大象传媒

Live from Leeds Town Hall

Presented by Adam Tomlinson

Kees Bakels conducts the Orchestra of Opera North in music by Gershwin, Ravel and Stravinsky, alongside Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No.1 with soloist Federico Colli.

Gershwin: An American in Paris
Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No.1

8.40 - Interval

9.00
Ravel: Ma m猫re l'Oye (complete)
Stravinsky: The Firebird

"The phenomenon of music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the co-ordination between man and time." Igor Stravinsky.

Gershwin's jazz-influenced An American in Paris was written in 1928 following two trips to the city to study composition. He said, "My purpose here is to portray the impression of an American visitor in Paris as he strolls about the city and listens to various street noises and absorbs the French atmosphere." The blues section represents the American's brief homesickness.

Shostakovich's First Piano Concerto was composed in 1933 as experiment with a neo-Baroque combination of instruments. It might even be considered as a double concerto, featuring, as it does, a prominent part for solo trumpet.

Mother Goose was originally a set of piano duets composed in 1910 for Ravel's friends' two young children. A year later he orchestrated the work and then expanded it into a ballet. The work is based on five children's tales including Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast and Tom Thumb.

Influenced by Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky based his ballet, The Firebird, on a Russian fairy tale in which the firebird helps a prince to rescue his princess but then falls in love with her and wins her heart.

Federico Colli (piano)
Orchestra of Opera North
Kees Bakels (conductor).