Southbank Series: Philharmonia Orchestra - American Dreams

8.00 Southbank Series: Philharmonia Orchestra - American Dreams

Although it's not until next season that Santtu-Matias Rouvali takes over from fellow Finn and long-time Philharmonia Principal Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, he has already begun to make his mark as an original programmer - and performer - with his new orchestra.

Royal Festival Hall Photo: [Flickr user Ewan Munro https://www.flickr.com/photos/55935853@N00/3315381249 CC BY-SA 2.0]

Tonight's all-American programme is book-ended by two classic scores. In 'Appalachian Spring', Copland defined the sound of an idealised mid-century America, with broad, singable tunes, one famously taken directly from a Shaker source.

Stravinsky's lively and engaging 'Dumbarton Oaks' (commissioned by a wealthy Washington couple as an expensive wedding anniversary present to themselves) takes J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos as its model.

Less well known is African-American composer Florence Price's 'Dances in the Canebrakes', which conjures up the Deep South of her childhood.

And Rouvali steps off the podium to join four members of the Philharmonia's percussion section for Steve Reich's 1973 'Music for Pieces of Wood', a compelling and mesmerising tour de force of shifting rhythms and sophisticated simplicity.

Programme:

COPLAND: Appalachian Spring;

Florence PRICE: Dances in the Canebrakes;

Steve REICH: Music for Pieces of Wood;

STRAVINSKY: Concerto in Eb, Dumbarton Oaks

Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Santtu-Matias Rouvali

Recorded in the Royal Festival Hall, London by the BBC