麻豆社

Stephen Hough plays Brahms's 2nd Piano Concerto after a World Premiere from Jonathan Lloyd and the 麻豆社 SO continue their Tippett Cycle with the 1st Symphony, conducted by the American James Gaffigan.

Live from the Barbican Centre, London

Presented by Petroc Trelawny

Jonathan Lloyd: New Balls
Brahms: Piano Concerto No 2

20:35 Interval: Petroc Trelawny selects music from Stephen Hough's long recording career

20:55
Tippett: Symphony No 1

Jonathan Lloyd's RPS commission New Balls for winds and brass is a companion piece to his Old Racket for strings, heard earlier in the 麻豆社 Symphony Orchestra's current season. Another feature of the orchestra's season has been appearances by the great British pianist Stephen Hough, who tonight plays Brahms's epic, highly symphonic Second Piano Concerto. Famous for the glorious cello melody that opens the slow movement as well as a coruscating and innovative Scherzo, this masterful concerto is hugely admired by Hough, a composer in his own right whose works have been performed by the 麻豆社 Symphony Orchestra. Completing the cycle of Tippett symphonies, the 麻豆社 SO and conductor James Gaffigan reach the First, a work conceived whilst Tippett was in prison as a conscientious objector and completed as war ended in 1945. Bursting with vitality and insistent rhythms, it has many hallmarks of his later style, with a darkly Purcellian set of variations and a highly wrought double fugue to finish.