Join BBC Radio 3 for a FREE lunchtime invitation concert with the Ulster Orchestra, featuring codes, variations and fresh musical perspectives on 08 May 2025 at the Ulster Hall, Belfast.
The programme opens with an Overture by Grażyna Bacewicz: a groundbreaking female composer, who studied composition in Paris with Nadia Boulanger in the 1930s. She wrote it in 1943 in the depths of war, yet it blazes with hope and light. That hope is spelt out in the timpani part which beats out the Morse code for V, symbolising victory – dot dot dot dash – to dramatic effect.
Vaughan Williams first encountered the folksong Dives and Lazarus at the age of 21, collecting several versions of his throughout his life. He wrote his Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus, for strings and harp, for the New York World Fair in 1939. They are reminiscences rather than replicas of the tunes he had encountered. Some 10 years later, the British-born American conductor Leopold Stokowski turned to Dido’s Lament – the famous aria “When I Am Laid In Earth” from Purcell’s opera, Dido and Aeneas. His string arrangement attracted wide acclaim, heightening the grief and despair associated with the work: one which is cast over a descending chromatic bassline.
With his Haydn Variations, Brahms was the first composer to write a standalone set of orchestral variations. By doing so, he paved the way for Elgar, Schoenberg, Berg and many others. Penned in the Summer of 1873, its simple chorale melody and 8 colourful variations are based on the “Chorale St. Antoni” – the manuscript of which had been shown to Brahms by the librarian of the Vienna Philharmonic Society. It was premiered by the Vienna Philharmonic on November 2 1873, with the composer conducting.
Grażyna Bacewicz: Overture (10’)
Vaughan Williams: Five Variants of “Dives and Lazarus” (12’)
Purcell (arr. Stokowski): Dido’s Lament (4’)
Brahms: Variations on a theme by Haydn (Op.56a) – 20’
