Dark fantasies and bewitching melodies: Adam Hickox conjures a collection of the 20th century’s most haunting tales, in music by Liadov, Gubaidulina and Bartók.
Adam Hickox
Nelson Goerner, piano
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Anatoly Liadov The Enchanted Lake
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Piano Concerto No. 20, K.466
Sofia Gubaidulina Fairytale Poem
Béla Bartók Suite from 'The Miraculous Mandarin'
As Liadov looked upon the lakes of St. Petersburg, he marvelled “cold, malevolent, but fantastic as a fairy tale.” He wasn’t alone in seeing through the world’s bleakness. Gubaidulina illustrated bittersweet children’s tales with adventurous orchestrations and colour-flecked harmonies, and Bartók found humour and absurdity in a gaggle of beggars in his infamous pantomime ballet, The Miraculous Mandarin.
Mustering a gloomy laugh from time to time was, after all, the least an artist could do to keep themselves going in 20th century Hungary and Russia, but for Mozart at the peak of his career, dabbling in melancholy was a novelty. His stormy Twentieth Piano Concerto – the first in a minor key – delighted audiences all the same. But make no mistake – its intensity is more than capable of rivalling the alluring darkness of the 20th century.
Barbican Centre, Silk Street, City of London, EC2Y 8DS England, United Kingdom
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