Worthing Philharmonic Orchestra offer afternoon of Symphonic Dances

SussexWorld

Worthing Philharmonic Orchestra will be offering Symphonic Dances (Rachmaninov, Strauss and Fitkin) when they take to the stage at Worthing’s Assembly Hall on Sunday, March 23 at 3pm.

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. One of the

00:06great pleasures of the job is to speak to Dominic Greer, who's marking just over ten

00:10years now with Worthing Philharmonic Orchestra, ten years during which you've tried to broaden

00:16outlooks and you're certainly doing that in the next few weeks, aren't you? With a number

00:20of concerts coming up, a really lovely sounding programme on March the 23rd. Let's start with

00:27that. You're offering Symphonic Dances. Tell me about the programme.

00:32Well at its centre is Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances, one of the great orchestral showpieces

00:37of the 20th century, which has dances ranging from a sort of earthy feeling in the first

00:43movement to a waltz-like second movement and a sort of infernal dance feel really in the

00:48final movement, quoting the Dies Irae, the famous Day of Judgment theme. And we've paired

00:52that with Strauss's suite from his most famous opera Der Rosenkavalier, which again contains

00:57at its heart a series of waltzes. But these are big, swirling, Viennese, almost fin-de-siecle

01:04waltzes, overblown, too much whipped cream, very, very exciting and absolutely lush orchestral

01:12writings that the player's really digging their teeth into that.

01:14And two pieces that are not often put together, you were saying.

01:18Not often put together, and especially not with the third piece on the programme, which

01:21is a recorder concerto that was only written in 2017, 20 minutes long, full of very, very

01:26exciting orchestral effects, not just conventional recorder playing, but breath noises and all

01:32sorts of other colouristic effects for six different types of recorder, amplified.

01:38It sounds fantastic. And then next up is an excursion, as you called it, but an excursion

01:43that should have happened five years ago.

01:45Yes, we're not going to go very far away from the Assembly Hall, just down the road

01:49to St George's Church in Worthing on Saturday, the 7th of April at 7pm.

01:55We're collaborating with the Brighton 16, which is a professional chamber choir based

01:59in Brighton, on Maurice Durufle's Requiem Mass.

02:04It's a contemplative programme of music involving that and an arrangement of Ravel's famous

02:10Pavane and a new piece by our composer-in-residence.

02:14So that's very exciting for us to be collaborating with them.

02:16I forgot to mention, I think it's Saturday the 5th, isn't it, not the 7th?

02:20Saturday the 5th.

02:21Saturday the 5th.

02:22And this is a collaboration with Brighton 16, and it's something that they proposed.

02:27What made it an appealing proposition to you?

02:31Well, we don't normally accompany a small group like this. If we have done choral pieces,

02:38they've tended to be huge choral orchestral monoliths, really, like Belshazzar's Feast,

02:43which we did for our recent 70th anniversary concert, and we collaborate with big choral societies.

02:48And so this was another proposition, and involves small forces.

02:52We're just using strings and harp and timpani plus organ to accompany the Durufle Requiem.

02:58It's a small chamber version.

03:01And all the other pieces are scored for that very intimate group of instruments as well.

03:05So we hope it'll be a different concert experience for people who choose to come.

03:09It sounds fantastic.

03:11And that is Saturday the 5th, St George's Church.

03:14Dominic, lovely to speak to you. Thank you.

03:16Nice to speak to you, Phil. Thank you very much.

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