The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra brings the best of British music and two of its biggest names to Wellington as part of a special festival to celebrate the 2017 British & Irish Lions rugby tour.
James MacMillan Photo: Philip Gatward
Sir James MacMillan, one of Britain’s greatest living composers and conductors, along with virtuoso Scottish percussionist Colin Currie, present MacMillan's acclaimed Percussion Concerto No. 2, which was written especially for Currie.
Bold Worlds also includes two more significant works by British composers – Grammy Award-winner Thomas Adès’ Polaris and Vaughan Williams’ rich and reflective Symphony No. 4.
Programme:
ADÈS: Polaris: Voyage for Orchestra;
MACMILLAN: Percussion Concerto No 2;
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Symphony No 4 in F minor
Colin Currie (percussion), New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir James MacMillan
Recorded 8 July 2017, Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington by RNZ Concert
Find out more and listen to this performance here:
THOMAS ADÈS: Polaris: Voyage for Orchestra
Thomas Adès Photo: Brian Voce
Polaris takes its name from the brightest star in the constellation of Ursa Minor. Also known as the North Star, its proximity to the North Pole means that it appears to remain still throughout the night as other stars move around it - making it an ideal anchor for celestial navigation.
In an interview with The Guardian, Adès describes his composition in terms of magnetic attraction. "I don't believe at all in the official distinction between tonal and atonal music. I think the only way to understand these things is that they are the result of magnetic forces within the notes, which create a magnetic tensions, and attraction or repulsion.... A composer of a symphony or a pop song, is arranging these magnetic objects in a certain disposition.
Recorded 8 July 2017, Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington by RNZ Concert.
Producer: David McCaw
Engineer: Graham Kennedy
MACMILLAN: Percussion Concerto No 2
Colin Currie Photo: Linda Nylind
James MacMillan's first percussion concerto Veni Veni Emmanuel is arguably his best-known work. Since its première in 1992, it has been performed many hundreds of times around the world and has been a revolutionary force in the percussion concerto form.
Twenty years later, MacMillan returns to the form in a new percussion concerto for his fellow Scot, the virtuoso Colin Currie, to whom the work is dedicated.
Colin Currie has said: "The great thing about Percussion Concerto No 2 is that you can tell percussion has been through a number of revolutions since the early 90s and his his first concerto, so the use of the instruments is somehow more advanced. There are more technical challenges. There are more combinations of instruments. It's a very up-to-the-minute use of percussion instruments. It's a fascinating way of showing what can be done."
Recorded 8 July 2017, Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington by RNZ Concert.
Producer: David McCaw
Engineer: Graham Kennedy
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VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Symphony No 4 in F minor
James MacMillan Photo: Hansvander Woerd
"It is about F minor," replied Ralph Vaughan Williams tersely when asked what his Fourth Symphony was about.
Although his first three symphonies had been descriptive of the sea, London city, and the countryside respectively, this one he could not explain in words. It is more aggressive than the others and radical for its time.
Symphony No 4 was completed in 1932 and some felt it reflected the tensions and power struggles in Europe but the composer was adamant: "I wrote it not as a definite picture of anything external - eg the state of Europe - but simply because it occurred to me like this - I can't explain why."
Recorded 8 July 2017, Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington by RNZ Concert.
Producer: David McCaw
Engineer: Graham Kennedy
