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BBC SO/Oramo

,Barbican Hall
Sakari clapping his hands joyfully

Mesmeric ballet music commissioned by the extraordinary Ida Rubinstein meets an exquisite piano concerto with a special place in BBC Symphony Orchestra history.

In the early 1910s, the Russian Ida Rubinstein arrived in Paris – unusually tall, precipitously talented and possessing a strange androgynous beauty (as well as a pet tiger). Her effect on the music scene was huge. In 1933, she commissioned Stravinsky to write Persephone, a celebration of spring full of tenderness and beauty. 

A few years earlier she had asked Ravel for a ballet score, which became Boléro – a hypnotic, continuous crescendo over a single rhythm that would become iconic. It may not be a ballet, but Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto, introduced to the UK by the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1945, pits dancing lyricism against rigorous counterpoint to fascinating effect. 
 

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The performance will finish at approximately 9.15pm. It includes a 20 minute interval.

Programme

Ravel Boléro
Schoenberg Piano Concerto
Stravinsky Perséphone

Performers

BBC Symphony Orchestra
Sakari Oramo conductor
François-Frédéric Guy piano
Peter Tantsits tenor
BBC Symphony Chorus
Finchley Children's Music Group

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