From Mirga with Love

December 6th 2023 at 19:30 – 21:30

Tonight, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla takes us on a very personal tour of Eastern Europe, from Georgia to the Baltic. There will be gripping new discoveries from her personal favourite Mieczyslaw Weinberg and Čiurlionis, the “Lithuanian Elgar”, takes us on a walk through the forests. We’ll also see a whole host of CBSO musicians step into the spotlight, such as Principal Clarinettist Oliver Janes Mieczysław Weinberg’s Clarinet Concerto, and Section Leader , Marie-Christine Zupancic for Weinberg’s 12 Miniatures for Flute, before Mirga’s sister joins the orchestra on stage. The results will be simply gorgeous…

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Nash Ensemble – ‘From My Homeland’ – Music from the Czech Lands with works by Brahms

December 9th 2023 at 17:30 – 18:30

This lively programme explores Czech music of the 1920s: Erwin Schulhoff’s wind Divertissement and Martinů’s sunny Sextet are infused with edgy jazz harmonies and dance rhythms. Janáček, four decades their senior, looks back to his own childhood in Mládí.

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Musical Puzzles – Mozart, Vasks, Shostakovich

January 31st 2023 at 19:30 – 21:30

Conceived whilst ill and in hospital, Shostakovich’s final symphony is among his most enigmatic works; an intimate and moving orchestral statement that poses many questions but reveals few answers. We hear medical equipment, electric shock treatment, vulgarity and satire, and a procession of musical quotes – Rossini’s William Tell, Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, Wagner’s Ring Cycle – which drift in and out of consciousness like voices in your head whist delirious. Distant Light begins very quietly on the solo violin which leads to a winding lyrical line with a shimmering accompaniment. Its soulful, melancholic passion remains key to Vasks’ desire to re-connect with nature, beliefs and ideals that he sees being lost. Mozart’s Serenade for wind octet is one of his most puzzling and mysterious works. Orchestrated for an ensemble that is traditionally employed for light entertainment, it is defiantly dark in its character.

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Chamber Series: Hallé Wind Ensemble

February 17th 2023 at 13:00 – 14:30

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Royal Northern Sinfonia at The Fire Station – Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto

February 25th 2024 at 15:00 – 16:15

Fresh, optimistic and full of joy, Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto is the centrepiece of this concert, with celebrated clarinettist Julian Bliss in the spotlight for the solo.

On one side is Prokofiev’s lively, witty Classical Symphony – a 20th-century take on the 18th century sounds of Mozart and Haydn – and on the other is Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 (‘Eroica’, meaning ‘heroic’). Bigger, longer and very, very different to anything that had gone before, it was a game-changer that challenged its audience and changed musical history, and sounds as fresh as ever today.

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Café de Paris with Maxim and Friends

February 25th 2023 at 15:00 – 16:15

Join Maxim Emelyanychev at the keyboard for a sophisticated afternoon of Gallic wit with some of the SCO’s world-renowned wind soloists, in music much-loved and lesser-known.

Principal Flautist André Cebrián delivers the ancient incantations of Jolivet’s dazzling flute showpiece Chant de Linos, while Principal Clarinettist Maximiliano Martín is soloist in the sensual harmonies of Debussy’s dreamy First Rhapsodie.

Françaix sends up high-class restaurant music in his deliciously sardonic L’heure du berger, while Poulenc offers plenty of musical high-jinks to close in his perky Sextet.

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Liverpool Wind Collective

March 11th 2023 at 20:00 – 21:30

A wind quintet is like a sonic paintbox. Today the Liverpool Wind Collective explores the impressionist colours of France, celebrates the sounds of 20th century America, and takes a trip to the world’s most improbable zoo!

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Marvellous Maestros

March 22nd 2024 at 19:00 – 21:00

In a concerto, a star soloist steps into the limelight, accompanied by an orchestra. Classical composers wrote flashy solo parts for their friends, pupils, or — if they really wanted to show off — themselves.

Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto was written for his frenemy Anton Stadler, who was a brilliant clarinettist but liked to borrow money from the already cash-strapped Mozart. The clarinet was still being invented at this time, and this concerto is technically written for a bespoke version of the instrument. Stadler, who invented this special clarinet, was virtually the only person who could or did play it at the time.

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Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto

May 23rd 2024 at 19:30 – 21:15

Fresh, optimistic and convivial, Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto is the centrepiece of this concert, which closes with Beethoven’s graceful yet high-voltage Symphony No. 1. Along the way experience the rhythmic energy of Stravinsky’s spiky Danses Concertantes and Fazil Say’s Chamber Symphony, inspired by the music of Turkey.

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Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto

May 24th 2024 at 19:30 – 21:15

Fresh, optimistic and convivial, Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto is the centrepiece of this concert, which closes with Beethoven’s graceful yet high-voltage Symphony No. 1. Along the way experience the rhythmic energy of Stravinsky’s spiky Danses Concertantes and Fazil Say’s Chamber Symphony, inspired by the music of Turkey.

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Close-up: Tutti in threes

June 16th 2024 at 14:15 – 16:35

The Close-up series is the best way to experience the Concertgebouw Orchestra’s musicians as individuals! Tonight wind players form the orchestra will come to the foreground, playing music by Beethoven, Reicha, Glinka and Poulenc, with the number 3 as the unifying theme.

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Woodwind Forward!

June 16th 2024 at 11:00 – 13:00

Already in the first half of the 20th century, French composers and orchestras used to put the woodwinds in the foreground. It should define their style and the special French sound. Francis Poulenc was one of the most important representatives of this tradition, and his music focuses on multicolor and sensitive poetry.

“”After all the impressionistic mists, will not this simple and clear art [of Poulenc], so reminiscent of Scarlatti and Mozart, be the next phase of our music?”” of wind music prove true in any case. With his few wind works, he set standards that still have an impact today.

Poulenc’s compositional spheres are complemented by the music of Henri Tomasis, Jean Françaix and Charles Koechlin. Behind the seemingly naïve title of Tomasi’s rural concerto »Concert champêtre« lies a knowledgeable allusion to French rococo music mixed with the Corsican flair of Tomasi’s homeland.

Charles Koechlin’s Bassoon Sonata takes us back to the sounds of Impressionism. In the France of his time, Koechlin was considered an outsider and yet created an exceptional work that shows how delicate and at the same time wild and intoxicating the bassoon is. And how many magnificent nuances of sound the instrument, which usually stands in the background, carries within itself.

Jean Françaix’s trio in four movements shows the 82-year-old composer still at the height of his creative power: melodic invention, rhythmic wit, harmonic elasticity and an elegant instrumental writing form a particularly fortunate combination.

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Beethoven, Beamish & Prokofiev

June 20th 2024 at 19:00 – 20:40

Sally Beamish’s concerto begins with two soloists calling to each other across a distance, and explores connection and longing. This delicately nuanced interpretation of the Seventh Symphony forms part of Gianandrea Noseda’s thrilling Prokofiev cycle with the LSO. Distans was written for Janine Jansen and Martin Fröst, designed to make the most of their astonishing abilities.

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