Jaime Martín, conductor
Hugh Tinney, piano
Presented by Paul Herriott, RTÉ Lyric fm

Emma O’Halloran To Come Back to Earth World Premiere, NSO commission
Mozart Piano Concerto No. 24, K.491
Strauss Ein Heldenleben
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Mozart’s darkest and grandest piano concerto, an epic, tongue-in-cheek autobiography, and the world premiere of To Come Back to Earth by Emma O’Halloran, a young, Irish composer praised for writing which is “unencumbered, authentic, and joyful” (Amanda Cook, I Care If You Listen editor-in-chief) and the winner of numerous competitions, including National Sawdust’s inaugural Hildegard competition and the Next Generation award from Beth Morrison Projects.

To Come Back to Earth seeks to give voice to the many and mixed emotions experienced over the past two years, from anxiety and grief to hope and possibility, and to consider how much we have changed, ‘what will it feel like when we come back to Earth?’

Of all Mozart’s mighty Piano Concertos, No. 24 is the most imposing, its dark, menacing atmospheres sounding like rumbling storm clouds lit up by brilliant lighting flashes on the piano. Renowned Irish pianist and ‘a true poet’ (Süddeutsche Zeitung) of the instrument, Hugh Tinney takes the lead for a memorable journey through baleful shadows and despair to end in a poignant flourish against the dying of the light.

A tall tale of filmic dimensions, Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life) is one of the last great flowerings of musical romanticism. Quoting from 30 of his earlier works, there’s a joyfully self-mythologizing quality to its faux heroics and stirring Technicolor drama. A work of sparkling vim and vivacity teeming with incident and colour, it boasts moments of breath-taking beauty and is rightly regarded as one of music’s greatest self-portraits.

Presented by National Symphony Orchestra