Garden of Fire
After the seasonal festivities Firebird brings you a fiery start to 2024 with this sensational programme of music at Kings Place on 28 January…
Conducted by George Jackson, the Firebird Orchestra will be joined by pianist Harris Tsz-Chun Leung and soprano Sian Dicker for this concert. It will feature music by two of the greatest names from the classical era, Haydn and Mozart, together with a rarely performed beautiful fantasy by British composer Ruth Gipps.
Ruth Gipps (1921-1999) produced more than 70 works, including five symphonies. She belonged to that generation of post WW2 English composers of the post-romantic afterglow of Vaughan Williams, Bax, Ireland and Holst.
British composer Ruth Gipps is enjoying something of a renaissance with her lyrical orchestral writing and romantic inspiration which we will hear in her gorgeous Cringlemire Garden.
‘She was an all-rounder in the best sense of the term, and her contribution to British musical life over five decades is both immeasurable and enduring’.
Bret Johnson, The Guardian
By contrast the concert ends with Haydn’s so-called ‘Fire Symphony’ This was an early work composed in the 1760s when in the employ of Nikolaus I, Prince Esterházy. The title was originally thought to refer to the fiery nature of the composition.
n between, two glorious works by Mozart with talented pianist Harris Tsz-Chun Leung performing a piano concerto described by Alfred Brendel as one of the ‘wonders of the world,’ and the beautiful voice of Sian Dicker performing one of his popular concert arias.
Garden of Fire
Sunday 28 January 2024 6.30pm
Kings Place, London
Ruth Gipps Cringlemire Garden: Impression for string orchestra, Op. 39
Mozart Piano Concerto No.9 in E flat, K. 271 ‘Jeunehomme’
Mozart Voi avete un cor fedele, K. 217
Haydn Symphony No. 59 in A, Hob. I:59 ‘Fire’
