NSO: Dukas, Chopin, Tchaikovsky

National Symphony Orchestra
Jaime Martín conductor
Yeol Eum Son piano
 
Dukas The Sorcerer’s Apprentice 
Chopin Piano Concerto No. 2 
Tchaikovsky Swan Lake Suite

The ‘extraordinary, immensely impressive’ Yeol Eum Son performs Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto, a work of galvanising youthful passion, its memorable second movement ‘a kind of reverie in the moonlight on a beautiful spring evening’.

Expect musical fireworks in Dukas’ dazzling cartoonish portrait of a lazy pupil, unstoppable bassoon-voiced brooms, and an angry Wizard. Love triumphs over evil in Tchaikovsky’s enchanting Swan Lake.

Did you know?

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice took its title from a poem by Goethe. It was famously featured in Disney’s 1940 film Fantasia with Mickey Mouse cast as the wizard’s pupil.

Chopin was just 20-years-old when he wrote his two piano concertos. He never worked on as large a scale again.

Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake was a failure at its premiere, the dancers complaining his music was too difficult to dance to.

Listen out for…

The magic incantation in trumpets and the bassoon and bass clarinet that give life to the disobedient brooms in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

The singing quality of Chopin’s piano: the coloratura writing of the first movement, the arioso-like lament of the Larghetto.   

The lilting solo oboe motif that breathes life into Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, the celebrated waltz that opens Act II, the rapturous euphoria of the ‘Danse Espagnole’, and the scorching energy of the finale.

Presented by NCH