City News

Andris Nelsons will set the pulses racing by conducting Berlioz's Symphony Fantastique and two other youthful orchestral pieces in his debut concert as the music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, on 17th and 20th September, 7: 30 pm at Symphony Hall, Birmingham.

The concert will start with Wagner's Overture, Reinzi, followed by Bartόk's thrilling ballet score, Miraculous Mandarin Suite, which caused a scandal when it was premiered in 1926 in Cologne and was subsequently banned. It was more successful at its Prague premiere and was generally performed during the rest of Bartók's life in the form of a concert suite, which preserves about two-thirds of the original ballet's music.

The overture for the Opera "Rienzi, the Last of the Tribunes" was written before Wagner had taken his new departure in music, and is based upon some of the themes in the five act opera.The overture opens with a slow movement, announced in trumpet calls, and it closes with Coda of most vigorous intensity, founded on the battle hymn.

The finale of this exciting concert will be An Episode in the Life of the Artist Opus 14, which is usually referred to by its subtitle Symphonie fantastique (Fantastic Symphony). It was written by French composer Hector Berlioz in 1830 and is widely regarded as one of the most important and representative pieces of the early Romantic period.

The concert programme also includes a pre concert talk, which will feature Andris Nelsons in conversation with the CBSO's chief executive Stephen Maddock.