19:30 Thu 16 May 2024
BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff
Gabriel Fauré: Pelléas et Mélisande, Suite, Op 80
Stephen McNeff: The Celestial Stranger (World Premiere)
Arnold Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht (orchestral version)
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Joana Carneiro, conductor
Gavan Ring, tenor
Celestial, sparking lights glitter in this evening of ground-breaking music. Fauré’s suite from Pelléas et Mélisande opens in resplendent yet tumultuous style - The first musical setting of Maurice Maeterlinck’s play of the same name, which would inspire other composing greats, including Debussy, Sibelius and Schoenberg.
We move to more ethereal heights with the world premiere of Stephen McNeff’s The Celestial Stranger; then 150 years since the birth of Schoenberg we celebrate this radical composer with a performance of a work that changed the course of musical history as we know it – with a revolutionary shift in tonality and the breakdown of the traditional tonal system, Verklärte Nacht threw his name out into the world and forged his way as the creator of dodecaphonic music, more commonly known as serialism. To conduct BBC NOW for the first time we welcome the wonderful Portugeuse conductor, Joana Carniero.