Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

ELGAR Pomp and Circumstance March No.1

WALTON Henry V Suite: Two Pieces

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS The Lark Ascending

BRITTEN The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra

ELGAR ‘Enigma’ Variations

Meet the artists: FREE pre-concert talk from 6.30pm. RPO Managing Director Ian Maclay chats to Leonard Slatkin.

The first concert of the new season in Northampton should make anyone proud to be British as we celebrate the tremendous variety of classical music on offer. Leonard Slatkin, Principal Guest Conductor of the RPO, is highly respected for his interpretations of English music, so he is well-placed to lead us through this programme. Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No.1 opens the concert in a rousing fashion, contrasted by excerpts from Walton’s Henry V Suite, taken from the music he wrote for the 1943 film of the same name, directed by, and starring, Laurence Olivier.

A gentler note is present in The Lark Ascending, in which Vaughan Williams not only evokes the soaring and trilling of a graceful bird in flight, but also captures the pastoral scenes of a serene, pre-WWI England.

The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra was also originally film music. Britten took a theme by Purcell, written for the play Abdelazar, and treated it to a brilliant series of variations which showcase each section of the orchestra in turn, ending with a sumptuous presentation of the original theme.

The concert ends with perhaps the most famous Variations of all – Elgar’s ‘Enigma’. This intensely moving set of orchestral portraits of Elgar’s loved ones has lost none of its power or passion over the years. The work represented a major break-through for the composer, and includes the quintessentially Elgarian Nimrod.