Proms @ City Halls, Glasgow, with the 91Èȱ¬ Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Stephen Hough plays Beethoven in a concert featuring a World Premiere from Jay Capperauld.
The late George Walker's hauntingly beautiful Lyric for Strings was written at the age of only 24 and dedicated to his grandmother. First heard at the Proms in 2017, it opens tonight’s concert.
Beethoven’s economically scored Second Piano Concerto – completed before his First and among the earliest of his works performed in concert halls today – looks both backwards to Haydn and Mozart and forwards to the Beethoven’s future innovation and rhythmic fascination. Stephen Hough is the soloist.
Tonight’s 91Èȱ¬ commission is from Glasgow-based composer Jay Capperauld. Expressed in the context of the recurring 24-hour process that regulates our sleeping patterns, Circadian Refrains (172 Days Until Dawn) is Capperauld’s response to the cyclical nature of lockdown, enforced as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Continuing the theme of mass upheaval, the 91Èȱ¬ Scottish Symphony Orchestra closes with Strauss’s devastating Metamorphosen. Written for 23 solo strings during the final months of the Second World War (which Strauss described as ‘the most terrible period of mankind’), it quotes from the Funeral March of Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ Symphony (No. 3).
Live from City Halls, Glasgow, presented by Kate Molleson.
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