Brindley Sherratt, The Hallé Orchestra

Programme:

Oliver Knussen The Way to Castle Yonder
Stravinsky Petrushka
Mussorgsky orch. Shostakovich Songs and Dances of Death
Mahler Totenfeier

Mussorgsky is a huge figure in Russian musical history. Tonight features one of his finest works, Songs and Dances of Death, sensitively orchestrated by his admirer Shostakovich and sung by the superb Brindley Sherratt (there are few more evocative sounds than a bass voice singing Russian). The theme of mortality continues with a rare performance of Mahler’s breathtaking Totenfeier, a work that became the opening movement of its composer’s Second Symphony, ‘The Resurrection’.

Stravinsky’s game-changing ballet score Petrushka is a wonderfully graphic affair that tells of the life, death and ghostly reappearance of its eponymous puppet hero; while Oliver Knussen’s The Way to Castle Yonder, music drawn from his
opera Higglety, Pigglety, Pop!, starts the evening with equal poignancy, imagination and humour.