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The French repertoire occupies a prominent place among Simon Rattle’s many musical preferences. In 2010, he was awarded the Order of Knight of the French Legion of Honor for his groundbreaking performances of works by French composers. In addition to its fascinating sound world, this music is also ideally suited for an orchestra to work on, because it allows the ensemble to elicit completely different colors and attain a distinctive virtuosity. Alongside well-known classics, the BRSO will perform an absolute novelty: Les Bandar-Log (Hindi for “great apes”) from Charles Koechlin’s setting of The Jungle Book: the episode of the anarchic troop of monkeys that have captured Mowgli provides the composer with a model for a wild potpourri of sounds and stylistic devices. It is beguiling how calm and luminous the music becomes once the rowdy gang has been successfully driven away.
The French repertoire occupies a prominent place among Simon Rattle’s many musical preferences. In 2010, he was awarded the Order of Knight of the French Legion of Honor for his groundbreaking performances of works by French composers. In addition to its fascinating sound world, this music is also ideally suited for an orchestra to work on, because it allows the ensemble to elicit completely different colors and attain a distinctive virtuosity. Alongside well-known classics, the BRSO will perform an absolute novelty: Les Bandar-Log (Hindi for “great apes”) from Charles Koechlin’s setting of The Jungle Book: the episode of the anarchic troop of monkeys that have captured Mowgli provides the composer with a model for a wild potpourri of sounds and stylistic devices. It is beguiling how calm and luminous the music becomes once the rowdy gang has been successfully driven away.
One subject dominates the ecstatic scores that Daniele Gatti has chosen for this concert: love’s boundless rapture. For Don Juan, the suave ladies’ man, Strauss took his inspiration from a poem by Lenau: “O magic realm, illimited, eternal, / Of gloried women, loveliness supernal! / Fain would I, in the storm of stressful bliss, / Expire upon the last one’s lingering kiss!” Things that flew a thousandfold to Don Juan were denied to the autobiographical hero of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, who seeks his beloved in vain. In his mind she becomes a torturous idée fixe until he turns to drugs and takes part in a hallucinatory witches’ sabbath featuring his own execution. Both men – Don Juan and Berlioz’s hero – constantly cross red lines. And Die Meistersinger? Here the hero sings of love with divine inspiration and wins the prize – in this case, anachronistically enough, a woman named Eve.
One subject dominates the ecstatic scores that Daniele Gatti has chosen for this concert: love’s boundless rapture. For Don Juan, the suave ladies’ man, Strauss took his inspiration from a poem by Lenau: “O magic realm, illimited, eternal, / Of gloried women, loveliness supernal! / Fain would I, in the storm of stressful bliss, / Expire upon the last one’s lingering kiss!” Things that flew a thousandfold to Don Juan were denied to the autobiographical hero of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, who seeks his beloved in vain. In his mind she becomes a torturous idée fixe until he turns to drugs and takes part in a hallucinatory witches’ sabbath featuring his own execution. Both men – Don Juan and Berlioz’s hero – constantly cross red lines. And Die Meistersinger? Here the hero sings of love with divine inspiration and wins the prize – in this case, anachronistically enough, a woman named Eve.
Baritone Christian Gerhaher has been closely associated with the BRSO for many years. Admired by audiences for his powerful expression and moving voice, he will now sing of the heavenly lightness of love – and the pain of its loss – in Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été. A completely different scene from those mysterious and melancholy summer nights is conjured up in Summer Pastorale by the Franco-Swiss composer Arthur Honegger. This short work of 1920 captivates with tranquil impressions of nature and warm orchestral colours. To round off the programme, the French conductor Stéphane Denève will present a masterpiece from Stravinsky’s neo-classical period: Dumbarton Oaks, a concerto in E-flat major named after the residence of the patron who commissioned it (near Washington, DC). It’s an ingenious jeu d’esprit that plays with stylistic, formal and development patterns from music history, using a wealth of combinations and overlaps that go far beyond the simple joys of quotation.
Baritone Christian Gerhaher has been closely associated with the BRSO for many years. Admired by audiences for his powerful expression and moving voice, he will now sing of the heavenly lightness of love – and the pain of its loss – in Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été. A completely different scene from those mysterious and melancholy summer nights is conjured up in Summer Pastorale by the Franco-Swiss composer Arthur Honegger. This short work of 1920 captivates with tranquil impressions of nature and warm orchestral colours. To round off the programme, the French conductor Stéphane Denève will present a masterpiece from Stravinsky’s neo-classical period: Dumbarton Oaks, a concerto in E-flat major named after the residence of the patron who commissioned it (near Washington, DC). It’s an ingenious jeu d’esprit that plays with stylistic, formal and development patterns from music history, using a wealth of combinations and overlaps that go far beyond the simple joys of quotation.
Baritone Christian Gerhaher has been closely associated with the BRSO for many years. Admired by audiences for his powerful expression and moving voice, he will now sing of the heavenly lightness of love – and the pain of its loss – in Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été. A completely different scene from those mysterious and melancholy summer nights is conjured up in Summer Pastorale by the Franco-Swiss composer Arthur Honegger. This short work of 1920 captivates with tranquil impressions of nature and warm orchestral colours. To round off the programme, the French conductor Stéphane Denève will present a masterpiece from Stravinsky’s neo-classical period: Dumbarton Oaks, a concerto in E-flat major named after the residence of the patron who commissioned it (near Washington, DC). It’s an ingenious jeu d’esprit that plays with stylistic, formal and development patterns from music history, using a wealth of combinations and overlaps that go far beyond the simple joys of quotation.
Baritone Christian Gerhaher has been closely associated with the BRSO for many years. Admired by audiences for his powerful expression and moving voice, he will now sing of the heavenly lightness of love – and the pain of its loss – in Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été. A completely different scene from those mysterious and melancholy summer nights is conjured up in Summer Pastorale by the Franco-Swiss composer Arthur Honegger. This short work of 1920 captivates with tranquil impressions of nature and warm orchestral colours. To round off the programme, the French conductor Stéphane Denève will present a masterpiece from Stravinsky’s neo-classical period: Dumbarton Oaks, a concerto in E-flat major named after the residence of the patron who commissioned it (near Washington, DC). It’s an ingenious jeu d’esprit that plays with stylistic, formal and development patterns from music history, using a wealth of combinations and overlaps that go far beyond the simple joys of quotation.