Programme

Ruth Gipps Song for Orchestra Op.33
Frank Bridge Mid of the Night
Robert Schumann Symphony No.4, op.120, D minor (1851 revision)

Performers

Simon Crawford-Phillips Conductor

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From the hushed mystery of midnight to the sweeping passion of Romantic symphonic drama, this richly contrasting programme celebrates three distinctive voices of British and European music.

Ruth Gipps‘s radiant Song for Orchestra – written in 1948 and first performed the following year by the Birmingham Symphony Players – opens the programme with music of warmth, imagination and lyrical beauty. Frank Bridge‘s evocative Mid of the Night then transports us into a world of stillness and shadow, its atmospheric textures revealing one of Britain’s most sensitive musical storytellers – at this point aged 24.

The programme culminates in Schumann‘s magnificent Fourth Symphony in its final 1851 revision – a work of restless energy, poetic intensity and remarkable unity, carrying the listener on a journey from dark beginnings to triumphant conclusion. Schumann had dedicated the original version of symphony to his wife Clara, written a year after this marriage, and she became one of the greatest champions of the revised version in today’s programme, arguing its superiority.

The British conductor Simon Crawford-Phillips makes his debut with the Ulster Orchestra.

Approx. running time: 1 hour.
Ages: 10+, with 16s and under to be accompanied by a guardian.