This concert will begin with a performance by the CRR Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Nil Venditti, of Debussy’s 1894 symphonic poem Prélude à l’après midi d’un faune (‘Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun’), a piece that revolutionised western classical music, bringing to it hitherto unheard-of concepts that defied conventional ideas of form. Inspired by a poem by Stéphane Mallarmé, this masterpiece of impressionist musical composition later provided the music for a ballet choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky.
The next piece on the programme will be the Horn Concerto No 1 in E flat major by Richard Strauss (1864-1949), whose father was a leading horn player of his time. The soloist in this Romantic piece, which dates from 1882-83 and is widely regarded as the most successful horn concerto of the 19th century, will be Bora Demir.
In the second half, meanwhile, the orchestra will play Dmitri Shostakovich’s four-movement Symphony No 1 in F minor. Written in 1924-25, this work was written as his graduation piece at the Petrograd Conservatory. An (unsigned) article on the ‘Houston Symphony’ website has this to say about it: ‘Somehow, this symphony that began with schoolboy pranks and ended with tragic love destroyed by violence spoke to the Leningrad audience, which had been through so much in the past decade. Within a year, it would be performed by the Berlin Philharmonic under Bruno Walter and the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski … Nearly overnight, the teenage Shostakovich had achieved international fame, a fame that would protect him throughout his many dangerous confrontations with the Soviet state in the years to come. The symphony remains one of his most popular works.’
Issue 67, December 2024
Beauty in the Wilderness
