From Minor to Major - Music of Hope

Nottingham Symphony Orchestra returns to the heart of the City at St Mary's Church to continue their 2025-26 season.Overture to 'The Wasps' - Vaughan Williams
'Cello Concerto - Dvorak
Soloist: Jonathan Aasgaard [https://www.jonathan-aasgaard.com/]
Symphony in D minor - FranckThere will be a real buzz in the air when Nottingham Symphony Orchestra's 2025-2026 season continues on Saturday, 9th May, with a concert in the splendid surroundings of the city's St Mary's Church.Under the direction of conductor Mark Prescott, the concert will begin with The Wasps Overture by Vaughan Williams, a work which shows off this great English composer's melodic gifts to the full. Written in 1909 for a theatre production of The Wasps, by Aristophanes, staged at the composer's old university - Cambridge - Vaughan Williams wrote around 90 minutes of music for the play, of which this tuneful 10-minute overture, launched by distinctive buzzing sounds, is by far the best-known section.The rest of the concert is given over to two wonderful works, both taking audiences on the classic journey from minor to major, darkness to light - Dvok's much-loved Cello Concerto and Csar Franck's strangely neglected but once extremely popular Symphony in D Minor.The Dvok work stands at the pinnacle of cello concertos, with Elgar's concerto perhaps its closest rival. Written in 1894, while the composer was director of the National Conservatory of Music of America, living in New York, the concerto is one of the composer's finest works, overflowing with lyricism and marvellous melodies, presenting a stern test for any soloist performing it - in this case the highly talented Jonathan Aasgaard - but a treat for the audience.Finally, there is the Franck Symphony in D Minor, once one of the most widely-performed symphonies in the repertoire before mysteriously falling out of favour in the late 20th century. Its many qualities mean it is long overdue a revival and NSO is delighted to be performing it. From its stern and dramatic opening, the symphony leads you through some highly tuneful passages across its three movements, ending with an uplifting finale that will surely have you humming the melodies to yourself as you leave St Mary's.Don't miss this chance to hear a performance of this wonderfully appealing work