HEROES & VILLAINS

​Sunday 31st Oct 2021 – 2:00pm

THE PROGRAMME:

Man Of Steel by Hans Zimmer

​Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns

Introduction from Faust by Charles Gounod

Suite from Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring by Howard Shore

​Suite from Star Wars by John Williams

Habanera (L'amour est un oiseau rebelle) from Carmen by Georges Bizet
Featuring Alla Yarosh 

Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix from Samson and Delilah by Camille Saint-Saëns
Featuring Alla Yarosh 
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Finlandia by Jean Sibelius

LEARN MORE ABOUT SOME OF THE MUSIC!

Finland’s Jean Sibelius is one of the most important composers associated with nationalism in music and one of the most influential in the development of the symphonic poem.

Sibelius composed Finlandia for the Press Celebrations of 1899, a covert protest against increasing censorship from the Russian Empire, and it was the last of seven pieces performed as an accompaniment to a tableau depicting episodes from Finnish history. Because of censorship restrictions, the work was most often performed under the not-altogether-apt title Impromptu until Finland gained independence following World War I.
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The work opens with an ominous brass progression that evokes a feeling of powerful darkness, resolving into a reflective, jubilant, and militant drama. The piece is most famous though for a hymn-like theme, often performed with a choir. This them makes its first appearance in an atmosphere of quiet reverence, but by the end of the work, it has become a powerful statement of triumph.
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a multifaceted musician who excelled as a keyboardist, composer, conductor, teacher, and editor. Born in France, he was also a scholar and writer of wide-ranging interests and an equally wide-ranging traveller.
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Danse macabre is one of four tone poems Saint-Saëns composed in the 1870s, all inspired to some degree by examples from Franz Liszt. Originally composed as a song based on text by Henri Cazalis (which explores the late Medieval tradition of the Dance of Death), the piece was expanded to become a tone poem in 1874, with much of the vocal part given to a solo violin. The xylophone (then almost exclusively a folk instrument) also depicts the rattling skeleton bones which are led dancing to the grave.
The piece caused some predictable consternation on its premiere, but it also quickly became a popular hit with Liszt himself arranging it for piano not long after.