Bruckner

Live from City Halls, Glasgow

Presented by Jamie MacDougall

Thomas Dausgaard conducts the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Bruckner's Second Symphony and the orchestra is joined by Garrick Ohlsson for Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2

Bruckner: Symphony No. 2 in C minor [1877]

Garrick Ohlsson (piano)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Thomas Dausgaard (conductor)

Danish conductor Thomas Dausgaard leads the BBC Scottish Symphony orchestra in a concert of music by two great 19th Century Romantics, from Warsaw and Vienna. Bruckner's Second Symphony, first written in Vienna in the early 1870s before undergoing several significant revisions, is performed tonight in its 1877 incarnation. It is a work on a grand scale -around an hour in duration- and although a relatively early example of his work in the form it already demonstrates Bruckner's most accomplished lyrical invention and sense of symphonic drama.
The concert begins with a continuation of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra's exploration of music from Poland. They are joined by the American pianist Garrick Ohlsson to perform a work by that country's most famous musical protagonist, Frédéric Chopin. One of only a handful of works written for forces other than solo piano, his youthful Second Piano Concerto is a tour de force for the virtuoso soloist, and a demonstration of the melodic and poetic possibilities of the romantic-era piano.