What's On

  • 19 May 2018

    Berlioz Béatrice et Bénédict Overture
    Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 3, Op. 25 in C major
    Brahms Symphony No. 4, Op. 98 in E minor 
    Saturday 19 May 2018, 7:00pm
    St James's Church, 197 Piccadilly, London, W1J 9LL

    Michael Seal, conductor
    Chris Hopkins, piano

    Buy tickets online now

    Tickets: £17, £15, £10 (concessions £3 off)

    Tickets will be available to purchase at the door before the concert starts.

    Berlioz captures the essence of Shakespeare’s comedy, Much Ado About Nothing, in this delightful

    Overture, much of it in the playful introduction, where the silences are as witty as the dialogue between woodwind and strings.   It is a sparkling introduction to the tale of love gone wrong–and love gone right.

    The exuberant, brash Piano Concerto No. 3 drew thunderous applause from American audiences in 1921 but it received rather tepid reviews. Neither in Chicago nor in subsequent New York performances did the concerto arouse much enthusiasm.  Prokofiev said the American public "did not quite understand the work."  Nevertheless, it went on to become one of the half a dozen or so most popular piano concertos of the entire twentieth century.

    Similarly, the premiere in 1885 of Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 had a cool reception.  Audiences found the symphony’s strangeness difficult to deal with on first acquaintance.  Its strangeness lies in its combination of modern (for 1885) harmonies and suggestions of old music (in particular the passacaglia in the final movement).  Now the symphony is firmly a concert favourite.

  • 14 June 2018

    Berlioz Le carnaval romain
    Strauss Horn Concerto No. 1 in Eb major, Op. 11
    Mahler Symphony No. 10 (ed. Cooke 1910)
    Thursday 14 June 2018, 7:30pm
    Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre

    Michael Seal, conductor
    Martin Owen, horn

    To reserve tickets
    Phone: 0844 847 9910
    Southbankcentre.co.uk

     

    We open our return to the Queen Elizabeth Hall, with a performance of Berlioz's dashing Roman Carnival Overture, followed by Richard Strauss’s equally exuberant, and one of the most-demanding solo works for the horn, the Horn Concerto No. 1. The centerpiece of the concert is a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 10. The symphony was written in the summer of 1910, and was Mahler’s final composition. At the time of his death, the work was substantially complete in the form of a continuous draft, but not fully elaborated or orchestrated. After Mahler's death there was no immediate attempt to complete the work for performance. The various realisations produced by Deryck Cooke have, since the mid-1960s, become the basis for most performances and recordings and it is the Cooke version of the complete Symphony you will hear.