Mondays @ 7

Rimsky-Korsakov, Saint-Saëns, Khachaturian – 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 piano 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

Pre-concert talk by Yvonne Frindle in the Northern Foyer, 45 minutes before each performance.

LISTEN TO SAMPLES

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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.

HARMONY FROM HEAVEN
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.

PRE-CONCERT TALKS

Free pre-concert talk by David Garrett in the Northern Foyer, 45 minutes before the concerts on 12, 13, and 17 May. (Not talk before Tea & Symphony.)

AUDIO PLAYER LISTING

Track 1 – BEETHOVEN Leonore Overture No.3
Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karajan
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 445 112-2
Track 2 – LENTZ Guyumhgan
Sydney Symphony conducted by Edo de Waart
ABC CLASSICS 472 397-2
Track 3 – STRAVINSKY Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1920 version)
Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Pierre Boulez
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 457 616-2
Track 4 – SIBELIUS Symphony No.5: 3rd movement (Allegro molto)
London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Anthony Collins
DECCA 442 9493

Audio kindly supplied by Universal Music.

Currently available from iTunes: Beethoven

LISTEN TO SAMPLES

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At the end of the Doctor Atomic Symphony, John Adams gives us powerful but sombre music. In the original opera it accompanies a John Donne sonnet: “Batter my heart, three-person’d God”. It’s music for a scientist in awe and fear of what he’s done, a man struggling with conscience.

Respite comes in the form of Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto, the music that Liszt said was “of a perfection almost ideal… now radiant with light, now full of tender pathos.”

The second half of the concert begins with the most famous four notes in the world, the notes that Beethoven is supposed to have said were like Fate knocking at the door. The emotion, the awe and the struggle couldn’t be more intense, and no matter how well you know the Fifth Symphony, this will be your chance to hear it anew.

ADAMS Doctor Atomic Symphony AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE
CHOPIN Piano Concerto No.2
BEETHOVEN Symphony No.5

David Robertson conductor
Garrick Ohlsson piano

Pre-concert talk by conductor David Robertson in the Northern Foyer, 45 minutes before each performance.

AUDIO PLAYER LISTING

Tracks 1 and 2 – CHOPIN Piano Concerto No.2
Jorge Bolet, piano, with Montreal Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Dutoit
DECCA 475 8046
Tracks 3 and 4 – BEETHOVEN Symphony No.5
Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karajan
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 429 0392

Audio kindly supplied by Universal Music

Currently available from iTunes:
‘Ultimate Chopin’
Beethoven