Leonard Slatkin's second appearance this season with the National Symphony Orchestra sees a focus on developments on both sides of the Atlantic in the early 20th century with four very different works, all laced through with the syncopated vitality, colour-saturated energy and streetwise sassiness of jazz music - watch live above from the National Concert Hall, Dublin from 7.30 pm on Friday, April 1st, and download your digital programme here.
Composed in Paris at the height of the French capital’s excitable discovery of jazz, Darius Milhaud’s ballet score La création du monde – the first major jazz-inspired work by an established classical composer – was inspired by a visit to New York’s Harlem. Based on African creation myths, its infectious relish for blending free jazz idioms with classical form proved as influential as it is hugely enjoyable.
'With a velvety tone that few pianists can emulate, a strong sense for lyrical elements… and a formidable but never ostentatious technique’ (Classical Net), Lise de la Salle her brings native French elegance and flair to Ravel’s lyrical Piano Concerto. Also caught-up in the Parisian passion for jazz, Ravel’s concerto is a dazzling display of virtuosic piano writing framed by orchestral voices revelling in the new language of jazz with its vibrant colours, dynamic contrasts and unabashed passion.
Jazz, Berlin cabaret and English ballad opera collide in Bertolt Brecht’s biting critique of capitalism, The Threepenny Opera. Kurt Weill’s bravura score is wantonly sultry, wickedly savage, salted with abrasive wit and sugared by memorable tunes that have become popular standards including Pirate Jenny and the unforgettably insinuating Mack the Knife.
George Gershwin’s ‘rhapsodic ballet’ An American in Paris – inspiration for the 1951 film of the same name – was partly composed in the French capital on a working holiday. Depicting the adventures (and mis-adventures) of a wide-eyed American visitor to Paris, it’s a winning amalgam of excitable jazz, yearning blues and symphonic ebullience delivered with chutzpah and charm, an irresistible splash of Tin Pan Alley brio and Broadway bravura.
Programme
Milhaud - La création du monde
Ravel - Piano Concerto in G
Weill - Suite from The Threepenny Opera
Gershwin - An American in Paris
The National Symphony Orchestra with Leonard Slatkin, conductor and Lise de la Salle, piano
Presented by Paul Herriott, RTÉ lyric fm
