Sir Mark Elder conductor | Roderick Williams baritone
Elgar Enigma Variations (30′)
Butterworth orch. Roderick Williams Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad (15′)
Vaughan Williams Symphony No.9 (33′)
Post-Concert Event 9.30pm – John Summers and Roderick Williams
Hallé Chief Executive John Summers is joined by baritone and composer Roderick Williams in a discussion on Roderick’s orchestration of George Butterworth’s Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad.
The talk will take place in the Stalls Foyer and is free to concert ticket holders.
This event has been cancelled – ticket holders are being notified.
In his Enigma Variations, Elgar’s first runaway success, he captured the personalities of his Worcestershire friends in fresh, inventive music. Butterworth, Vaughan Williams’s close friend, is a tantalising figure, for what might have he achieved had he not been killed during World War One? His legacy includes lean, direct settings of A. E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad, heard here in a new orchestration by Roderick Williams whose performances are characterised by a perceptive depth of musical intellect. Sir Mark completes his exploration of the Vaughan Williams symphonies with the visionary Ninth written shortly before the composer’s death. Partly inspired by Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles, it ends enigmatically with the haunting sonority of three pulsing saxophones as if gazing into eternity.
‘This ongoing cycle of Vaughan Williams’s symphonies from Mark Elder and the Hallé is shaping up to be a highly impressive achievement.’ Financial Times
Part of the BBC Ten Pieces Initiative
Thursday Series Sponsor: Siemens
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