The French and the Russians have always had a soft spot for each other – in music at least!
These are the composers who give us orchestral colour, sweeping melodies and vibrant exoticism, the composers who temper Germanic convention with brilliance and fantasy. Which all makes for a perfect match when we bring a Russian conductor and a French soloist together to perform vividly imagined music with an Oriental cast.
Let your imagination loose on the tender Adagio and thrilling dances that accompany Spartacus’s uprising. Surrender to the spinning violin solos and rich orchestral palette of Scheherazade’s nightly tales – a spirited heroine in an exotic world. And discover the charming panoramas of Saint-Saëns’ most evocative concerto, with its thudding steamship propellers and croaking frogs on the Nile.
KHACHATURIAN Spartacus: Suite
SAINT-SAËNS Piano Concerto No.5 (Egyptian)
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Scheherazade
Alexander Lazarev conductor
Jean-Yves Thibaudet piano
When it comes to heartfelt emotion, no one can match the genius Tchaikovsky. Join us for his soaring violin concerto and music from the Sleeping Beauty ballet.
here should be every reason to think of Tchaikovsky as out of touch – he was an aloof personality, full of insecurities – and yet his music cuts to the core with the irresistible impulse of honest emotion.
You can’t help but feel his astonishing gift for melody and great dramatic instincts. In this concert we celebrate his genius with the soaring themes and infectious virtuosity of the Violin Concerto and music from his ballet masterpiece, Sleeping Beauty.
Following the 2008 Elgar festival, Vladimir Ashkenazy has invited Canadian James Ehnes, “a tremendous violinist”, to return to play another great Romantic concerto.
SIBELIUS Finlandia
TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concerto
TCHAIKOVSKY Sleeping Beauty: Suite
Vladimir Ashkenazy conductor
James Ehnes violin
TEA & SYMPHONY - 10 DECEMBER
Short program: Violin Concerto and Sleeping Beauty Suite.
Discover the genius of Bernstein on stage and in the concert hall with music from Candide and West Side Story, and his Age of Anxiety symphony.
For most of us, Leonard Bernstein’s genius lives on the stage – in the dazzling optimism of his music for Candide and the urban cool of West Side Story. But there’s another side to Lenny: the “serious” composer who wanted to write the Great American Symphony. So how did he go? The Age of Anxiety gives a clue: it’s called a symphony but it looks like a piano concerto and its narrative structure is set by Auden’s poem.
This is a symphony that encompasses a quest for identity and the glitter of the jazz age. Lenny was no ordinary musician, and in this concert David Robertson gives us the best of all possible Bernstein.
BERNSTEIN Candide: Overture and Suite The Age of Anxiety (Symphony No.2) West Side Story: Suite for voices and orchestra
David Robertson conductor
Orli Shaham piano
and a cast of singers
The greatest composers are always on the brink of something new. Join us for Haydn, Schoenberg, Beethoven and Max Bruch’s enchanting first violin concerto.
Here’s what you need to know…
Haydn: a witty composer with a deft touch for workplace politics; his Farewell Symphony cleverly ends up with just two musicians on the stage and won his orchestra the change of scene they were hankering after.
Bruch: a dreamer who heard the soul of music in melody; from its opening flourishes to its bravura gypsy finale, his much-loved First Violin Concerto sums up everything that is rich and enchanting about the Romantic style.
Schoenberg: rewrote the rulebook but believed only in inspiration; his symphony is “little but vast”, concentrated, forward-looking and daring.
Beethoven: ditto.
The greatest composers are always on the brink of something new and fresh. Hear it for yourself in a boldly imagined program that doesn’t stand still.
Celestial vision and heavenly inspiration in a concert that begins with Beethoven and ends with Sibelius’s magnificent Fifth Symphony.
In space, if you listen, you can hear the stars sing. Georges Lentz, with his profound musical vision and love of the night sky, brings that sound into the concert hall – pure and serene.
We premiered Guyuhmgan in 2001, and for its return Lentz has added solos for two of our woodwind principals. The music’s soft tones find affinity in the delicate austerity of Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments, and Beethoven’s heroic tone-poem in miniature balances Sibelius’s most memorable symphony.
Sibelius also claimed heavenly inspiration. Writing his Fifth Symphony, he said it was if God had thrown down mosaic pieces from heaven and asked him to put them back as they were – for Sibelius composing was like a celestial jigsaw puzzle, an aching mystery that even he didn’t fully understand. We may not understand the process either, but we recognise the result – invigorating and life-affirming.
BEETHOVEN Leonore Overture No.3
LENTZ Guyuhmgan
STRAVINSKY Symphonies of Wind Instruments
SIBELIUS Symphony No.5
Matthew Coorey conductor
Diana Doherty oboe
Alexandre Oguey cor anglais
TEA & SYMPHONY - 14 MAY
Short program: Beethoven, Lentz and Sibelius.
When Roy Goodman arrives in Sydney he’ll bring a 30-year reputation as a violinist and director specialising in baroque music, and that reputation has shaped the program he’s put together for us. Two magnificent baroque suites provide the frame and a baroque-inspired concerto from English composer Michael Tippett brings it up to date.
You’re allowed to ask where Edouard Lalo’s Cello Concerto fits into the scheme of things and we could jump through hoops explaining it: a French Romantic bridge between Bach’s French-style suite and a 20th-century concerto perhaps?
The truth is, this is heart-warming and lyrical music, and if you heard the rich intensity of Jian Wang’s Elgar concerto in 2008, this will be another chance to hear him play to his strengths. But in the end, Handel upstages everybody with his spectacular Music for the Royal Fireworks.
BACH Orchestral Suite No.4 in D
LALO Cello Concerto
TIPPETT Concerto for double string orchestra
HANDEL Music for the Royal Fireworks
Music can transport you to a world of imagination and feeling. Join us for the energy of Beethoven, the lyricism of Schumann and the passion of Tchaikovsky.
Creativity makes us human. When Prometheus brought his clay statues to life it was the ancient power of harmony that turned them into thinking, feeling creatures. That might be a myth, but who hasn’t felt the civilising power of music?
With Beethoven’s Prometheus overture, the lyrical heart of Schumann’s concerto, and the impassioned Sixth Symphony of Tchaikovsky, this is a concert of deep sentiment and heightened feelings – music to take you beyond the everyday.
BEETHOVEN The Creatures of Prometheus: Overture
SCHUMANN Cello Concerto
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No.6, Pathétique
Alexander Vedernikov conductor
Johannes Moser cello
Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto begins with magical, shimmering sounds that seem to have flown straight out of Stravinsky’s Firebird ballet.
It’s music born in the crucible of Romanticism, Impressionism and something more: a truly unique voice. Szymanowski sends his soloist soaring to ecstatic heights and in Arabella Steinbacher we have the ideal violinist to project the rarefied beauty of this luxuriant and lively concerto.
The euphoria continues with Bruckner’s finest and most beautiful symphony. If you’re a Bruckner fan there’s really no more to say – you’ll want to hear Simone Young conduct this music. If you’re still to be won over, brace yourself for an intoxicating experience. Bruckner transcends Beethoven to build a noble architecture on the grandest scale – flamboyant and contemplative, earthy and spiritual. Sublime.
WAGNER
Lohengrin: Prelude to Act III
SZYMANOWSKI
Violin Concerto No.1
BRUCKNER Symphony No.7
Simone Young conductor
Arabella Steinbacher violin
On Christmas Eve, a splendid party is taking place at the Stahlbaum's house. The magical Drosselmeyer brings gifts - for Clara, a beautiful wooden Nutcracker doll. Later that night, Clara is unable to sleep and as the clock strikes midnight, very strange things start to happen ...
The Nutcracker is one of the world's favourite ballets, but if you haven't seen this production, you're in for a treat! Set to Tchaikovsky's immortal score, this fairytale bonbon bursts with bewitching dancing, magical sets and the prettiest costumes imaginable. The Nutcracker sold out three cities in 2007 - don't miss this very special encore season!
Credits
The Nutcracker (1990)
Choreography Peter Wright, Lev Ivanov, Vincent Redmon
Composer Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Set and costume design John F Macfarlane
Sydney: with Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra
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