Symphonic Dances
Thursday 4/6/26, 7.30pm
BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff
livestream
Friday 5/6/26, 7.30pm
Brangwyn Hall, Swansea
Igor Stravinsky
Song of the Nightingale 21’
Johannes Brahms
Concerto in A minor for Violin and Cello 32’
INTERVAL: 15 minutes
Sergey Rachmaninov
Symphonic Dances 35’
Ryan Bancroft conductor
Lesley Hatfield violin
Alice Neary cello
BBC Hoddinott Hall is certified by EcoAudio and we’re proud to be supporting the BBC in becoming a more sustainable organisation. For more information on the BBC’s net-zero transition plan and sustainability strategy please visit https://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/documents/bbc-net-zero-transition-plan-2024.pdf
The concert at Hoddinott Hall is being livestreamed and broadcast live by BBC Radio 3 in Classical Live; it will be available for 30 days after broadcast via BBC Sounds, where you can also find podcasts and music mixes.
Introduction
A warm welcome to tonight’s concert, for which we welcome back our Principal Conductor Ryan Bancroft for a programme full of brilliance, two Russian works bookending a great Romantic concerto.
Stravinsky’s Song of the Nightingale was originally commissioned as an opera – not a medium we associate with this composer – but he then reworked its music into a ballet to great effect. It’s based on a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale in which artifice and natural beauty go head to head, with the latter winning out.
Lesley Hatfield moves centre-stage from her leader’s chair for Brahms’s sublime Double Concerto. She’s joined by her former colleague, cellist Alice Neary, for what will undoubtedly be a very special performance of this late masterpiece.
Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances was his final completed work. It was written for the legendary Philadelphia Orchestra and their Chief Conductor Eugene Ormandy and in this thrillingly demanding piece the composer combines imaginative orchestral colour and irresistible rhythmic verve with a summation of his composing life through multiple self-quotations. It promises to be a wonderful evening.
Best wishes,
Lisa Tregale
Director
Please respect your fellow audience members and those listening at home: mobile phones may be kept on but on silent and with the brightness turned down; other electronic devices should be switched off during the performance. Photography and recording are not permitted.
Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)
Song of the Nightingale(1917)
If Song of the Nightingale sounds quite unlike anything else in Igor Stravinsky’s huge, eclectic output, that’s probably because of the unusual, protracted circumstances of its creation. Already something of a musical hotshot, the 26-year-old composer was approached by Moscow’s Free Theatre in 1908 to write his first opera, The Nightingale, to a storyline by Hans Christian Andersen. He jumped at the opportunity, but had only finished its first act when another project came his way. Impresario Sergei Diaghilev wanted some dance music for his Ballets Russes: the results would be The Firebird in 1910, so successful that it was swiftly followed by Petrushka in 1911, then the era-defining, riot-provoking The Rite of Spring in 1913. Stravinsky found himself both an enfant terrible and a global sensation – and also a composer of very different music from what he’d been writing before that trio of pioneering ballet scores. Returning to his Hans Christian Andersen fairytale opera felt almost impossible. Would the Moscow Free Theatre be happy to take the first act alone? No, they insisted on the entire score as agreed – only to go bankrupt in 1914, just as Stravinsky was finishing it. The Nightingale nonetheless received its premiere at the Paris Opera in May 1914.
But Stravinsky remained unconvinced, not only by the shift in musical style between the opera’s first act and the rest, but also as to whether opera was even the right form for The Nightingale’s story. He suggested transforming the opera’s music into a ballet score, and convinced his erstwhile collaborator Diaghilev to stage it, which (after an orchestra-only premiere in Geneva in 1919) he did in 1920, again at the Paris Opera, with choreography by Leonid Massine and designs by Henri Matisse.
It’s this orchestral ballet music we’ll hear this evening, though its vivid musical storytelling more than makes up for any absence of voices. And while Stravinsky drew its music entirely from the acts he’d composed after detonating The Rite of Spring, it nonetheless represents a fascinating amalgam of his earlier lush, opulent exoticism and far harder-edged, sometimes brutal modernism.
The piece opens amid the bustle and activity of the Chinese Emperor’s palace, where a feast is being prepared. The Emperor and his courtiers enter to pounding gongs and strident cries from violins and flutes, before the song of a nightingale – heard in an extended cadenza for solo flute – moves the Emperor to tears. His visitor – the Emperor of Japan – has brought a mechanical nightingale as a gift, which Stravinsky introduces with alarm-like noises and the whirring of machinery. Rejected, the living nightingale flies away to a fisherman, whose song is heard in a melancholy trumpet melody.
Separated from his beloved bird, the Chinese Emperor grows gravely ill, and sombre, dirge-like figures from trombones and tuba seem to predict his demise. But the return of the real-life nightingale on another flute solo brightens his spirits, and lulls him to a restorative sleep. Stravinsky ends, however, not with celebrations at the Emperor’s return to health, but with the nightingale’s return to freedom with its cherished fisherman, heard again on a wistful solo trumpet.
Programme note © David Kettle
Johannes Brahms (1833–97)
Concerto in A minor for Violin and Cello, Op. 102 (1887)
1 Allegro
2 Andante
3 Vivace non troppo
Lesley Hatfield violin
Alice Neary cello
Johannes Brahms was 20 years old when a chance encounter during a concert tour provided him with a friend who transformed his life and work. The Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim was two years his senior, but already a soloist celebrated across Europe: as a 12-year-old prodigy he had performed Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in London, conducted by Felix Mendelssohn. Now it was Joachim who introduced Brahms to Robert and Clara Schumann, who became the most influential formative figures in the young composer’s life; and over the years he wrote his violin sonatas, concerto and much of his chamber music for Joachim to perform.
Both Joachim and Brahms were complex characters whose various interpersonal relationships were never smooth. After Joachim’s proposal of marriage was rejected by Gisela von Arnim (daughter of the writer Bettina von Arnim), the violinist adopted a personal motto, ‘Frei aber einsam’ (Free but lonely). This translated into a musical cipher: the notes F–A–E. With Robert Schumann and another composer, Albert Dietrich, Brahms co-created the ‘F–A–E’ Sonata for Joachim, its music derived from this motif. Joachim later married Amalie Schneeweiss, a fine contralto. Brahms never married, allegedly adopting a similar motto-motif, F–A–F: ‘Frei aber froh’ (Free but happy) – although in reality he was not. His intent has been questioned by recent musicological investigations, yet the F–A–F pattern appears frequently in his music.
In 1884 Joachim became convinced that Amalie was having an affair. Brahms took her part and wrote her a supportive letter. The divorce case – not common in that era – went to court, where Brahms’s letter was used as evidence. The resulting rift in his friendship with Joachim proved difficult to heal. In the summer of 1887, on holiday by Lake Thun in Switzerland, Brahms set about creating a musical peace offering: a double concerto for violin and cello intended for Joachim and the cellist of his string quartet, Robert Hausmann. Happily, the tactic worked. The two musicians were the soloists at its premiere in Cologne in October 1887 – and, even if the critics were somewhat negative (and Clara Schumann thought the solo writing lacked brilliance), it succeeded in bringing Brahms and Joachim back together.
The work is full of musical ideas targeted at Joachim in ways he would have spotted, even if others might not. The F–A–E motif puts in subtle appearances, transformed into F–E–A, E–A–F sharp and other variants. It is woven into the stormy and dramatic first movement, buried in the lyrical lines of the Andante and, as E–F–E–A, is part of the finale’s main theme. In the slow movement the two solo instruments play in unison, as if in peaceful symbiosis. And last, Brahms offers a vigorous Hungarian dance, which closes the concerto in triumph.
Programme note © Jessica Duchen
INTERVAL: 15 minutes
Sergey Rachmaninov (1873–1943)
Symphonic Dances, Op. 45(1940)
1 Non allegro
2 Andante con moto
3 Lento assai
Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances was the final work he completed. He’d fled Russia following the 1917 Revolution, at first living precariously between Switzerland and the USA, before settling permanently in America in 1936, where he initially had to rely on exhausting performance tours to support his family. He admitted: ‘When I left Russia, I left behind the desire to compose: losing my country, I lost myself also.’ But it didn’t last long. In late 1940, he shocked his friend, conductor Eugene Ormandy, with a letter: ‘Last week I finished a new symphonic piece, which I naturally want to give first to you and your orchestra. It is called Fantastic Dances. I am beginning the orchestration.’
Those Fantastic Dances were soon renamed, and Rachmaninov also dropped his original movement titles – ‘Noon’, ‘Twilight’ and ‘Midnight’ – before the Symphonic Dances were premiered by Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra on 3 January 1941. And, unusually for Rachmaninov, this is indeed dance music through and through, as its fierce focus on rhythm makes abundantly clear. Inspiration had perhaps come following choreographer Michel Fokine’s reimagining of the composer’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini as a ballet in 1939. The two men discussed turning the Symphonic Dances into a dance work: Fokine was keen, but died suddenly in 1942 before the project could get going.
But, with its three substantial movements, the piece is also a symphony in all but name – or perhaps, with its showcasing of individual instrumental colours (from a crooning saxophone to a clattering xylophone), more of a concerto for orchestra.
Furthermore, Rachmaninov used the Symphonic Dances to sum up his own achievements as a composer, quoting several of his pieces in what he perhaps guessed might be his farewell to composition. Near the end of the dramatic first movement, for example, strings sing a Russian chant-like melody over glittering accompaniment on piano, harp and glockenspiel. This is a theme from Rachmaninov’s First Symphony, a reference intended to remain secret – the composer believed that the Symphony’s score had been destroyed following its disastrous premiere.
The second movement is a fantastical waltz that evokes an uneasy atmosphere with its strange, dream-like harmonies.
The dramatic third movement seems to describe nothing less than mankind’s struggle for life, in a battle between the Dies irae plainsong from the Latin Requiem Mass, representing death, and a Russian Orthodox melody from Rachmaninov’s own Vespers, which may represent resurrection. Its propulsive rhythms build inexorably to a resolutely triumphant climax.
Programme note © David Kettle
Help Us Improve Our Online Programmes.
Please take this 5-minute survey and let us know what you think of these notes.
Programme Survey
You may also like:
If you’ve enjoyed the concert today, bring friends and family and come along to this forthcoming concert. As an existing audience member, you can buy tickets for it for £8 using promotion code NOWYOU when buying online.
Join us again next season as we continue our musical journey with an inspiring programme of performances designed to surprise, delight and move you. From beloved masterworks to exciting new discoveries, our 2026/27 season concerts will bring together outstanding artists and exciting repertoire in a series that promises something for everyone. We look forward to welcoming you back for another season of unforgettable moments.
Book tickets for just £8 using promotion code NOWYOU https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/evr6gw
Biographies
Ryan Bancroftconductor
Ryan Bancroft grew up in Los Angeles and first came to international attention in 2018, when he won both First Prize and Audience Prize at the Malko Competition for Young Conductors in Copenhagen. Since September 2021 he has been Principal Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. He is also Artist-in-Association with the Tapiola Sinfonietta and, since September 2023, has been Chief Conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.
After beginning his tenure as Chief Conductor in Stockholm with the orchestra’s first performance of Sven-David Sandström’s The High Mass, his second season included performances of Mahler and Bruckner symphonies, alongside world premieres by Chrichan Larson and Zacharias Wolfe, and collaborations with renowned soloists including Leif Ove Andsnes, Maxim Vengerov and Víkingur Ólafsson.
This season he has made debuts with the Boston and Finnish Radio Symphony orchestras, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin at the Berlin Philharmonie and the WDR Sinfonieorchester in Cologne.
Ryan Bancroft has a passion for contemporary music and has performed with Amsterdam’s Nieuw Ensemble, assisted Pierre Boulez in a performance of his Sur incises in Los Angeles, premiered works by Sofia Gubaidulina, John Cage, James Tenney and Anne LeBaron, and has worked with improvisers such as Wadada Leo Smith and Charlie Haden. He studied at the California Institute of the Arts, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and in the Netherlands.
Lesley Hatfield violin
James Fear
James Fear
Lesley Hatfield leads a varied musical life, combining her role as leader of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales with chamber music, solo playing and teaching. During her early career, as a chamber musician and member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, she worked with Sándor Végh and Nicholas Harnoncourt, both of whom had a lasting impact on her musical approach. She was co-Leader of the Northern Sinfonia and Leader of the Ulster Orchestra before taking up her current position in 2004.
Chamber music has always been an important part of her musical life. She is a member of the Gaudier Ensemble and regularly participates as a guest in a wide range of ensembles and chamber music festivals. She has been a regular invited performer at the International Musicians Seminar Open Chamber Music at Prussia Cove since 1986, and is now also closely involved with outreach initiatives run by IMS in the wider community in Cornwall. She has appeared as guest leader, soloist and director with many orchestras around the UK and in Europe, has recorded for leading labels, and is regularly heard on BBC Radio 3.
Her position with BBC NOW has allowed her to play a central role in the thriving musical community in Wales for over 20 years and to act as an advocate for the crucial importance of music to all as food for the mind and soul.
She is much in demand as a teacher, and is actively involved as Patron of Making Music, Changing Lives, a Cardiff-based charity which seeks to transform the lives of children and the communities from which they come, through music and the opportunity to learn instruments. She is also a Trustee of the Albert and Eugenie Frost Trust, supporting young string players and encouraging chamber music at all levels throughout the UK and enabling the acclaimed string quartet residency at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama.
Lesley Hatfield is a Fellow of both the Royal Academy of Music and of the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama.
Alice Nearycello
Alice Neary enjoys a varied performing career as a chamber musician, soloist and guest principal cellist. She is a former Principal Cello of BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Her festival performances include BBC Proms chamber series, Marlboro, Bath, Santa Fe (USA), AWE New Zealand and Lofoten. Recent performances include Strauss’s Don Quixote and concertos by Honegger and Cheryl Frances-Hoad.
She recently joined the London Haydn Quartet and was a member of the Gould Piano Trio from 2001 to 2018, recording over 25 CDs with them, as well as premiering new works by Sir James MacMillan and Mark Simpson.
Solo recordings include concertos by Tovey, Robin Stevens and Howells and sonatas by Mendelssohn, Sterndale Bennett, Tovey, Pamela Harrison and Ireland.
She has appeared as guest cellist with numerous groups, including the Nash Ensemble, Manchester Collective, Academy of St Martin’s Chamber Ensemble, Ensemble 360 and the Endellion, Elias, Sacconi, Maxwell and Heath quartets. She collaborates with pianists Viv McLean, Jâms Coleman and Benjamin Frith. Regular visits to IMS at Prussia Cove, Marlboro Festival USA and Wye Valley Chamber Music festival provide ongoing inspiration. She has made recent appearances as guest principal cello with the Oslo Philharmonic, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Philharmonia, Hallé, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, BBC Philharmonic and BBC Symphony orchestras.
She studied with Ralph Kirshbaum at the Royal Northern College of Music and, as a Fulbright scholar, with Timothy Eddy at Stony Brook, USA. She won the 1998 Pierre Fournier Award, making her debut at Wigmore Hall the following year.
She has previously taught cello at the RNCM and Royal College of Music and is now based in her home town of Cardiff, where she is a fellow at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama. She and her husband David Adams founded the Penarth Chamber Music Festival in 2014.
Alice Neary plays a cello by Alessandro Gagliano of 1710.
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
For over 90 years, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the only professional symphony orchestra in Wales, has played an integral part in the cultural landscape of the country, occupying a distinctive role as both a broadcast and national orchestra, and serving as an ambassador of Welsh culture, regularly performing music created in Wales and championing Welsh composers and artists.
Part of BBC Cymru Wales and supported by the Arts Council of Wales, BBC NOW performs a busy schedule of concerts and broadcasts, working with acclaimed conductors and soloists from across the world, including its Principal Conductor, the award-winning Ryan Bancroft.
The orchestra is committed to working in partnership with community groups and charities, taking music out of the concert hall and into settings such as schools and hospitals to enable others to experience and be empowered by music. It undertakes workshops, concerts and side-by-side performances to inspire and encourage the next generation of performers, composers and arts leaders, and welcomes thousands of young people and community members annually through its outreach and education projects.
BBC NOW performs annually at the BBC Proms and biennially at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition, and its concerts can be heard regularly across the BBC – on Radio 3, Radio Wales and Radio Cymru. On screen, music performed by BBC NOW can be heard widely across the BBC and other global channels, including the soundtrack and theme tune for Doctor Who, Planet Earth III, Prehistoric Planet, The Pact and Children in Need.
Based at BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff Bay, BBC NOW utilises a state-of-the-art recording studio with a camera system for livestreams and TV broadcasts to bring BBC NOW’s music to a broader audience across Wales and the world. For more information about BBC NOW please visit bbc.co.uk/now
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Patron
HM King Charles III KG KT PC GCB
Principal Conductor
Ryan Bancroft
PrincipalGuest Conductor
Jaime Martín
Composer-in-Association
Gavin Higgins
First Violins
Roisin Verity guest leader
Martin Gwilym-Jones sub-leader
Gwenllian Hâf MacDonald
Terry Porteus
Suzanne Casey
Žanete Uškāne
Kerry Gordon-Smith
Emilie Godden
Ruth Heney **
Alejandro Trigo
Carmel Barber
Anna Cleworth
Gary George-Veale
Laura Senior
Second Violins
Anna Smith *
Kirsty Lovie #
Ros Butler
Sheila Smith
Lydia Caines **
Vickie Ringguth
Roussanka Karatchivieva
Joseph Williams
Beverley Wescott
Michael Topping
Katherine Miller
Christiana Mavron
Violas
Alex Thorndike #
Tetsuumi Nagata
Peter Taylor
Catherine Palmer
Anna Growns
Lydia Abell
Laura Sinnerton
Robert Gibbons
Nancy Johnson
Cellos
Leo Popplewell
Jessica Feaver
Sandy Bartai
Carolyn Hewitt
Alistair Howes
Rachel Ford
Keith Hewitt
Kathryn Graham
Double Basses
David Stark *
Alexander Jones #
Richard Lewis
Christopher Wescott
Emma Prince
Antonia Bakewell
Flutes
Matthew Featherstone *
John Hall †
Lindsey Ellis
Piccolo
Oboes
Samuel Willsmore
Amy McKean
Cor anglais
Amy McKean †
Clarinets
Nicholas Carpenter *
Bass Clarinet
Lenny Sayers †+**
Alto Saxophone
Kyle Horch
Bassoons
Contrabassoon
David Buckland †
Horns
Meilyr Hughes
Benjamin Hartnell-Booth
Flora Bain
John Davy
Trumpets
Philippe Schartz *
Robert Samuel
Corey Morris †
Trombones
Bass Trombone
Tuba
Timpani
Percussion
Ewan Miller
Phil Girling
Andrea Porter
Sarah Mason
Harry Lovell-Jones
Harps
Tomos Xerri
Piano
Catherine Roe Williams
Celesta
Chris Williams
* Section Principal
The list of players was correct at the time of publication
Director Lisa Tregale
+ Green Team member
