大象传媒

Afternoon on 3 with Jonathan Swain

Andrew Manze conducts the 大象传媒 SSO in music from WW1 including Vaughan Williams 'Pastoral' Third Symphony. Recorded earlier this month at the 大象传媒 Proms.

Presented by Penny Gore at the Royal Albert Hall, London

Stephan: Music for Orchestra (1912)
Kelly: Elegy for strings, in memoriam Rupert Brooke
Butterworth: Six Songs from 'A Shropshire Lad'

Vaughan Williams: Pastoral Symphony

Allan Clayton (tenor)
Roderick Williams (baritone)
大象传媒 Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Andrew Manze (conductor)

The 大象传媒 Proms continues to mark the centenary of the outbreak of WW1 with a concert of musical imaginations shattered by the Great War.

Rudi Stephan was born in 1887, and by 1912 his Music for Orchestra seemed to promise a great deal in its mysterious and expressionistic textures. In 1915 he was killed by a shot from a Russian soldier.

Frederick Kelly was a talented musician and Olympic rower. His heartfelt Elegy for Strings is a tribute to poet Rupert Brooke with whom he served at Gallipoli. Kelly was killed in the last days of the Battle of the Somme in 1916. George Butterworth, who is best remembered for his settings of EA Housman's poems A Shropshire Lad, died from a shot in the head during that same battle. His nostalgic songs are performed this evening by Roderick Williams.

And the pastoral fields of Vaughan Williams's Third Symphony are not the rolling hills of England, but those of France, where the composer served in the Royal Army Medical Corps. The rhapsodic symphony, with the wordless voice of tenor Allan Clayton, is performed by Andrew Manze and the 大象传媒 Scottish Symphony Orchestra and follows their dazzling performance of Symphonies 4, 5 and 6 at the 大象传媒 Proms in 2012.

First broadcast 17th August 2014.