Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
Thursday February 7 in Plymouth Guildhall at 7.30pm
Mendelssohn – The Hebrides Overture
Brahms – Violin Concerto
Dvořák – Symphony No.8
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra brings its current ‘Natural Beauty’ programme to the city on
Drama, exhilaration, happiness and nostalgia
Dvořák broke new ground with his Eighth Symphony, a work, as he explained, meant to be “different from the other symphonies, with individual thoughts worked out in a new way.” The music is steeped in the flavour and atmosphere of the Czech countryside, particularly hunting horn calls and birdsong as well as dramatic fanfares that suggest non-musical images. Often described as a sunny work, it is much more than that. There are passages of drama, exhilaration, happiness and nostalgia, evoking a wide range of human emotions and profound optimism.
Two sides of a creative mind
Brahms’s concerto stands as one of the largest and most challenging works in the solo violin repertoire, a work which shows the two opposite sides of his creative mind – Brahms the song writer and Brahms the symphonist. It is a song for the violin on a symphonic scale – a lyrical outpouring which exercises to the full his great powers of inventive development.
A furious seascape
Fingal’s Cave conjures up a whole seascape including the grandeur of the cave itself, the swelling of the sea, the light on the water and the fury of the waves breaking on the cliffs. It was one of the first works of music to evoke nature in this way, and remains one of the greatest of its genre.
British conductor Michael Seal takes the baton, with soloist Ning Feng in the Brahms. Born in Chengdu, China, violinist Ning Feng studied at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music, the Hanns Eisler School of Music (Berlin) with Antje Weithaas, and the Royal Academy of Music (London) with Hu Kun, where he was the first student ever to be awarded 100% for his final recital.
Tickets £17 – £22 from Theatre Royal Box Office Tel: 01752 267222
Philip R Buttall
Take a look at our other BSO articles.
- A night at the opera | savouring each note with PSO - June 28, 2023
- BSO announces final season with Kirill Karabits - May 12, 2023
- ‘Patent empathy between orchestra and its visiting soloist’ | PSO and Ariel Lanyi - March 27, 2023
