‘Five Beats for Nature’ St Albans Symphony Orchestra (SASO) 29JUN24 concert

St Albans Symphony Orchestra

Celebrations of the natural (& supernatural) world will bracket a gorgeous concerto. SASO will play Kaija Saariaho’s Forty Heartbeats, Jean Sibelius’s The Dryad, and Liszt’s second piano concerto, with soloist Bradley Ng. After the interval Bedřich Smetena’s From Bohemia’s Woods and Fields and Leoš Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen suite will be performed.

Kaija Saariaho wrote Forty Heartbeats in 1998, for the 40th birthdays of her fellow Finnish composers Esa-Pekka Salonen and Magnus Lindberg. The order in which its 12 pages of music are played is chosen by the conductor.

Sibelius’s The Dryad is an impressionist miniature, proceeding from fragments to a dance-like theme.

Liszt’s much revised second piano concerto is held to be one of the most beautiful and stunning concertos of all time, full of emotion, virtuosity and passion.

From Bohemia's Woods and Fields, depicting the beauty of the Czech countryside, is the fourth movement of Má Vlast, Smetana's set of six patriotic tone poems.

Janáček’s charming opera The Cunning Little Vixen incorporates Moravian folk music and rhythms as it tells the tale of a clever fox, other wildlife, and a few humans.

Doors will open at 6:50 p.m. for 7:30. There will be a 20-minute interval, when drinks may be purchased.