Event Categories: Classical

Beethoven’s Symphony No.7

Conductor: Steven Mercurio

Violin: Chloë Hanslip

Smetana: Má Vlast: ‘Vltava’ (The Moldau)

Dvořák: Violin Concerto

Dvořák: Two Slavonic Dances

Beethoven: Symphony No.7

We are delighted to welcome the Czech National Symphony Orchestra and its Music Director Steven Mercurio to Hull City Hall. The programme opens with ‘Vltava’ from Smetana’s Má Vlast – an evocative orchestral picture of the river that flows through Prague, filled with ebbing and flowing woodwind and strings.

Dvořák’s music also paints a picture of his Czech home. His ‘Slavonic Dances’ and ‘Violin Concerto’ are filled with joyful interpretations of traditional folk tunes.

Beethoven’s ‘Symphony No.7’ resounds with a wonderful blend of gravitas and rising melodies, with the fourth and final movement launching into a frantic fanfare that makes for a spectacular showpiece to end the concert.

Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand

Conductor: Jordan de Souza

Piano: Nicholas McCarthy

Vaughan Williams: The Wasps: Overture, Entr’acte and Finale

Ravel: Piano Concerto for the Left Hand

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.4

When the pianist Paul Wittgenstein lost his right hand in the First World War, he asked Ravel to write him something he could play with his left hand alone. The result is a masterpiece that glitters like a rare diamond. Played tonight by one of its most brilliant living champions, Nicholas McCarthy, it is the smouldering heart of a concert that begins in the English countryside as depicted by Ralph Vaughan Williams, and ends with Tchaikovsky at his most impassioned.

España

Conductor: Delyana Lazarova

Guitar: Craig Ogden

Chabrier: España – Rhapsody for Orchestra

Granados: Spanish Dance No.5, ‘Andaluza’

Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez

Albéniz: Asturias (Leylenda)

De Falla: The Three Cornered Hat: Suite No.1

Piazzolla: Libertango

Bizet: Carmen: Suite No.1

Conductor Delyana Lazarova will guide us through the sights and sounds of Spain, with a concert that begins with Chabrier’s ‘España’. Bizet shows his flair in his opera, Carmen, the colourful ‘Suite No.1’ concluding with the famous ‘Toreadors’ March’ which ends this concert. But to capture the country’s soul, turn to a Spaniard: Rodrigo’s ‘Concierto de Aranjuez’, performed by guitarist Craig Ogden. The concert also includes music from three more great Spanish composers: Granados, Albéniz, and Piazzolla.

Northern Lights

Soloist: Simon Callaghan

Wagner: Overture: The Flying Dutchman

Grieg: Piano concerto in A minor

Sibelius: Symphony No 2

Hull Philharmonic Orchestra look to the north in a programme of stirring music inspired by the landscape and legends of northern Europe and Scandinavia. Pianist Simon Callaghan, who has been praised for his “velvet-gloved pianism of ravishing sensitivity,” makes a welcome return to the city to perform one of the repertoire’s best loved and most exhilarating piano works.

Dvořák’s ‘New World’ Symphony

Conductor: Shiyeon Sung

Cello: Zlatomir Fung (RPO Artist-in-Residence, 2023–24)

Beethoven: Leonore Overture No.3

Haydn: Cello Concerto in C major

Dvořák: Symphony No.9, ‘From the New World’

Don’t mention the Hovis ad – if you can even remember it – because with its great tunes, grand emotions and sweeping drama – Dvořák’s Symphony No.9, ‘From the New World’ was a favourite with audiences the world over long before TV even existed. It’s the exuberant ending to a concert that begins with Beethoven’s mighty musical drama of courage, struggle and freedom – the soul-stirring Leonore Overture No.3. RPO Artist-in-Residence Zlatomir Fung then brings all his brilliance, grace and wit to Joseph ‘Papa’ Haydn’s perfectly-cut jewel of a cello concerto. We warmly welcome conductor Shiyeon Sung, who has been described as ‘a real trailblazer’; together with Beethoven, Haydn, Dvořák and the full RPO, she promises to bring pure sunshine to a February night in the heart of Hull.

Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ Piano Concerto

Conductor: Leslie Suganandarajah

Piano: Mark Bebbington

Louise Farrenc Overture No.1

Beethoven Piano Concerto No.5, ‘Emperor’

Brahms Symphony No.4

Although they called her the ‘female Beethoven’, the nineteenth-century French composer Louise Farrenc was very much her own woman, and it is only now in the twenty-first century are we rediscovering her ardently romantic, strikingly original music. Her stirring Overture is a concert charged with poetry and emotion. Mark Bebbington joins the orchestra for Beethoven’s fifth, popularly known as the ‘Emperor’.  We then voyage to the raging storms and sunset colours of Brahms’s mighty final symphony, with conductor Leslie Suganandarajah.