WIR 7

Stéphane Mallarmé's flute-playing, mythical faun inspired Debussy to compose one of his finest impressionist orchestral works, the "Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune". This work sets the scene for a eccletic concert programme, partly French and party inspired by music for woodwind. Maurice Ravel's "Daphnis et Chloé" also leads us into the world of nymphs and shepherds. The performance of the ballet from which the Suite originates, was surpassed only by the scandalous success of another dance production: Nijinsky's erotic "Afternoon of a Faun", which was based on Debussy's "Prélude". From the pen of Ralph Vaughan Williams, a student of Ravel, comes a circular adaptation of a Renaissance theme in the form of the "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis". A woodwind instrument is the soloist in Richard Strauss' Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra, a piece which he wrote in the Summer of 1945 and which is characterised by melodic lines and tonal outbursts filled with cheerfulness, as if to defy the end of the World War. Philippe Tondre, former principal oboist wit the SWR Symphony and Gewandhaus Orchestra, appears as soloist, while British conductor Sian Edwards is on the podium. Edwards, who is the former Music Director of English National Opera, is Head of Conducting at the Royal College of Music in London.