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Details
Great Hall - Reading University
27 London Rd
Reading
Berkshire
RG1 5AE
England
Tickets
Prices: Adults £20 Students & under 18s £5
Booking line: [email protected] tel. 07977 050265
Book Tickets
Programme
Richard Strauss – Don Juan, Op.20
Richard Strauss – Oboe Concerto, TrV 292
~ Interval ~
Sergei Rachmaninov – Symphony no.2 in E minor, Op.27
Performers
Ewan Millar – oboe
Philip Ellis – Conductor
Programme Note
West Forest Sinfonia are celebrating 40 years!!
The first concert of our 40th anniversary season takes place on Sunday October 4th at 4.30pm.
It will be in our usual venue, Reading University Great Hall and will be conducted by our Principal Conductor, Philip Ellis
We open with Richard Strauss’s dazzling tone poem Don Juan, written in 1888 when the composer was only twenty-four. Inspired by a version of the Don Juan legend by the Austrian poet Nikolaus Lenau, the work traces the adventures, passions and eventual disillusionment of its restless hero. The music bursts into life with one of the most thrilling openings in the orchestral repertoire before moving through episodes of romance, longing and high drama.
Our soloist Ewan Millar then joins us for Strauss’s elegant Oboe Concerto, composed in 1945 near the end of the composer’s long life. In contrast to the extravagant orchestral forces of our opening piece, the concerto is scored for a relatively modest ensemble and looks back to the grace and balance of the Classical era. The solo part demands exceptional control and lyricism, weaving almost continuously through the orchestra in music that is both virtuosic and conversational.
We conclude with Sergei Rachmaninov’s richly romantic Second Symphony, composed in 1906-07 and widely regarded as one of the composer’s great achievements alongside the Piano concertos. Across its four expansive movements, Rachmaninov combines sweeping melodies, sumptuous orchestration and emotional intensity on a grand scale. From the darkly atmospheric opening to the famous slow movement with its unforgettable clarinet melody and the exuberant finale, the symphony unfolds as a journey from uncertainty to affirmation.
