The BBC Philharmonic opens its new season with a real Italian job, featuring two works influenced by and written in Italy: William Walton’s rhapsodic Cello Concerto, inspired by the postcard-perfect island of Ischia, and Sibelius’s magnificent Second Symphony.
From £12.5
A stellar cast of singers joins conductor Omer Meir Wellber, who makes his Bridgewater Hall debut with a concert performance of the first act of Wagner’s mighty Die Walküre. Tonight’s programme also features Mozart’s dazzling ‘Linz’ Symphony, written in just four days for a wealthy Austrian count.
From £12.5
Stravinsky’s homage to his teacher, Russian composer Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, went missing after its 1909 premiere – but it was recently rediscovered, and will be performed in Manchester for the very first time tonight.
From £12.5
Two years after winning BBC Young Musician, Sheku Kanneh-Mason makes his Bridgewater Hall debut with perhaps the greatest cello concerto of all: Elgar’s reflection on the First World War, performed tonight to mark this month’s centenary of the Armistice.
From £12.5
One of modern music’s most daring and brilliant voices, Kaija Saariaho will be joining us in person for this concert featuring two of her compositions, both written in the last decade. The first half of the programme is dedicated to another superb orchestral colourist: Hector Berlioz.
From £12.5
To mark 100 years since the Armistice, the BBC Philharmonic reflects on war. Following a work by Rudi Stephan, who died on the Eastern Front, there’s Herbert Howells’s tribute to a fellow composer killed at war, Walton’s haunting Viola Concerto and Shostakovich’s Ninth, written as the Second World War drew to a close.
From £12.5
In the mountain range of piano concertos, Rachmaninov’s Third is the Everest – intense and immense, technically demanding and emotionally overpowering. Few pianists prove equal to the task – but, as his acclaimed performance of the work at the BBC Proms last year made clear, Alexander Gavrylyuk is more than a match for it.
From £12.5
The BBC Philharmonic in association with The Bridgewater Hall presents a very special event marrying sound with vision, bringing classic works by two of the 20th century’s greatest composers to vivid musical and cinematic life.
From £12.5
Born in Liverpool and a former pupil at Chetham’s School of Music, pianist Paul Lewis returns to the North-West for a performance of one of Mozart’s most elegant and expressive piano concertos. From £12.5
As merry as the day is long, Hector Berlioz’s captivating comic opera is one of the most joyful operatic translations of Shakespeare from page to stage. Béatrice et Bénédict slims down the plot of Much Ado About Nothing to focus on the will-they-won’t they romance between the title characters, whose attraction to each other is the living, breathing antithesis of love at first sight.
From £12.5
The BBC Philharmonic celebrates Robin Holloway’s 75th birthday with a brand new work by the treasured English composer, given its world premiere by guest soloist Håkan Hardenberger. Also tonight, a rare performance of Valentin Silvestrov’s transcendent Fifth Symphony, one of the best-kept secrets in contemporary music.
From £12.5
Bohuslav Martinů and Igor Stravinsky both fled Europe during the Second World War – and tonight’s concert is centred on two works they composed in the USA: Stravinsky’s expressive ballet and Martinů’s inspiring Fourth Symphony.
From £12.5
