of Goethe’s ballad is imagined in playful detail, from the march of the brooms to the raucous mayhem that ensues.

Elgar’s concerto brings us back to the somber realities of life. Part lament for the First World War, and written in the autumn of his life, it yearns for a simpler, untainted past. It is a moment of contemplation in an otherwise energetic programme.

The writer Harold Schonberg once described Tchaikovsky’s music being ‘as emotional as a scream from a window on a dark night.’ His Manfred Symphony is a perfect example. In Byron’s dramatic poem and ghost story, Manfred is a man tormented by guilt and remorse who uses the dark arts to summon spirits to help him forget his past and escape his fate.

Tchaikovsky’s fateful music makes the perfect partner for Manfred’s travails while also delighting in his escapes into fantasy. The work contains both the lightest, most impressionistic moments and the loudest climax he ever wrote.

Programme
Journeys of Discovery: Confict
chaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1
Shostakovich Symphony No.8

chaikovsky’s effusive concerto is paired with a symphony that pulls no punches.

Tchaikovsky laboured long and hard on his First Piano Concerto, revising it three times. The result was a work that has stood the test of time, shooting its arrow direct to the heart. All sentiments are there: fury, serenity, joy, and – of course – passion.

Shostakovich’s response to the unfathomable losses of the Second World War was to write a work that did not shy away from the ugliness and chaos of the indiscriminate suffering that had been unleashed. As is so often the case with his music, listening to the Eighth Symphony offers a catharsis, moving from unrelenting pressure to finding final release.

‘All that is dark and evil rots away, and beauty triumphs,’ wrote the composer. And yet the hallmark of Shostakovich is his ambiguity. After the pain and suffering, can anything ever be the same again?