The Full Works Concert - Monday 1 July 2013: Britten at the RNCM

Tonight, Jane Jones features an exclusive performance of Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra with the Royal Northern College of Music Symphony Orchestra.

In this evening's Full Works Concert, Jane Jones marks the launch of a brilliant new classical music app dedicated to the works of the composer Benjamin Britten, the centenary of whose birth will be marked in November this year.

To celebrate, the Concert features an exclusively recorded performance of Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra with the Royal Northern College of Music Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mark Elder.

And Jane stays in Manchester to enjoy some more performances from a couple of the city’s finest orchestras. 

The programme starts with Mark Elder conducting the Halle Orchestra in Elgar's sweetly melodic Chanson de Matin. It's followed by Benjamin Britten's The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, written in 1946 for an educational documentary film about the instruments of the orchestra. For his musical inspiration, Britten went all the way back to the 17th century and music of Henry Purcell. The tune - upon which Britten's numerous orchestral explorations are based - is a simple hornpipe from Abdelazer, a play for which Purcell composed incidental music in 1695.

The big work in tonight's concert is Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No.9 in D minor (‘Choral’), with its huge Ode to Joy climax. Arguably the greatest symphony ever composed, and certainly the summit of Beethoven's achievements, the symphony is a masterful musical celebration of the human race and a massive work that makes all who hear it feel better about life. It's played tonight by the Manchester Camerata with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Chorus and soloists, Rebecca von Lipinski, Anna Grevelius, Peter Wedd and Roderick Williams.

Tonight's concert ends with Johannes Brahms' Variations on a Theme of Haydn, once again performed by the Halle Orchestra, this time conducted by James Loughran. Brahms composed this work in the summer of 1873 in Bavaria. It is often said to be the first independent set of variations for orchestra in the history of music. Research though has shown that the wind piece Brahms used as a source does not quite fit Haydn's style.

Edward Elgar: Chanson de Matin 
Mark Elder conducts the Halle Orchestra

Benjamin Britten: The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra
Mark Elder conducts the Royal Northern College of Music Symphony Orchestra

Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No.9 in D minor (‘Choral’)
Rebecca von Lipinski, Anna Grevelius, Peter Wedd, Roderick Williams
Douglas Boyd conducts the Manchester Camerata and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Chorus

Johannes Brahms: Variations on a Theme of Haydn
James Loughran conducts the Halle Orchestra