Classical Preview: Season’s greetings for great concert line-up

Do you dream of listening to the great symphony orchestras from Russia, Poland, France and Germany joining four of the UK’s prestigious ensembles in a series of 14 concerts, with tickets costing no more than you paid 15 years ago?
By David Denton
Published 12th Aug 2011, 12:38 BST

Well that is happening at Sheffield’s City Hall, though you must hurry to snap up the best seats still available for a season starting on October 7.

The highlight will be a visit from the fabulous French orchestra, National du Capitole de Toulouse, performing a stunning programme of music by Debussy, Saint-Saens and Berlioz (Mar 31).

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The Halle continue their “residency” with six concerts, opening with Sheffield’s Philharmonic Chorus in Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast (Oct 7); Mark Elder conducts Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony (Nov 4); excerpts from Prokofiev’s ballet, Romeo and Juliet (April 20), the season ending with the fabulous voice of Katarina Karneus singing Mahler’s Ruckert Lieder (May 26).

The Irish-born pianist, Barry Douglas, is the soloist with the Moscow Philharmonic (Oct 20), while the Warsaw Philharmonic bring their much recorded conductor, Antoni Wit, with Tchaikovsky’s Little Russian Symphony (Nov 26).

Still to come are the City of Birmingham Symphony playing Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra (Jan 13); the BBC Philharmonic in Nielsen’s Fifth Symphony (Mar 17); and the Berlin Symphony with music by Prokofiev, Beethoven and Sibelius (May 11).

Sheffield International Concert Season October 7 to May 26, 0114 2789789.

Related topics:RussiaPolandFranceGermanyBarry DouglasSheffieldCity Hall