Nicola Heywood Thomas, BBC Radio 3, 23rd September 2013
Duration: 2 hours, 30 minutes
Available until 29th September 2014
Nicola Heywood Thomas introduces a live concert by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales from BBC Hoddinott Hall in Cardiff, with music by French and Czech composers, also celebrating the BBC Singers at 90. Janacek’s rhapsody tells the bloody and violent story of the Cossack hero Taras Bulba by pouring all his elemental expressive strength into this musical testament to the courage of the Russian people – traditionally the great defenders of the Slavonic people. New Generation Artist Louis Schwizgebel joins the orchestra for Ravel’s piano concerto for the left hand, as emotionally powerful and virtuosic as any two-handed concerto. During the interval, Nicola marks the 90th birthday of the BBC Singers with a work by Finzi, premiered by the Singers in 1938. Martinu’s sixth symphony captures the spontaneity of it’s dedicatee, the conductor Charles Munch, reaching beyond traditional form to become a set of freely spinning ‘symphonic fantasies’.
2.00pm
Janacek: Taras Bulba – rhapsody for orchestra
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Michael Francis (conductor)
c.2.30pm
Ravel: Concerto in D major for piano (left hand) and orchestra
Louis Schwizgebel (piano)
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Michael Francis (conductor)
c.2.50pm
Finzi: Seven poems of Robert Bridges op.17
BBC Singers
Paul Brough (conductor)
c.3.15pm
Roussel: Concerto for small orchestra op.34
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Michael Francis (conductor)
c.3.30pm
Martinu: Fantaisies symphoniques (Symphony no.6)
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Michael Francis (conductor)
c.4.05pm
Peter Dickinson: Violin Concerto
Chloe Hanslip (violin)
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Clark Rundell (conductor)
