Hallé - Wigglesworth's Piano Concerto

Ryan Wigglesworth conductor | Marc-André Hamelin piano

Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Selection 20′
Ryan Wigglesworth Piano Concerto 28′
Schumann Symphony No.2 38′

Hallé Artist in Association, Ryan Wigglesworth, conducts a programme centred around his Piano Concerto, premiered at the 2019 BBC Proms by another ever welcome Hallé guest, Marc-André Hamelin, dubbed by the New York Times as ‘A performer of near-superhuman technical prowess’. Of Mozartian Classical proportions, Wigglesworth describes his concerto’s four movements as ‘studies in character’, at its heart an intimate ‘Notturno’, based on a Polish folksong he first heard around a campfire. Among critical plaudits, The Times lauded Wigglesworth’s ‘conjuror’s ability to cast a spell’. The concert opens with characters embroiled in Midsummer mayhem as portrayed in Mendelssohn’s magical score to Shakespeare’s play. Schumann’s Second Symphony is a journey from darkness to light, consciously emulating Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, composed after serious illness, and enshrining the composer’s love for his wife Clara.