The Full Works Concert - Wednesday 12 February 2014

Music spanning several centuries features in tonight's concert - from Vivaldi to Deep Purple's Jon Lord.

Tonight's concert opens with Joseph Haydn's Symphony No.100 in G major. The eighth of the 12 so-called London Symphonies, this one got its nickname "Military" from the second movement, which features prominent fanfares written for trumpets and percussion effects. One reviewer wrote after the premiere that the second movement evoked the 'hellish roar of war increas[ing] to a climax of horrid sublimity!'

Aaron Copland wrote Rodeo (pictured) in 1942 when the American choreographer Agnes de Mille asked him to write music for a new ballet set on a ranch. Having already composed Billy the Kid four years earlier, Copland was reluctant to accept another wild west ballet commission. But de Mille persuaded him by promising that her work would strike a different tone than Billy. Rodeo tells the simple story of a cowgirl who competes for the attention of young ranch hands. Her search for romance culminates at a Saturday night barn dance, where she finally gains a suitor. Rodeo was an instant hit and Copland adapted a concert suite of four dances from his ballet score which has remained a popular concert piece ever since. 

Vivaldi's Violin Concerto in E major is nicknamed 'L'amoroso'. It opens in a tender mood, continues into a melancholic second movement and ends with an ecstatic and elegant finale. It's played tonight by Enrico Casazza who also directs La Magnifica Comunita. 

The Symphony in C was written as a student assignment in one month by the 17-year old Georges Bizet, while he was studying at the Paris Conservatoire under Gounod. Bizet showed no apparent interest in having it performed or published, and while he used certain material from the symphony in later works, the piece was never played in his lifetime. He died in 1875, and the symphony was only found in 1933, receiving its first performance in Basel, Switzerland, two years later. It was immediately hailed as a youthful masterpiece and quickly became part of the standard Romantic repertoire. 

Jon Lord's Evening Song comes from the former Deep Purple keyboard player's album To Notice Such Things, released in 2010. The work was composed by Lord in memory of his close friend the late Sir John Mortimer.

Joseph Haydn: Symphony No.100 in G major
Howard Shelley conducts Orchestra of Italian Switzerland

Aaron Copland: Rodeo - 4 Dance Episodes
Leonard Slatkin conducts Detroit Symphony Orchestra 

Antonio Vivaldi: Violin Concerto in E major RV.271
Enrico Casazza directs La Magnifica Comunita from the violin

Georges Bizet: Symphony in C major
Paavo Jarvi conducts Orchestre de Paris

Jon Lord: Evening Song 
Piano: Jon Lord
Flute: Cormac Henry
Clark Rundell conducts Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra