£39.50 (Non JG member)
Overview
Stephen Bell (conductor) Gareth Small (trumpet). Glinka Overture: A Life for the Tsar. Mussorgsky Night on a Bare Mountain. Arutunian Trumpet Concerto in A Flat Major. Tchaikovsky Symphony No.4 in F Minor Op.36. Popular guest conductor Stephen Bell joins us to explore the music of Russia, and notably one of Tchaikovsky’s most famous symphonies – Symphony No.4. Written between 1877 and 1878 it was to prove a towering success for the composer and has remained one of the public’s most favourite symphonies. Armenian composer Alexander Arutunian wrote his virtuosic Trumpet Concerto between 1949 and 1950. Principal Trumpet of the Hallé, Gareth Small, is our guest soloist in this fabulous showpiece concerto with its soulful, beautiful melodies, technical difficulties and exciting gypsy-like sound. Our concert opens with two works celebrating the Russia of the Tsars – Glinka’s characteristically Russian sounding overture from A Life for the Tsar (the story of a young Russian peasant who saves the Tsar from a group of Polish kidnappers) and Mussorgsky’s demonic tone poem Night on a Bare Mountain (depicting a witches’ Sabbath and used in the penultimate scene of Walt Disney’s Fantasia).