Sunday 05 November 2023, 3pm

Anyone who remembers the TV programme Going for a Song will certainly recognise parts of the five-movement suite The Birds by Ottorino Respighi which opens the concert. It may come as a surprise to know that this is a 20th century piece written in 1928 but it is based on music from the 17th and 18th centuries. Listen out for the bird song!

Soloist, renowned international oboist, conductor and teacher, Nicholas Daniel won the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition in 1980 at the age of 18. He has forged a very busy career since then, and we’re delighted to welcome him back for his seventh performance with the RTWSO. This time he will be playing the concerto by Richard Strauss, another 20th century work that looks back to an earlier time.

The concert ends with Symphony No. 2 by Johannes Brahms. Composed over just one summer, a stark contrast to his first symphony which he worked on for twenty years, this work bears some similarity in mood to Beethoven’s Symphony No 6, being carefree, pastoral and melodic.