Archived event
Performance details
Thursday 2 May 2024 at 7.30pm
Robert Blackwood Hall
Friday 3 May 2024 at 7.30pm
Melbourne Town Hall
Saturday 4 May 2024 at 7.30pm
Frankston Arts Centre
The MSO dedicated these performances to Sir Andrew Davis, who passed away on 20 April 2024.
Sir Andrew was the MSO Chief Conductor (2013-2019) and Conductor Laureate (2020-2024).
We miss him terribly.
Featuring
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Jaime Martín conductor
Tair Khisambeev violin
Program
Britten The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra
Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending
Elgar Enigma Variations
About this performance
Jaime Martín conducts this stunning program of perennial English charmers – some of the most popular orchestral music ever written.
- First, you'll tour through the instruments of the orchestra with Benjamin Britten’s delightful A Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.
- Then, you'll hear a work by Ralph Vaughan Williams, a figurehead of England’s Folk Music Revival, who would spend his time rambling through the countryside to ‘collect’ folk tunes from villagers. One of the best-loved works in classical music, The Lark Ascending draws on such tunes, creating a glorious pastoral picture of a bird in flight on a clear, bright day.
- After a long day of apparently-torturous teaching, Elgar sat down at the piano to clear his mind, and began to tinker. The final work on this program is the tune he called Enigma – to express the ‘nothingness’ from which it came. Each of the fourteen variations on this never-revealed theme paints musical portrait of one of Elgar’s friends. The most famous – Nimrod – is one of the most emotionally profound and magnificent works of all time.
Duration: approx. 1 hour and 30 minutes including interval
Free Organ Recital
Melbourne Town Hall
3 May at 6.30pm
Arrive early to enjoy a recital performed by Calvin Bowman on the mighty Grand Organ, free for ticket holders.
Elgar (arr. A. Herbert Brewer) The Dream of Gerontius: Prelude and Angel’s Farewell
Elgar (arr. George C. Martin) Imperial March Op.32
