Live in Concert

Performing with
Belgian National Orchestra
Aziz Shokhakimov, conductor

Programme
Joaquin Rodrigo, Concierto de Aranjuez

Programme also include
Sofia Gubaidulina, Fairytale poem
Mikhaïl Glinka, Capriccio brillante on the “Jota aragonesa”
Sergey Prokofiev, Symphony No 3 in c minor, op. 44

BNO Note
Spanish and Russian fire

The Tartar-Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina’s modernism was not appreciated in the Soviet Union. She was only allowed to compose music for documentaries, animated films and radio programmes. Her composition Fairytale Poem started as accompanying music to a radio broadcast of the Czech fairy tale The Little Chalk. In this story, a chalk dreams of being used by an artist, but sees itself shrinking away during a boring math lesson. A boy steals the chalk and starts to draw with it on the street. The chalk is so happy about this, that it doesn’t notice that it is slowly getting used up. Sofia Gubaidulina regarded this fairy tale as a metaphor for artistic life and reworked her music into an independent poem.

The Concierto de Aranjuez is Joaquin Rodrigo’s most famous composition. This guitar concerto, written shortly after the Spanish Civil War, evokes the gardens of the Royal Palace of Aranjuez where Rodrigo would walk during his youth – usually in the company of Victoria, his future wife. In the second movement, Rodrigo incorporates his most traumatic experience: his stillborn first son and the uncertainty as to whether his wife (whom the blind composer regarded as the light of his life) would survive.

One of Prokofiev’s biggest opera projects – The Fiery Angel – was also one of his biggest disappointments. After 9 years of composing, the work didn’t get played. This caused Prokofiev so much heartache that he decided to bundle the best passages into a suite. Since both main themes were extremely suitable for the exposition of a sonata in allegro tempo, the suite soon turned into a complete symphony. Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 3 is a complex and heavily-instrumented work that represents the dark atmosphere of The Fiery Angel particularly well. The opera was not performed until after Prokofiev’s death, but has been a global success ever since.

Royal Albert Hall Note:

We are currently working through what the Prime Minister’s latest announcement on Monday 22 February means for our scheduled shows. We’ll be in touch with bookers as soon as we can. Please bear with us as we confirm the status of our upcoming events. Thank you for your patience.

Award-winning guitarist MILOŠ will perform an intimate recital in-the-round at the Hall.

Last appearing at the Hall in a solo recital in 2012, ‘classical music’s guitar hero’ (BBC Music Magazine) returns in 2021 performing his greatest hits from the centre of our spectacular auditorium in this unique event.

MILOŠ’ early albums, Mediterraneo and Latino, were hugely successful, while his 2014 recording of Rodrigo’s concertos with the London Philharmonic and Yannick Nezet-Seguin had the Sunday Times calling him ‘The King of Aranjuez’. His 2016 record, Blackbird – The Beatles Album, which included duets with Gregory Porter, Tori Amos, Steven Isserlis and Anoushka Shankar, was received with unanimous acclaim. Last year saw the release of MILOŠ’ fifth studio album Sound of Silence: a musical treasure trove that includes brand new arrangements of classical repertoire, affectionate nods to the pop world, and collaborations with friends.

This concert is one of the headline events of Love Classical at the Royal Albert Hall, the home of classical music.

Repertoire to be announced soon

In association with Cunard