Tuesday 5 January 2016

Philharmonia Spring season - early evening concerts, a contemporary trumpet concerto and a new oratorio

John Powell, whose Prussian Requiem premieres in March
John Powell, whose Prussian Requiem premieres in March
The Philharmonia Orchestra's Spring season includes the world premiere of an oratorio by John Powell, a composer more familiar for film music, Håkan Hardenberger in a programme of varied trumpet music including the trumpet concerto by Swedish composer Rolf Martinsson, John Wilson conducting RVW's Sea Symphony, as well as the programme of early evening concerts full of delights.

Håkan Hardenberger completes his series, The Trumpet Shall Sound with a trio of concerts on 28 January 2016 including Rolf Martinsson's Bridge, Trumpet Concerto No. 1 and Sibelius Second Symphony, an early evening programme with the Philharmonia Brass Section plus students from Wandsworth and Hounslow musicwhich includes music by Piazzolla, Rautavaara, Dukas and Turnage, and late event including more Piazzolla, and Kurt Weill.

John Wilson conducts the orchestra with Sally Matthew (soprano), Roderick Williams (baritone), Bristol Choral Society, Philharmonia Voices and Gloucester Choral Society in RVW's Sea Symphony, and Finzi's Clarinet Concerto (with Mark van der Wiel) (24 January 2016).

Film composer John Powell (The Bourne Identity, X-Men, Ice Age) has written a Prussian Requiem with text by multi-media artist Michael Petry. The work commemorates the First World War (you can hear excerpts on the Philharmonia website) and the Prussian of the title refers the Prussian aide-de-camp Helmuth von Moltke. The piece focuses on the evening before the start of World War I in 1914, as Helmuth von Moltke, who had been Commander in Chief of the German army since 1906, insisted that the full-scale conflict should go ahead, even though the Kaiser still had the option of negotiating with France and/or Russia. As Powell has explained, “The piece itself is a story driven by a man who took a moment in history and stood between the chance of peace and the chance of war. His own pride made us go to World War I and basically destroyed the 20th century. Everything bad that is still happening, you can trace to this one moment in history at the end of July in 1914.” The work was written as Powell took a sabbatical from film composing in order to try and find his voice as a composer of concert music. Having trained at Trinity College of Music, London, Powell had always intended to be a concert composer but the difficulty of earning a living in this area led him to film composing. José Serebrier conducts, with the Philharmonia Chorus, and the concert also includes RVW's The Lark Ascending (with Jennifer Pike) and Elgar's Cello Concerto (with Sol Gabetta) (6 March 2016)

The orchestra's free 6pm early evening concerts include some fascinating repertoire which extends the reach of the more popular programmes in the main evening concerts. Philharmonia Chamber Players perform Mozart and Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht before the performance of Mahler's Third Symphony (6pm, 11 February), Darrell Ang (conductor) and Isang Enders (cello) perform Ligeti's Sonata for solo cello, Boulez's Messagesquisse and Salonen's Mania for solo cello and ensemble, in advance of the main evening programme of Ravel, Mozart and Debussy (6pm, 18 February)

Full information from the Philharmonia website.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Popular Posts this month