Ulster Orchestra: Star Cross’d Lovers

Wagner Prelude: Tristan und Isolde 

Kenneth Hesketh Uncoiling the River 

Prokofiev Selections from Romeo & Juliet 

ANNA RAKITINA CONDUCTOR 

CLARE HAMMOND PIANO 

A tragic love story is perfect for the drama of ballet and opera – if not for the story’s protagonists! Prokofiev’s ballet depicts the most infamous ‘star-cross’d lovers’ of them all, Romeo and Juliet, with music that is a brilliant realisation of Shakespeare’s play and some of Prokofiev’s most memorable and instantly appealing work, while Wagner’s Prelude from Tristan und Isolde is a lushly hypnotic, achingly yearning depiction of two more tragic lovers, this time from Renaissance romance. Pianist Clare Hammond performs Kenneth Hesketh’s Uncoiling the River, a piece which loops round itself, sinuous and labyrinthine, and explores our perception of the passing of time.