BBC Philharmonic: Copland | Korngold | Vaughan Williams
Will Fulford-Jones
Much like his near-annual appearances at the BBC Proms, John Wilson’s regular collaborations with the BBC Philharmonic have become hot tickets at The Bridgewater Hall, and with good reason. From his extraordinary reconstructions of long-lost Hollywood scores to his critically acclaimed operatic assignments, Wilson has shown himself to be one of the most adaptable and exciting conductors in the country, and tonight’s programme illustrates the verve and vitality he brings to every concert he conducts. It opens with a Wilson speciality: Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring, a joyous and now-iconic slice of apple-pie Americana that really comes alive in the concert hall. It ends with a very different orchestral work from this side of the ocean: Ralph Vaughan Williams’s dark, moody Fifth Symphony, inspired by and premiered during the Second World War. And in between, a transatlantic classic: Andrew Haveron is the soloist in the spirited but little-heard Violin Concerto by Erich Korngold, who left Austria to escape the Nazis and later became a pioneering composer during the Hollywood Golden Age that Wilson reveres.
John Wilson – Conductor
Andrew Haveron – Violin
