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Wednesday 30 January 2008, 7.30pm
PRE-CONCERT EVENT AT 6.30PM
THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT
presented by Dame Janet Baker
The programme includes:
Berlioz Overture: Le Corsaire 8'
Thomas Adès These Premises are Alarmed 3' HALLÉ FIRST | WORLD
Vaughan Williams Toward the Unknown Region 13'
Lambert The Rio Grande * 15' HALLÉ FIRST | WORLD
Debussy Fêtes 6'
Weber Konzertstück for piano and orchestra 17'
Elgar In the South (Alassio) 20' HALLÉ FIRST | WORLD
Mark Elder conductor • Sir John Tomlinson bass • Polina Leschenko piano
James Burton conductor * • Hallé Choir • Hallé Youth Choir
On 30 January, 1858, the first of 'Mr. Charles Hallé's Grand Orchestral Concerts' took place in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester. Tonight, this special celebration introduced by one of the most distinguished artists to have been associated with the Hallé echoes moments and figures from the orchestra's long history.
Sir John Tomlinson replaces Dmitri Hvorostovsky, who is indisposed due to illness. Due to this last minute change of soloist, the programme will change slightly and the new pieces will be announced from the stage during the performance.
The exceptional young Russian pianist Polina Leschenko has been invited to perform Weber's brilliant Konzertstück in F minor, the work which Hallé himself chose to play in the first concert. The concert's dashing curtain-raiser, Le Corsaire, recalls Hallé's close association with Berlioz, and orchestral virtuosity is celebrated too in Debussy's Fêtes. These Premises are Alarmed was commissioned from Thomas Adès for a modern landmark, the Hallé's arrival in The Bridgewater Hall in 1996. The Hallé Choir give us Vaughan Williams's great setting for chorus and orchestra of Walt Whitman's vision of an uncharted and optimistic future, Toward the Unknown Region. The Hallé Youth Choir bring some jazz-age fizz with Constant Lambert's The Rio Grande, premiered by the Hallé in 1929 under the composer's baton. No such celebration would be complete without Elgar - in this case In the South, whose invigorating sunshine was revealed to the world more than 100 years ago by this very orchestra. |
© Copyright The Hallé Concerts Society 2002. All rights reserved. |
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