BBC Radio continues The Bernstein centenary celebrations with Prom 37 at London's Royal Albert Hall on August 10. This is a programme that couples his ‘Jeremiah’ Symphony with the music of two composers he admired and championed. Rome’s Santa Cecilia Orchestra appears at the Proms for the first in the last five years. Bernstein was Honorary President of this orchestra for almost one decade. The current music director Sir Antonio Pappano shall perform Bernstein’s youthful First Symphony, with the strong undercurrents of fear and political turbulence. The symphony will be contrastingly juxtaposed with Gustav Mahler’s dramatic First Symphony. The evening opens with Haydn’s compelling musical vision of prehistoric chaos.Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 1 was composed in 1942. Titled 'Jeremiah,' the symphony is a programmatic work that follows the Biblical story of the prophet Jeremiah. It is based on texts extracted from the Hebrew Bible’s “Book of Lamentations” and is sung by a mezzo-soprano.In 1944 “Jeremiah,” won the New York Music Critics' Circle Award for the best American work. Jeremiah was the son of Hilkiah, who was a Jewish priest, also called Kohen. He lived in the Benjamite village of Anathoth. The difficulties Jeremiah went through, as described in the books of Lamentations and Jeremiah, gave him the sobriquet of "the weeping prophet" by scholars. Legend has it that he was called by YHWH to prophesize the destruction of Jerusalem. God guided Jeremiah in proclaiming that Judah would face famine and will be taken captive by foreigners who would exile the people of Judah to a foreign land.The instrumentation of the symphony is written for E-flat clarinet doubling bass clarinet, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, cymbals, triangle, wood block, maracas, piano, tuba, timpani, snare drum, bass drum, mezzo-soprano, and strings. There are three movements to the symphony: Prophecy, Profanation and Lamentation.Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 in D major was mainly composed between the years 1887 and 1888, though it contains music Mahler had composed for some of his earlier works. The Symphony was composed while Mahler was second conductor at Germany’s Leipzig Opera. Though Mahler always referred to it as a symphony, its first two performances hinted that is a symphonic or tone poem. The work premiered in 1889, at Budapest’s Vigado Concert Hall. As it wasn’t well received back then, Mahler made major revisions for its second performance. Certain modern performances and recordings call the work “Titan” a title Mahler used for his two early performances.The concert is on August 10, 2018 at Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Gore, London, SW7 2APFor details, visit https://www.royalalberthall.comhttp://www.blouinartinfo.com Founder: Louise Blouin
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