In a personal centenary tribute to his mentor, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Benjamin Appl traces the great baritone’s life story through song, readings and memories.
It always feels good to make music with friends – and when that friend is soprano Renée Fleming, you just know that something extra-special is on the cards. No introduction is required for one of the LPO’s best-loved guests, the American soprano whose personality lights up the world’s greatest stages and whose voice has been compared to double cream. ‘Unforgettable’ was how one critic described her 2022 Gala with the LPO, and tonight she returns to sing Richard Strauss’s radiant Four Last Songs. Music that never grows old, sung by one of the supreme voices of our time.
The opening of Also sprach Zarathustra might be one of the most recognisable in classical music. But there’s much more to this exhilarating work than its 2001: A Space Odyssey fame.
The magisterial Mitsuko Uchida is known for her interpretation of Viennese composers: hear her perform some of their greatest late works for piano.
The ‘truly special’ Hungarian orchestra and its founder-conductor conjure musical magic in a celebration of Prokofiev, culminating in dances from his ballet Cinderella.
‘Take me away… I have killed her: Carmen, my beloved!’ Bizet’s Carmen is one of the world’s most popular operas, and with good reason – it’s bursting with melodies that, once heard, are never forgotten. Tonight’s concert climaxes with an orchestral journey through this tale of doomed passion beneath the blazing Spanish sun: from the seductive Habanera to the swaggering Toreador’s Song, it’s just hit after hit after hit. But then, everything in this colourful programme is charged with drama. Stephanie Childress unleashes a whole evening of operatic passion, from Rossini’s showstopper of an overture (you already know how it goes!) to the imperial splendour of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. Who needs singers – especially when we’ve got a soloist as charismatic as cellist Anastasia Kobekina in Tchaikovsky’s delightful Variations on a Rococo Theme?
Frank Zappa wove psychedelic new sounds from the underbelly of 1960s pop culture – aiming straight for the sonic G-spot. Bohuslav Martinů – a Czech in exile – looked homeward, and crafted a lush, fantastic dream of a symphony as he travelled from New York to the boulevards of Paris. And the Sri Lankan-born Canadian composer Dinuk Wijeratne tells his own intensely personal tale of displacement and hope, as Kevin John Edusei conducts his new Clarinet Concerto with the artist for whom it was created – the phenomenal Syrian clarinettist Kinan Azmeh.
Albert Roussel and Maurice Ravel paint vivid portraits of the animal kingdom, Benjamin Britten conjures up a savage parade, and Joseph Haydn takes a trip to London for his final symphony.
Back by popular demand, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra returns for another Film Music Gala at the Royal Albert Hall. Join the Orchestra on the red carpet alongside conductor Stephen Bell and special guest vocalist Louise Dearman for a night to remember, filled with music from your favourite Hollywood blockbusters.
Featuring songs from much-loved movies and musicals, including La La Land, The Sound of Music, Schindler’s List, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Lord of the Rings, E.T., The Bridge on the River Kwai, Star Wars, Jaws, Out of Africa, Titanic, Chariots of Fire, Aladdin, West Side Story, The Lion King… to name but a few.
Back by popular demand, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra returns for another Film Music Gala at the Royal Albert Hall. Join the Orchestra on the red carpet alongside conductor Stephen Bell and special guest vocalist Louise Dearman for a night to remember, filled with music from your favourite Hollywood blockbusters.
Featuring songs from much-loved movies and musicals, including La La Land, The Sound of Music, Schindler’s List, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Lord of the Rings, E.T., The Bridge on the River Kwai, Star Wars, Jaws, Out of Africa, Titanic, Chariots of Fire, Aladdin, West Side Story, The Lion King… to name but a few.
A trumpet sounds a fanfare, the orchestra cries out, and Mahler’s Fifth Symphony judders into life. But a symphony, said Mahler, must be like the world; and 70 minutes later the whole orchestra is storming the heavens in triumph. It’s a blockbuster journey from darkness to light, told in funeral marches, Viennese waltzes and of course, music’s sweetest love-letter – the rapturous Adagietto. But Robert Schumann knew a thing or two about love, too, and Glyndebourne Music Director Robin Ticciati is joined by pianist Francesco Piemontesi in Schumann’s heartfelt Piano Concerto – music in which these two artists share a very special rapport.
Enjoy one of Beethoven’s most popular works in this free early evening concert.
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Miracles and myths abound, from Béla Bartók’s surreal ballet to Jean Sibelius’ Finnish landscape – plus, a captivating new piece by Golfam Khayam.
In the second of a pair of concerts with the Philharmonia, Mao Fujita plays one of Mozart’s greatest concertos.
JS Bach hovers over an enticing programme from Australia’s premiere ensemble, embracing Gubaidulina’s sinewy tribute, and Shostakovich’s riveting Chamber Symphony.
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A nervous system reset features a new work by multi-faceted artist Nabihah Iqbal, her first classical commission for string quartet and electronics.
Rachmaninov’s world was turned completely upside down by the Great War. Severed from his roots, he fled Russia and began a career as a globetrotting pianist. His devilish set of variations, performed here by Bruce Liu – winner of the 2021 International Chopin Competition – embodies this nomadic life: written in Switzerland, premiered in America, based on a tune by Italian violinist Niccolò Paganini and infused with Rachmaninov’s own Russian style. Composers Erich Korngold and Béla Bartók were also forced by politics to leave their homes: both fled from fascism to the New World, and Korngold’s swashbuckling film score is practically a hymn to freedom. Bartók’s spectacular Concerto for Orchestra, meanwhile, is more than just a multi-coloured showcase, it’s a struggle between darkness and light, crowned by a mighty shout of joy.
‘Music is life’, declared Carl Nielsen, ‘and like it, inextinguishable!’ Defiant words from a composer who’d seen a world laid waste by war, but they could serve as motto for this concert from the dynamic Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu. In a time of revolution, Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto wove fairytale magic – and no-one makes it dance like our soloist Alina Ibragimova. There’s a vision of cosmic beauty from the late, great Kaija Saariaho. And finally, Nielsen launches a struggle for the future of existence itself: his shattering Fifth Symphony is one of those pieces that simply has to be experienced live.
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Pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard and actor Mathieu Amalric join forces to celebrate the life and work of Ravel in an intimate portrait via words and music.
The multinational young Kyan Quartet joins the Carduccis as Gubaidulina’s compact Quartet No 2 is stitched into a Shostakovich sequence including the penultimate quartet, with its focus on the cello.