Programme
Igor Stravinsky
Symphonies of Wind Instruments

Mark-Anthony Turnage
Percussion Concerto

Dmitry Shostakovich
Symphony No 10 in E minor

Performers
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Colin Currie
percussion

Martyn Brabbins
conductor

The Soviet authorities called Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony an “optimistic tragedy”, and if that sounds confusing, it’s probably because they were as astonished – and conflicted – as the rest of us by this most troubled of modern masterpieces. A massive, defiant act of self-assertion in the face of official tyranny, it’s a monumental climax to a concert that begins with the primary-coloured sonorities and timeless Russian rituals of Stravinsky’s ‘Symphonies of wind instruments’ and which also features Colin Currie, one of Scotland’s (and the world’s) finest percussionists in the Scottish Premiere of ‘Martland Memorial’, an arresting new concerto by Mark-Anthony Turnage: a heartfelt, typically uncompromising memorial to a musical friend whom Turnage describes as “quirky and volatile, with strong beliefs”.

Prelude: 6.45pm in the Recital Room
Mark-Anthony Turnage in conversation with BBC Radio 3 presenter Kate Molleson (free to ticket-holders, subject to seating availability).

The concert will be recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3 at 7.30pm on Monday 3 June, in ‘Radio 3 in Concert’. The presenter is Kate Molleson