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51 events match your criteria
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| Date | Event | Composers, Works, Performers |
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| Wednesday 22-Sep-10 07:30pm |
 Royal Festival Hall, LondonZemlinksy and Mahler |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Wednesday 22-Sep-10 07:30pm Zemlinksy and Mahler | ||
| Saturday 25-Sep-10 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Haydn, D'Amico, Dufay and Bartók |
D'Amico, Flight from Byzantium (World Premiere) |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Saturday 25-Sep-10 07:30pm Haydn, D'Amico, Dufay and Bartók 1918, and Béla Bartók encountered the legend of a young girl, forced by three thugs to lure men from the street into their den. When she encounters a magical Mandarin, a wild pursuit ensues before she embraces him and he dies. The story drew from Bartók his most astonishing orchestral creation, a piece that thrusts life into the manic tumult of the chase as the orchestra screws itself towards breaking point before plunging into its final catastrophic chords. Matteo D’Amico’s view of the flight of civilisation from ancient Istanbul receives its world première at this concert – a piece for speaker, vocal ensemble and orchestra whose sudden journeying offers a provocative counterpoint to Bartók’s. D'Amico, Matteo (b. 1955), Flight from Byzantium (World Premiere) | ||
| Friday 1-Oct-10 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London London Philharmonic Orchestra |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Friday 1-Oct-10 07:30pm London Philharmonic Orchestra As the 20th century loomed, Paris seized control of Western music's future. Even the conservative Saint-Saens began to suggest teh exotic in his highly stylised piano concertos, while also quoting a serene melody by his elegant pupil Faure in the Second. But no Parisian was quite prepared for Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, which unleased a total reappraisal of both dance and music, replacing foot-led ballet with pelvic-born ritual dance and favouring the pounding, jagged rhythms of the earth over traditional principles of harmony. | ||
| Sunday 3-Oct-10 03:00pm |
Eastbourne Congress Theatre London Philharmonic Orchestra |
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| Eastbourne Congress Theatre, Eastbourne, United Kingdom Sunday 3-Oct-10 03:00pm London Philharmonic Orchestra Dvorak discovered the riches of American folk tunes whilst there in the late 1800s: plantation songs formed the symphony's achingly beautiful cor anglais solo. | ||
| Wednesday 6-Oct-10 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Suk, Chopin and Dvořák |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Wednesday 6-Oct-10 07:30pm Suk, Chopin and Dvořák So much great music is born of longing to be somewhere else. With the easy elegance and pruned sophistication of his Second Piano Concerto, Chopin hoped to endear himself to the opinion-forming concertgoers of Paris, 850 miles from his home in Warsaw. Antonín Dvořák had already hit the big-time when he wrote his New World Symphony. But parachuted into America to run New York’s fledgling music college, the composer felt himself longing for home: the Symphony’s spirituals and plantation songs – its shapely and contented melodies – are tinged with a slight Slavic sadness. | ||
| Thursday 7-Oct-10 07:30pm |
St Davids Hall, Cardiff London Philharmonic Orchestra |
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| St Davids Hall, Cardiff, Cardiff CF10 2DP, United Kingdom Thursday 7-Oct-10 07:30pm London Philharmonic Orchestra A rousing start to the season with DvoÅ™ák's New World Symphony, brimming with American vitality and the composer's own Czech soulfulness. Returning to St David's Hall after eighteen years. Neeme Järvi's Czech-inspired concert includes the sparkling Scherzo Fantastique by DvoÅ™ák's son-in-law, Josef Suk, and is joined by the elegant and mercurial Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, in the gentle poetry of Schumann's Piano Concerto. London Philharmonic Orchestra Conductor/Neeme Järvi Soloist/Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Piano Suk /Scherzo Fantastique 15' Schumann /Piano Concerto 30' DvoÅ™ák/ Symphony No 9 (Mew World) | ||
| Saturday 9-Oct-10 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Dvořák |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Saturday 9-Oct-10 07:30pm Dvořák Dvořák so often found words a hindrance rather than a help when tasked with setting them to music. But how could he be anything but inspired by the touching text depicting the weeping mother of Christ at the foot of the cross, the Stabat Mater? It certainly stirred something in Dvořák: melodies of fresh-minted beauty flow forth, the composer revels in intimacy and grandeur, poeticism and reverence. But before the solemnity of Dvořák’s first choral utterance, we hear the joyous outburst of his last: the blazing open-air Te Deum, a work of ear-bending strength and conviction; a true masterpiece in miniature. | ||
| Wednesday 13-Oct-10 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Magnus Lindberg, Mendelssohn and Walton |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Wednesday 13-Oct-10 07:30pm Magnus Lindberg, Mendelssohn and Walton Walton’s First Symphony is a massively structured epic; a work of broad Romantic sweep and struggle; a canvas that places Sibelius-like grandeur and high-voltage electricity alongside the infectious syncopations of jazz. If Mendelssohn’s perfected and instantly heart-string-tugging Violin Concerto felt like God’s gift to violinists, Walton’s Symphony appeared the same to English symphony orchestras, hungry for a successor to Elgar’s masterpieces that would at last wrestle the symphonic crown from the European mainland. | ||
| Friday 15-Oct-10 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London London Philharmonic Orchestra |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Friday 15-Oct-10 07:30pm London Philharmonic Orchestra How life changes us. In his late Cello Concerto, Edward Elgar shed the swaggering Edwardian confidence of his youth in favour of more inward, thoughtful expressions. The Concerto's elegiac themes shun excess but speak as loudly as the luscious rollercoaster that is Richard Strauss's orchestral autobiography, Ein Heldenleben. No sign of restraint here. But like Elgar, Strauss did change, and he depicted as much in the music: it starts heroic and exhibitionistic, scattering adversaries with panache. It finishes in a place of peace, fulfilled and contented, suddenly as disarmingly noble as Elgar's Cello Concerto. | ||
| Saturday 23-Oct-10 07:00pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Rossini - in concert |
London Philharmonic Orchestra Maurizio Benini, Conductor Annick Massis, Soprano: Zenobia Silvia Tro Santafé, Soprano: Arsace Kenneth Tarver, Tenor: Aureliano Andrew Foster-Williams, Bass: Gran Sacerdote Ezgi Kutlu, Mezzo-soprano: Publia Geoffrey Mitchell Choir |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Saturday 23-Oct-10 07:00pm Rossini - in concert Concert performance given in association with Opera Rara. Sung in Italian with English surtitles. This performance will last approximately 2 hours 45 minutes including interval. In his day, Gioacchino Rossini was simply a superstar: a crowd-pleaser and a cultural pivot. In the opera house he formed the bridge from Classicism to Romanticism; in wider society he linked revolution against monarchy to liberalism and autocracy. Aureliano in Palmira is both unique and fascinating: a moment of distinct elegance and poise in the career of an out-and-out entertainer. From his stirring, heroic subject matter Rossini creates a lightly-scored, charming and sensitive piece; male heroism is meted out in one instance by a noble horn obbligato; female defiance by consistently attractive but controlled coloratura. When the voices of Arsace and Zenobia combine, they do so to form, for the 19th-century French commentator Henri Beyle, the ‘finest duet Rossini has ever written.’ London Philharmonic Orchestra Maurizio Benini, Conductor Annick Massis, Soprano: Zenobia Silvia Tro Santafé, Soprano: Arsace Kenneth Tarver, Tenor: Aureliano Andrew Foster-Williams, Bass: Gran Sacerdote Ezgi Kutlu, Mezzo-soprano: Publia Geoffrey Mitchell Choir | ||
| Wednesday 27-Oct-10 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Mendelssohn, Mahler and Brahms |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Wednesday 27-Oct-10 07:30pm Mendelssohn, Mahler and Brahms Mahler came to set Friedrich Rückert’s poems ‘on the deaths of children’ in 1901, six years before his own daughter would die from the same disease as Rückert’s two children had. And the songs themselves seem an uncanny premonition: emotionally dumbfounded, frantically grief-stricken, touchingly affectionate but glowingly consolatory. Where words fail, this music speaks through gentle orchestration and a disarmingly honest voice; a haven of sleep amid the thrusting and cutting orchestral statements of Mendelssohn’s Reformation Symphony and the provocative fist-shaking of Brahms’s Third Symphony. | ||
| Saturday 30-Oct-10 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Brahms and Beethoven |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Saturday 30-Oct-10 07:30pm Brahms and Beethoven Decades after Beethoven’s death he was still the most important artist around. Brahms behaved like Beethoven was watching over his shoulder and created symphonies and symphony-like concertos in which the scale and declamation of Beethoven’s ‘Heroic’ Third Symphony could be readily detected. The second of Brahms’s Piano Concertos was the biggest since Beethoven’s Emperor – a piece marked out by maturity and skill but itself displaying heroism, virtuosity and Romantic depth. Mahler acted purely on artistic conviction when he ‘re-touched’ Beethoven’s Symphony; instruments, concert halls and audiences had changed, and Mahler invested Beethoven’s minute detail with the strength – in 1890s Vienna – to enter everyone’s ears. | ||
| Wednesday 10-Nov-10 08:00pm |
Philharmonie im Gasteig, Munich Julia Fischer, London Philharmonic Orchestra |
Works by Tchaikovsky |
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| Philharmonie im Gasteig, Munich, D81667 Munich, Germany Wednesday 10-Nov-10 08:00pm Julia Fischer, London Philharmonic Orchestra | ||
| Saturday 13-Nov-10 08:00pm |
Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris London Philharmonic Orchestra |
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| Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris, 75008 Paris, France Saturday 13-Nov-10 08:00pm London Philharmonic Orchestra | ||
| Sunday 14-Nov-10 08:00pm |
Palais des Beaux-Arts (BOZAR): Henri le Boeuf Concert Hall, Brussels London Philharmonic Orchestra |
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| Palais des Beaux-Arts (BOZAR): Henri le Boeuf Concert Hall, Brussels, Rue Ravensteinstraat 23, B1000 Brussels, Belgium Sunday 14-Nov-10 08:00pm London Philharmonic Orchestra This programme contains one considerable curiosity: Beethoven's renowned Third Symphony (the "Eroica") - in a version arranged by Gustav Mahler! We know that Mahler was one of the greatest orchestral conductors of his time; did he set out to "improve on" Beethoven's orchestration of this symphony? We cannot wait to hear this version, of which the young Russian conductor Vladimir Jurowski is a keen admirer. The concert opens with Brahms's Second Concerto, played by the distinctive and captivating pianist Nicholas Angelich. | ||
| Wednesday 17-Nov-10 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Strauss, Mahler and Ravel |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Wednesday 17-Nov-10 07:30pm Strauss, Mahler and Ravel A sense of withdrawal from the world – a mood of nostalgia and nobility established by the great late-Romantic song-writer Richard Strauss – seems to arrive in Mahler’s setting for voice and orchestra of five poems by Friedrich Rückert. ‘I am dead to the world’s commotion and at peace in a still land’, sings Mahler’s soprano over a delicate harp-seasoned orchestra. In Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé suites there are some of the most startling orchestral effects ever conceived, and yet still, a very individual sense of nostalgia: in Ravel’s swirling surges, glowing textures and excitable orchestral rallyings is a delicate, naive innocence from a man whose childhood was a paradise lost. | ||
| Sunday 21-Nov-10 07:30pm |
Hexagon, The, Reading Classical Music Alive |
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| Hexagon, The, Reading, Reading, United Kingdom Sunday 21-Nov-10 07:30pm Classical Music Alive FREE Pre-concert talk. 6.15pm - 7pm Kennet Room, Civic Offices | ||
| Wednesday 24-Nov-10 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Stravinksy, Prokofiev and Shostakovich |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Wednesday 24-Nov-10 07:30pm Stravinksy, Prokofiev and Shostakovich At the height of his cinematic powers, Dmitri Shostakovich created one of his most vivid and pictorial symphonies. At its core the Eleventh depicts the massacre in 1905 of a group of peaceful demonstrators in St Petersburg by the Tzar’s guard. The intense, filmic realism of Shostakovich’s orchestral world is uncanny: snare drums incite panic in the strings before the orchestra lurches towards massacre with brass yelps and percussion crashes. And yet in spite of its darkness, there’s hardly anything more engaging or colourful in Shostakovich’s oeuvre. He might be known for his wry wit, but in this concert Shostakovich leaves that to his compatriot Prokofiev. | ||
| Friday 26-Nov-10 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London London Philharmonic Orchestra |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Friday 26-Nov-10 07:30pm London Philharmonic Orchestra For the last two years of his life, Anton Bruckner laboured over the final movement of his Ninth Symphony. He never finished it. The flame of his existence was extinguished even as he leant over the symphony's incomplete score. But as life was leaving Bruckner, vision and faith were only strengthening in him. The performing version of the Ninth Symphony played today has inspiring optimism and boldness. Instruments glide confidently towards unusual and pleasing harmonies and keys before intoning a chorale taken from Bruckner's own setting of the sacred Te Deum text. 'Art had its beginning in God', believed Bruckner, 'And so it must lead back to God.' | ||
| Saturday 27-Nov-10 07:30pm |
Brighton Dome, Concert Hall London Philharmonic Orchestra |
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| Brighton Dome, Concert Hall, Brighton BN1 1UG, United Kingdom Saturday 27-Nov-10 07:30pm London Philharmonic Orchestra Bruckner spent the final two years of his life working on his ninth symphony. He died before finishing it but the completed movements are extraordinary: the music of the third movement Adagio seems to ascend heavenward, revolving timelessly around its found harmonies. | ||
| Wednesday 1-Dec-10 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Debussy (orch. C. Matthews), Britten and Mahler |
Debussy, Des pas sur la neige (Preludes, Bk.1 no.6) (orch. C Matthews) Debussy, La Cathedrale engloutie (The Sunken Cathedral) (orch. C Matthews) Debussy, Préludes, Bk 2 no.12: Feux d'artifice (orch. C Matthews) |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Wednesday 1-Dec-10 07:30pm Debussy (orch. C. Matthews), Britten and Mahler After the cataclysmic natural conflicts of his Third Symphony, Mahler glanced elsewhere in the more contented, downsized pastoral of his Fourth. Within the delicate frame of this piece is some of the composer’s most heart-easing music; the spectres of Mozart and Beethoven peer through its clean dances and calming lullabies. Clouds gather, only to be gently breathed away by the soprano’s song of Heavenly Life and the harp’s contented thrumming. Following the taut, spring-like exhilarations of Britten’s orchestral songs Les Illuminations, Mahler’s reposeful symphony will glow even warmer. Debussy, Claude (1862-1918), Des pas sur la neige (Preludes, Bk.1 no.6) (orch. C Matthews) Debussy, Claude (1862-1918), La Cathedrale engloutie (The Sunken Cathedral) (orch. C Matthews) Debussy, Claude (1862-1918), Préludes, Bk 2 no.12: Feux d'artifice (orch. C Matthews) | ||
| Thursday 2-Dec-10 07:30pm |
Birmingham Symphony Hall Jurowski Conducts Mahler 4 |
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| Birmingham Symphony Hall, Broad Street, Birmingham B1, United Kingdom Thursday 2-Dec-10 07:30pm Jurowski Conducts Mahler 4 Few conductors have received the plaudits that have been awarded to Vladimir Jurowski, Chief Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Described as ‘the most creative force in London’s orchestral life’ (Financial Times), his concert contains Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, one of the composer’s most relaxed works – classical, song-like and culminating in a representation of a child’s view of heaven. Steven Osborne is the soloist in the gentle lyrical poetry of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto. 6:15pm Pre-concert talk. | ||
| Saturday 4-Dec-10 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Beethoven and Mahler |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Saturday 4-Dec-10 07:30pm Beethoven and Mahler Mahler’s First Symphony: the opening chapter of his spiritual autobiography. And the music itself seems to awaken – emerging from hushed strings and woodwind cuckoos into its stride, marching forth, stamping towards an eerie realisation of a nursery rhyme and arriving at a final, blazing affirmation of confidence. Here Vladimir Jurowski includes additional, cleansing musical statements: Beethoven’s ‘taming the furies’ Fourth Piano Concerto, and the movement of the First Symphony that Mahler’s publisher discarded, Blumine – a pure and touching statement shot through with Mahler’s own inimitable sense of resignation and regret. | ||
| Wednesday 15-Dec-10 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Beethoven, Martinů, Julian Anderson and Nielsen |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Wednesday 15-Dec-10 07:30pm Beethoven, Martinů, Julian Anderson and Nielsen This is the first chance this season to hear a work by the Orchestra’s new Composer in Residence Julian Anderson. Also comes music that lives no less: there’s a tinge of magic to Martinů’s Second Violin Concerto, filled with endearing harmonic flicks and flounces as it forages restlessly through a jungle of orchestral effects. And what is it about Fifth Symphonies? Beethoven’s, Shostakovich’s, Sibelius’s – they appear invested with an extra profundity. They seem to reach out from their neighbours. Nielsen’s Fifth is no different. An epic struggle between darkness and light, minor and major, violence and humanity; the lone voice of the snare drum silenced eventually by a surging, searing orchestra. | ||
| Friday 14-Jan-11 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London London Philharmonic Orchestra |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Friday 14-Jan-11 07:30pm London Philharmonic Orchestra And then it all changed. At the dawn of 2011 we come to Mahler's turning point: the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. Gone are the jaunty folk tunes that dominate the first four symphonies; in their place is a thrusting rhythm, a demonic drive and an argumentative edge - all heard through an enlarged, empowered orchestra. The Sixth is compelling and overwhelming: a full-on charge towards a face-off with fate, represented by three infamous hammer blows in the orchestra's percussion. Mahler wrings himself out. The optimism, luxury and gleam of Szymanowski's kaleidoscopic Violin Concerto will feel like a distant memory. | ||
| Sunday 16-Jan-11 03:00pm |
Eastbourne Congress Theatre London Philharmonic Orchestra |
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| Eastbourne Congress Theatre, Eastbourne, United Kingdom Sunday 16-Jan-11 03:00pm London Philharmonic Orchestra Good things come in threes. The gorgeous, weaving theme that opens Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto oozes Slavic atmosphere to readily you can almost smell it. Both the Brahms and Rachmaninov in this programme are full of ear-teasing mastery and mind-pleasing delicacy. | ||
| Wednesday 19-Jan-11 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Beethoven and Mahler |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Wednesday 19-Jan-11 07:30pm Beethoven and Mahler Where the darkness of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony (performed on 14 January) seems to end with a resounding ‘No’, its predecessor retains its fighting spirit from the single trumpet fanfare of its opening moments to the cock-a-hoop orchestral flourish of its closing ones. In between is an epic tussle between mourning and rapture. The music is assured, sweeping, changeable and hair-raising. Mahler had come of age. And if his trumpet heralds a new orchestral style, then Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto wrapped up history’s most remarkable cycle of concertos with suitably explosive and emotive power. | ||
| Saturday 22-Jan-11 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Franck and Fauré |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Saturday 22-Jan-11 07:30pm Franck and Fauré After the fire and brimstone of settings by Mozart and Verdi, the contemplative, restful Requiem by Gabriel Fauré seemed to propose a new religious philosophy. Fauré’s work is at its most powerful when at its most calm and reassuring; its clean lines, pure vocal textures and elegant orchestrations feel characteristically French in their understatement. But César Frank created very French music, too, albeit with rather different means. His Symphony in D minor ‘risked a great deal’ in his own words. The expanse of Bruckner, the narrative suggestion of Liszt and the compelling ‘motto’ techniques of Beethoven combined to create Franck’s imposing signature work. | ||
| Wednesday 26-Jan-11 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Eötvös, Liszt and Zemlinksy |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Wednesday 26-Jan-11 07:30pm Eötvös, Liszt and Zemlinksy When Franz Liszt strode onto the concert stage in the middle of the 19th century, he changed it for ever. With Liszt’s thunderous piano concertos the age of the virtuoso was born, a fusion of Beethoven’s single-mindedness and Paganini’s breathtaking virtuosity. The concertos continue to stun with their drama and dexterity today. If Liszt created the modern virtuoso, then Alexander Zemlinsky in early 20th-century Vienna prophesied the language of the movie score. His setting of Hindu poetry by Rabindranath Tagore is an alluring, mysterious and sexy slice of late Romantic lusciousness in which soprano and baritone drape alternate verses over a kaleidoscopic orchestra. A rare chance to hear a brilliantly individual work. | ||
| Saturday 29-Jan-11 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Ligeti, Bartók and Mahler |
Mahler, Das klagende Lied ''Song of Lamentation" (original version) |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Saturday 29-Jan-11 07:30pm Ligeti, Bartók and Mahler Two brothers are rivals for the love of a queen. One kills the other. A musician fashions a flute from the victim’s bones. The instrument speaks the truth, revealing the horrid crime and naming its perpetrator, driven to fratricide in his quest to wed the queen. In Das klagende Lied we glimpse for the first time Mahler’s characteristic use of grotesque fairytales, driving marches and folk-conceived melodies. In Bartók’s First Violin Concerto the narrative is a little closer to home: in the work’s shapely, pining violin weave, is mapped out the composer’s hopeless love for the violinist Stefi Geyer. Mahler, Gustav (1860-1911), Das klagende Lied ''Song of Lamentation" (original version) | ||
| Friday 4-Feb-11 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London London Philharmonic Orchestra |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Friday 4-Feb-11 07:30pm London Philharmonic Orchestra Few orchestral creations operate on so many levels as Brahms's, so which is the Brahms for you? The First Symphony can be a psychological battle, or it can simply be a succession of gripping sounds, shapes and melodies. Feel free to immerse yourself in the music's immaculately crafted surface, or to do battle with the cauldron of shifting, simmering and surging emotions below. Is Brahms 'fire' or is Brahms 'crystal'? You choose. And as in the dark and handsome Double Concerto, he'll feel entirely natural and entertaining, whichever Brahms you prefer. | ||
| Wednesday 9-Feb-11 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Rachaminov, Liszt and Dvořák |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Wednesday 9-Feb-11 07:30pm Rachaminov, Liszt and Dvořák London has always had a soft spot for Antonín Dvořák's music. In the 1880s the Czech composer hadn’t quite achieved the grand, patriarchal status that would see him travel to America and produce the Ninth Symphony (see 6 October). But still London recognised his talent, and begged Dvořák to fulfil a commission. Soon he excitedly agreed, and the urge to impress England drew from him a piece that would overshadow anything he had previously written. Here is the result: the Seventh Symphony, a work of vibrancy, colour and depth. Only a piece brimming with such alluring rhythms and tunefulness can follow Rachmaninov’s devilish Paganini Rhapsody. | ||
| Friday 11-Feb-11 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London London Philharmonic Orchestra |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Friday 11-Feb-11 07:30pm London Philharmonic Orchestra At home, on 31 May 1841, Clara Schumann noticed the sounds of her husband at work. 'Robert's spirit is very active', she wrote in her diary. 'I hear the D minor wildly sounding in the distance, so that I know already in advance, it is once again a work emerging from the bottom of his heart.' She was right. The work taking shape was the Fourth Symphony: a continuously flowing masterpiece of beauty and subtlety. What Clara couldn't have known was that Robert was, at that very moment, writing her into his symphony. In the delicately winding string and bassoon theme of the work's opening, he movingly and purposefully captures their unerring love. | ||
| Sunday 13-Feb-11 03:00pm |
Eastbourne Congress Theatre London Philharmonic Orchestra |
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| Eastbourne Congress Theatre, Eastbourne, United Kingdom Sunday 13-Feb-11 03:00pm London Philharmonic Orchestra Celebrate the Valentine's Day weekend with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and immerse yourself in Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto: probably the most beloved piano concerto of all time. | ||
| Wednesday 16-Feb-11 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Ravel and Berlioz |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Wednesday 16-Feb-11 07:30pm Ravel and Berlioz As a performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet unfurled before a Paris audience in 1827, one theatregoer got more than he bargained for. He not only ‘glimpsed the whole heaven of art’ on hearing Shakespeare’s text, but also fell madly in love with Harriet Smithson, the young Irish actress playing Ophelia. That audience member was a young composer, Hector Berlioz. Artistic possibility, passionate love and unerring striving fused in him. He became the great Romantic he’s known as today, and set about thrusting all his feelings into a yearning, heartfelt symphony, the Symphonie fantastique. Berlioz’s untouchable, captivating musical language was born. | ||
| Saturday 19-Feb-11 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Mozart and Mahler |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Saturday 19-Feb-11 07:30pm Mozart and Mahler 1908, and the broken, vilified Mahler was forced to resign his directorship of the Vienna Court Opera. At this dusk of his compositional life he turned to his most cherished textural combination: voice and orchestra. The result was his Song of the Earth – an allegory of life and death; a summation of man’s existence on the planet; a final marrying of song and symphony. And Mahler achieves something in this music that Mozart had two centuries earlier in his Sinfonia Concertante. He lets us glimpse his own soul. Like Mozart had before him, he lays himself bare with the most achingly personal music imaginable. | ||
| Friday 25-Feb-11 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London London Philharmonic Orchestra |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Friday 25-Feb-11 07:30pm London Philharmonic Orchestra Here is a beginning and an ending: Mahler's first mature song-cycle and his last completed symphony, and a telling view of his obsession with death. The young composer of the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer) creates music in which the love of lfe and nature combats despair and grief. In Das Lied von der Erde (19 February) Mahler encounters death, but on poetic, philosophical terms in music of beautiful, poignant reflection. In the Ninth Symphony Mahler experiences, for his biographer Deryck Cooke, a 'naked encounter with the arch-enemy himself, who invades the music, turning everything to dust and ashes.' | ||
| Saturday 26-Feb-11 07:30pm |
Brighton Dome, Concert Hall London Philharmonic Orchestra |
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| Brighton Dome, Concert Hall, Brighton BN1 1UG, United Kingdom Saturday 26-Feb-11 07:30pm London Philharmonic Orchestra Sofya Gulyak won the 2009 Leeds International Piano Competition - astonishingly she is the first female winner since the competition was founded in 1963. She joins the Orchestra for Rachmaninov's beloved Piano Concerto No. 3. Also on the bill, Beethoven's rugged, potently-charmed Symphony No. 7. | ||
| Sunday 6-Mar-11 03:00pm |
Eastbourne Congress Theatre London Philharmonic Orchestra |
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| Eastbourne Congress Theatre, Eastbourne, United Kingdom Sunday 6-Mar-11 03:00pm London Philharmonic Orchestra For his first appearance in Eastbourne since taking the musical reins of the London Philharmonic Orchestra three years ago, Vladimir Jurowski conducts Tchaikovsky's most readily appealing symphony and one of Haydn's most extrovert. | ||
| Friday 18-Mar-11 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London London Philharmonic Orchestra |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Friday 18-Mar-11 07:30pm London Philharmonic Orchestra How remarkable it is that Shostakovich was consistently innovative in his art and yet was always so kind to the ears of his listeners. The Sixth Symphony doesn't just offer a plethora of seductive musical shapes and gestures, it also presents a clear journey through desolation and nostalgia to wit and the boundless joy of fulfilment. And the three other composers featured tend to smile infectiously through their music, too: Prokofiev's Love for Three Oranges brims with delightfully untrustworthy tunes; Stravinsky's ebullient Capriccio for piano and orchestra shines gloriously and Haydn's feisty D major Piano Concerto sparkles with bright, witty perfection. | ||
| Saturday 19-Mar-11 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Anderson, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Saturday 19-Mar-11 07:30pm Anderson, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky Fate. It has hung dagger-like over the art of music since Beethoven seized it by the throat. In 1877, Tchaikovsky felt its weighty hand on his shoulder. His artistic response was a symphony completely unlike anything he had created before: ‘This is fate’, he confided to his friend Nadezhda von Meck, explaining the opening notes of his heart-on-sleeve Fourth Symphony. But by the Symphony’s final chapter, Tchaikovsky’s darkness had turned to light. ‘Rejoice in other’s rejoicing’, he urged Nadezhda, and the Symphony veered towards the sort of unstoppable, ebullient joy that Beethoven had sought refuge in with his radiantly smiling Violin Concerto. | ||
| Monday 21-Mar-11 08:00pm |
Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris London Philharmonic Orchestra |
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| Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris, 75008 Paris, France Monday 21-Mar-11 08:00pm London Philharmonic Orchestra | ||
| Wednesday 23-Mar-11 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Brett Dean, Adams and Holst |
Dean, Komarov's Fall (London Premiere) |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Wednesday 23-Mar-11 07:30pm Brett Dean, Adams and Holst Words fail to reflect the scale, beauty and mystery of space and the place of our planet. But music, as Marin Alsop suggests in the tantalising promise of this concert, does rather better. Brett Dean is one of a handful of composers to have written short orchestral ‘asteroids’ to add to Gustav Holst’s bold and bustling Planets. Komarov’s Fall continues Dean’s fascination with the death of a Soviet cosmonaut in panicked human circumstances. John Adams’ urgent, engaging music for his recent opera, about the testing of the atomic bomb, is heard here in symphonic form, in which a lone trumpet plaintively yet angrily intones the work’s poignant monologue Batter my heart. Dean, Brett (b. 1961), Komarov's Fall (London Premiere) | ||
| Saturday 26-Mar-11 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Elgar |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Saturday 26-Mar-11 07:30pm Elgar ‘Night after night, looking across our illimitable horizon, I’ve seen in thought the Soul go up and have written my own heart’s blood into the score.’ The words of Edward Elgar, as he worked the inspiration he received from Cardinal Newman’s poem The Dream of Gerontius into what he knew would be his greatest creation. The resulting oratorio depicts the soul of man, slipping from life to death, from judgement to paradise. Elgar’s journey through prayerful, demonic, expectant and angelic music to the redemption he so resolutely believed in creates an experience that’s at once personal and communal for all in the audience. | ||
| Saturday 16-Apr-11 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Liszt, Dvořák and Tchaikovsky |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Saturday 16-Apr-11 07:30pm Liszt, Dvořák and Tchaikovsky Franz Liszt’s infatuation with the Faust legend and his personal development of the symphonic poem are married in the two Faust ‘episodes’, which take their inspiration not directly from Goethe but from a colourful poem by Nicolaus Lenau. He was the man who prompted Richard Strauss’s orchestral rollercoaster Don Juan, and expect no less revelry in Liszt’s two slices of orchestral melodrama, including Mephisto’s intoxicating, fervour-inducing waltz. That gives even the feverish Scherzo from Tchaikovsky’s Second Symphony a run for its money. These two high-octane works surround a most tender, delicate orchestral creation: the beautiful Cello Concerto by Dvořák. | ||
| Sunday 17-Apr-11 03:00pm |
Eastbourne Congress Theatre London Philharmonic Orchestra |
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| Eastbourne Congress Theatre, Eastbourne, United Kingdom Sunday 17-Apr-11 03:00pm London Philharmonic Orchestra At 12 years old Jennifer Pike became the 2002 BBC Young Musician of the Year. Since then she has gone on to develop a glittering solo career. Here she joins us for a performance of Brahms’ well-loved Violin Concerto. | ||
| Wednesday 20-Apr-11 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Bach (arr. Mahler), Shostakovich, Webern and Beethoven (arr. Mahler) |
Works by Mahler (suite from the orchestral works of JS Bach) |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Wednesday 20-Apr-11 07:30pm Bach (arr. Mahler), Shostakovich, Webern and Beethoven (arr. Mahler) In the heroic, free-flowing momentum of the Third Symphony’s opening, Beethoven poured out his enthusiasm for Napoleon Bonaparte, the military leader who seemed to champion everything the composer stood for. A decade later, things were rather different. Napoleon ignited Beethoven’s fury with his totalitarian egotism and rampage through Europe. As the general invaded Vienna, Beethoven shunned the mass exodus and stayed put. Amidst the canon fire, he penned his Eleventh String Quartet – unmatched in all of Beethoven’s output in its compression, tension and exaggeration. Themes are spat out; silences brood ominously. In Mahler’s orchestral arrangement, Beethoven’s most explosive quartet gains even more firepower. Works by Mahler, Gustav (1860-1911) (suite from the orchestral works of JS Bach) | ||
| Wednesday 4-May-11 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Wagner, Strauss and Tchaikovsky |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Wednesday 4-May-11 07:30pm Wagner, Strauss and Tchaikovsky If in the midst of his Fourth Symphony (19 March) Tchaikovsky was wrought with anguish, he at last found some solace in the late 1880s, freed from the catastrophes that were besetting his private life and carving a tragic path through his career. In the Fifth Symphony Tchaikovsky at last finds peace: the music seems to ease even its own suffering; into troubled orchestral shadows are thrust bright shafts of melodic optimism. By 1949 Richard Strauss had witnessed the destruction of his beloved Germany from within. He, too, turned to music: his final goodbye, his resigned willingness to sleep, floats touchingly through the weaving soprano of his Four Last Songs. | ||
| Saturday 28-May-11 07:30pm |
Royal Festival Hall, London Haydn, Mahler and Brahms |
Mahler, Des Knaben Wunderhorn (selction of songs) |
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| Royal Festival Hall, London, London, United Kingdom Saturday 28-May-11 07:30pm Haydn, Mahler and Brahms Brahms’s Fourth Symphony itself seems like a journey embarked upon and completed; the music embraces you like lake water – so naturally building before dying away, its last drops bringing our season to a close as they did their composer’s symphonic career. We have a goodbye from Mahler, too. In the songs of Des knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth’s Magic Horn) the composer sketches so many of the moods and motifs that find their way into his Second and Third Symphonies. There are flowing ländlers, trance-like nocturnes and prophetic marches. But there’s immense textural skill from the young Mahler, too, who gifts his musical lines the clarity of an engraving. Mahler, Gustav (1860-1911), Des Knaben Wunderhorn (selction of songs) | ||
| Sunday 5-Jun-11 03:00pm |
Eastbourne Congress Theatre London Philharmonic Orchestra |
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| Eastbourne Congress Theatre, Eastbourne, United Kingdom Sunday 5-Jun-11 03:00pm London Philharmonic Orchestra The Rhine. Wide, deep and fast-flowing. For Robert Schumann, the river was both treasured companion and deadly adversary. He plunged into its cold and unforgiving waters in 1854 in an attempt to take his own life. Days later he was admitted to an asylum, and by 1856 he was dead. But in his glorious, life-affirming symphonic masterpiece, Schumann’s love for the Rhine lives on. | ||
