Grace Williams
Concert Overture
Karl Jenkins
Stravaganza
BBC commission
Louise Farrenc
Overture No. 1
Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No. 7 in A major
Jess Gillam
soprano saxophone
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Nil Venditti
conductor
Reviewed by:
Reviewed: 12 August, 2024
Venue: Royal Albert Hall
With his Symphony No. 7 Beethoven permanently realigned Western music’s fundamental relationship with rhythm. In the process he created some of the most compelling music of his age. Young Italian-Turkish conductor Nil Venditti places this momentous symphonic dance alongside music by a composer from the generation after Beethoven, one who picked up the master’s baton and ran with it: Louise Farrenc. The first half spotlights two Welsh composers born less than 40 years apart. Grace Williams’s jaunty Concert Overture, written in her mid-twenties, came ‘highly recommended’ after its entry in a Daily Telegraph competition in 1932–3. And Sir Karl Jenkins, one of the most popular composers of our time, wrote his Stravaganza especially for tonight’s soloist, Jess Gillam.
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