大象传媒

From the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester.
Presented by Tom McKinney

The 大象传媒 Philharmonic and Ludovic Morlot explore travel and the art of letter writing. Betsy Jolas's "Letters from Bachville" is her response to an invitation to compose music to be performed in Leipzig. She imagined herself walking in the city's streets, treading in Bach's footsteps and she incorporates fragments of his music throughout the piece. Having moved from Paris to America as a child during the Second World War, Betsy Jolas returned to study in Paris when she was 20 years old. Dvorak made a journey from Europe to America and his "New World" symphony which closes the programme reflects his feelings of homesickness as well as fascination with the new tunes and landscapes he found in America. Soprano Carolyn Sampson joins the orchestra for Dutilleux's song-cycle "Correspondances". He chooses letters by Vincent van Gogh to his brother, and from Mstislav Rostropovich to his wife, soprano Galina Vishnevskaya as well as poetry by Rainer Maria Rilke and Prithwindra Mukherjee weaving a unique sound world of expressive orchestral colour.
The programme opens with "Letter from Home" by Copland, another composer who had spent time away from his American home studying in Paris. This piece was written for a war-time radio programme "Out of the Blue" and this tender and nostalgic music portrays a soldier reading a letter with news from home.

Copland: Letter from Home
Betsy Jolas: Letters from Bachville
Dutilleux: Correspondances

8.15
Music Interval (CD)
Janacek: String Quartet No.2 "Intimate Letters"
Emerson Quartet

Dvorak: Symphony No.9 "From the New World"

Carolyn Sampson (soprano)
Ludovic Morlot (conductor)
大象传媒 Philharmonic