“The still point of the turning world”: Music that defines an era
THE YEOMEN OF THE GUARD SUNDAY MATINEE SERIES
Quotation from TS Eliot’s Four Quartets
Sunday 15 April 2012 3.00pm
WAR REQUIEM
BRITTEN War Requiem Although titled as a Requiem, Benjamin Britten’s work intersperses elements of the traditional Latin mass with settings of poems by Wilfred Owen. This juxtaposition emphasises the tragic loss of life during the First and Second World Wars (the work was composed
GILBERT AND SULLIVAN The Yeomen of the Guard
This series is supported by The Meyer Foundation
6pm Pre-concert talk, Royal Festival Hall An introduction to the evening’s concert. FREE admission
© Lebrecht Music & Arts
LORIN MAAZEL conductor NANCY GUSTAFSON soprano MARK PADMORE tenor MATTHIAS GOERNE baritone PHILHARMONIA CHORUS TIFFIN BOYS’ CHOIR
in 1961-62), and Britten makes the contrasts all the more apparent through his emotional music and use of separate instrumental groups, who only join together in full force towards the end of the last movement as the tenor and baritone soloists sing “Let us sleep now” whilst the choruses sing “Into Paradise lead them”. This is truly one of the defining works of the twentieth century.
© RA / Lebrecht Music & Arts
Sunday 25 March 2012 7.30pm
JOHN WILSON conductor PHILHARMONIA VOICES Cast to include SARAH FOX, SIMON BUTTERISS, RICHARD ANGAS, HEATHER SHIPP AND JILL PERT
John Wilson brings his unique touch to one of Gilbert and Sullivan’s most popular operettas, regarded as Sullivan’s finest score. The Yeomen of the Guard is set in the 16th century at the Tower of London and is the darkest and most emotionally engaging of the Savoy Operas, notable for the marked absence of their characteristic satires of British institutions. It closes with a broken-hearted protagonist and two very reluctant engagements rather than the more usual happy ending.
Thursday 19 April 2012 7.30pm JURAJ VALCˇUHA conductor SERGEY KHACHATRYAN violin
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Sergey Khachatryan © Marco Borggreve
MUSSORGSKY Overture, Khovanshchina TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concerto MUSSORGSKY arr. Ravel Pictures at an Exhibition Composed in the space of just one month, Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto is full of endless melodic beauty. The second movement, a Canzonetta, requires the solo violin to be muted: an unusual technique in a concerto, but one that lends the movement a far-away, nostalgic quality. This leads straight into an exhilarating finale, a hectic dance-like movement. Memorable melodies continue into the second half of the concert with the ‘Promenade’ theme of Pictures at an Exhibition linking the descriptive movements, ending with the majestic and blazing ‘Great Gate of Kiev’. Freephone Box Office 0800 652 6717
6pm Pre-concert recital, Royal Festival Hall Recital by flautist Samantha Pearce, award-winner of the Martin Musical Scholarship Fund. FREE admission 16