Friday 15 November 2024, 7pm Sheffield City Hall
- DEBUSSY Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune
- BOULANGER Psalm 130: De Profundis (Out of the Depths)
- SAINT-SAЁNS Fantaisie in Eb major for organ
- SAINT-SAЁNS Symphony No.3, “Organ”
Our season in Sheffield will start with a fantastic concert featuring works by French composers, in the City Hall with Resident Orchestra the Halle, award-winning conductor Delyana Lazarova and our own Darius Battiwalla playing contrasting pieces by Saint-Saens on the magnificent City Hall organ.
Delyana Lazarova, winner of the inaugural Siemens Hallé International Conductor’s Competition, will begin this concert with Debussy’s sensuous evocation of the poet Mallarmé’s dreams and desires of a faun. Delyana will then directs the massed forces of the Hallé, Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, a rising RNCM star and the stunning mezzo-soprano, Hanna Hipp, in Lili Boulanger’s ominous setting of Psalm 130, widely believed to be a reaction to the outbreak of World War One. Written from her sickbed in the year before her untimely death aged just 24, the work formed her own personal requiem and reflects her grief, anger and despair.
In the second half Chorus Musical Director and leading organist Darius Battiwalla will pull out all the stops in music by Saint-Saёns. His first published organ work, Fantaisie, has two contrasting movements: one, full of elegance and charm and the other, strong and confident. The concert concludes with his monumental, fascinatingly-textured “Organ” Symphony. – a very popular work that will leave you uplifted and exhilarated in equal measure.
The Hallé
Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus
Delyana Lazarova conductor
Hanna Hipp mezzo-soprano
RNCM vocalist tenor
Darius Battiwalla organ
Pre-Concert Talk with BBC Broadcaster Trisha Cooper: 6pm
Tickets from £22.95, students and u-18s £10.50, available online and from the City Hall
