Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra – Brahm’s Two

Works Performed

Holst : St Paul’s Suite
Elgar : Cello Concerto
Brahms : Symphony No.2

Performers

Conductor : Garry Walker
Soloist: Andreas Brantelid (Cello)

Inspired by the Baroque dance suites of Handel and Telemann and with echoes of folk simplicity, Holst’s lithe and lively work is a musical delight. Elgar’s last completed full-scale composition for orchestra, the Cello Concerto, written after the horrors of the Great War, is also full of backward glances to a past era. Imbued with an elegiac sense of nostalgia, its autumnal, sunset-romantic sensibility has appealed to generations ever since.

Having waited so long to begin writing symphonies, Brahms finishes his Second surprisingly quickly during a relaxing but creative summer. It appears, superficially, to be the sunniest, most relaxed and genial of his four symphonies, though the music throbs with dark undercurrents and is full of melancholic ambiguities.

VENUE: THE GREAT HALL

WEBSITE: BSOLIVE.COM