RESPLENDENT | WARMING | JOYOUS

Schumann arr. | Donal Bannister Four Marches
Finzi | Clarinet Concerto
Franck | Symphony in D minor

In a programme putting our fantastic musicians front and centre we kick off our 2025-26 season in BBC Hoddinott Hall with a showcase for our brass section – Schumann’s Four Marches, originally written for solo piano, makes a mighty first impression in this arrangement by our Principal Trombonist Donal Bannister. Premiered in Hereford at the 1949 Three Choirs Festival, Finzi’s Clarinet Concerto remains one of his best-known and most popular works and to perform this soulful and virtuosic work BBC NOW’s very own Principal Clarinet Nicholas Carpenter steps into the spotlight.

Championed by tonight’s conductor, Gergely Madaras, Franck’s Symphony in D minor was his last major work and only symphony. The gently lyrical and radiantly joyous themes of the first movement contrast with a hybrid second movement which fuses gentle pizzicato strings beneath a haunting cor anglais solo with two scherzo trios, before joyousness pervades the final movement which ingeniously reworks previous themes to round out this magnificent symphony.