From the 2021 BBC Proms
Conductor Ryan Bancroft | photo: Ben Ealovega
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Ryan Bancroft, conductor
Ryan Bancroft and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales reveal how composers as varied as Purcell, Brahms and Elizabeth Ogonek have turned to the hypnotic repeated pattern of the ‘chaconne’.
The invisible thread linking today’s concert really begins with Bach. A lilting chaconne from his Cantata No. 150 underpins the finale of Brahms’s Symphony No. 4, and the latter’s elegant synthesis of heart and head is itself the inspiration for American composer Elizabeth Ogonek’s Cloudline, a lyrical homage to ancient musical forms and techniques. The chaconne’s repeating patterns are echoed elsewhere in the circling bass line of Purcell’s powerful Lament from Dido and Aeneas. Cellist Guy Johnston is the soloist in anniversary-composer Saint-Saëns’s Cello Concerto No 1.
Henry Purcell: “When I Am Laid in Earth” (Dido’s Lament) arr. Stokowski
Elizabeth Ogonek: Cloudline (World Premiere)
Camille Saint‐Saëns: Cello Concerto No. 1
Soloist: Guy Johnston, cello
Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 4
Frank Bridge: Suite for Strings (from CD: Chandos 10246)
