april, 2025

Event Details
Roderick Williams OBE baritone Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Sibelius: Finlandia Weill: Four Walt Whitman Songs Shostakovich: Symphony No.7, ‘Leningrad’ VENUE PROGRAMME NOTE: As Hitler’s armies surrounded the city of Leningrad, and bombs rained down on a starving
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Event Details
Roderick Williams OBE baritone
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Sibelius: Finlandia
Weill: Four Walt Whitman Songs
Shostakovich: Symphony No.7, ‘Leningrad’
VENUE PROGRAMME NOTE:
As Hitler’s armies surrounded the city of Leningrad, and bombs rained down on a starving population, Dmitri Shostakovich sat down and – somehow – composed his Seventh Symphony. Written for massed battalions of musicians, this is music from the front line: a roar of defiance from an unbreakable city. You can hear it this afternoon conducted by Vasily Petrenko, whose recording of the piece was described by one critic as ‘devastating’. It’s a stupendous climax to a concert that’s all about struggle and resistance: whether it’s Sibelius defying Russian imperialism with a mighty hymn to his native Finland or the poet Walt Whitman’s pleas for tolerance, set to music by the exiled Kurt Weill. Singing them today is the fabulous British baritone Roderick Williams: a born communicator at the heart of a truly epic programme.
Time
(Sunday) 15:00
Location
Royal Festival Hall
Southbank Centre, Belvedere Rd, Lambeth, London SE1 8XX