Following a sold-out Rachmaninov series, Bristol Classical Players are delighted to welcome back international concert pianist Sir Stephen Hough, to perform Dvorak’s beautiful and underrated Piano Concerto.
Overshadowed by his Cello Concerto, this lovely work gives full reign to Dvorak’s vein of fantasy and delight in the natural world. It speaks of the woods and wildlife of his native Bohemia, alternating storms with passages of the most gentle stillness and reflection.
The concert begins deep in the woods too, with the overture to Weber’s groundbreaking opera Der Freischutz; this mixture of love story and ghostly fable includes the still-terrifying Wolf’s Glen Scene, and the overture conjures up its unique combination of joyous melody and spooky noises-off to perfection. Brahms’s mighty First Symphony, nicknamed ‘Beethoven’s 10th’ at the time, remains one of the greatest works in music history, a masterpiece that Brahms perfected over more than 20 years’ work and which ends with a trombone chorale bringing the music into purest daylight.
