Leonard Slatkin, one of today’s most admired conductors and a powerful presence on the podium, makes a welcome return to the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra accompanied by the stunning ‘lyric voice of delicious purity’ (Opera Now) that belongs to soprano Ailish Tynan.
Slatkin’s own Brahmsiana pays affectionate tribute to the third of the fabled ‘Three Bs’ – Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. Treating eight works by the master to arrangements for orchestra and wind ensemble and harp, it’s a wonderfully rich and emotional meeting of musical minds and a celebration of music at its most expressive.
Drawn from Sir Walter Scott’s Arthurian romance poem, The Lady of the Lake, the second of Schubert’s Ellen’s Songs is an exquisite ‘slumber song’ – although one disturbed by fleeting nightmares – lit up and carried along by gently rocking hypnotic horns.
Composed in the final year of his life after a prolonged period of extreme hardship, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27 is a work of shadow-dappled sunshine. Beneath the warmth of its lyrical and intimate surface run dark, chill undercurrents that hint at turbulent depths.
Inspired by an earlier song evoking an infant’s vision of heaven, Mahler’s Fourth Symphony is his most appealingly direct and lyrical, a pastoral idyll over which shadows fleetingly pass before the sirenic, child-like wonder of its glorious finale.
Presented by National Symphony Orchestra

Leonard Slatkin, conductor
Ailish Tynan, soprano
Presented by Paul Herriott, RTÉ lyric FM
Schubert Ellen’s Song II 'Huntsman, rest from the chase!’(arr. Brahms)
​​​​Brahms/Slatkin Brahmsiana
Mahler Symphony No. 4