Check Out Highlights for BBC Orchestras and Choirs' October Programmes

Check out highlights for the BBC Orchestras and Choirs October programmes.

Listings below!

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

BARBER's VIOLIN CONCERTO

Thursday 8 October, 7.30pm

Listen live on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds

Written on the brink of the Second World War, Barber's sumptuous Violin Concerto had a difficult genesis but is now adored as one of the most popular in the repertoire. Here, former BBC New Generation Artist Elena Urioste brings it to life. Conductor Richard Farnes frames it with music from the North: Franz Berwald's warm, surging Third symphony, a precursor of Sibelius, whose incidental music for Maeterlinck's famous symbolist drama raises the curtain.

Sibelius Pelléas et Mélisande

Barber Violin Concerto

Berwald Symphony No.3 'Sinfonie singulière'

Elena Urioste violin

Richard Farnes conductor

Broadcast live on BBC Radio 3

SIR MARK ELDER CONDUCTS BACH, STRAVINSKY & SCHREKER

Thursday 22 October, 7.30pm

Watch live at bbc.co.uk/bbcsso

Schreker's Chamber Symphony is as heady as music gets: a lush, soaring, glistening wonder, sounding like fin-de siècle Vienna but written during the Great War. Sir Mark Elder makes his first appearance with the BBC SSO since 1997 and opens this concert with the first of Bach's famous Brandenburg Concertos. Stravinsky is our stepping stone between centuries in the shape of ballet music that looks back to Bach, written in exile in the Hollywood hills.

JS Bach Brandenburg Concerto No.1

Stravinsky Danses concertantes

Schreker Chamber Symphony

Sir Mark Elder, conductor

Streamed live on bbc.co.uk/bbcsso

Recorded for later broadcast on BBC Radio 3

AFTERNOON CONCERT: BACEWICZ AND BEETHOVEN

Thursday 29 October, 2pm

Listen live on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds

Grażyna Bacewicz's Music for Strings, Trumpets and Percussion can be seen as a recasting of her better known Concerto for String Orchestra. And if that work is unfamiliar to you, brace yourself for an introduction to a composer whose work is often dubbed 'neo-classical' but whose music is knotty, rigorous stuff, propelled by a unique sensibility. No introduction is necessary, surely, for Beethoven's famous symphonic depiction of nature, a cross-country ramble to warm us on an autumn afternoon.

Bacewicz Music for Strings, Trumpets and Percussion

Beethoven Symphony No.6 'Pastoral'

Nicholas Collon, conductor

Broadcast live on BBC Radio 3

BBC Philharmonic

UNFINISHED BUSINESS - OMER MEIR WELLBER CONDUCTS SCHUBERT

Friday 9 October, 7.30pm

Listen live on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds

The BBC Philharmonic and their chief conductor, Omer Meir Wellber, present a feast of three symphonies by Schubert. Opening with his bright Second Symphony - unobtrusive innovation, charm and vivacity characterise a youthful piece. His famous "Unfinished" Symphony comes next; the wealth of extraordinary innovation and luxurious, deeply felt melody make this stand out among his music of the time.

Completing this evening - Symphony No. 6*. Schubert spoke of Rossini as "undeniably a genius" and Italian influences makes themselves felt throughout his "little" C major Symphony.

Schubert Symphony No 2

Schubert Symphony No. 8

Schubert Symphony No 6

Omer Meir Wellber conductor

BBC Philharmonic

*This piece was pre-recorded on 8th October from the Philharmonic Studio at MediaCityUK in Salford.

This concert will feature BBC Notes - allowing listeners to receive timely snippets of information to their phones and devices during the concert. Links for BBC Notes will be available on the BBC Philharmonic website and on social media. https://www.bbc.co.uk/notes/

Further information here

Broadcast live on BBC Radio 3

The Rising Sea Symphony

Sunday 18 October, 6.45pm

Listen on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds

The dramatic effects of climate change evoked in words, sounds and a powerful new musical work.

Over four movements of rich and evocative music, THE LISTENER is transported to the front line of the climate crisis, with stories from coastal Ghana - where entire villages are being swept away by the rising sea - to Norway's Svalbard archipelago in the high arctic where the ice is melting with alarming speed. The dramatic final movement ponders two contrasting possible outcomes to the crisis.

In an ambitious new commission for BBC Radio 3, Kieran Brunt weaves together electronic, vocal and orchestral elements recorded in isolation by players from the BBC Philharmonic.

Further information here

Listen on BBC Radio 3

BBC National Orchestra of Wales

AFTERNOON CONCERT: BBC NOW MARK BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Friday 16th October, 2pm

Listen on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds

An afternoon especially programmed for Black History Month, recorded earlier in October as part of a socially-distanced Autumn season, the Principal Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales Ryan Bancroft leads the orchestra in music by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, James B Wilson, Errollyn Wallen and Florence Price.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Four Novelletten, Op.52

James B Wilson The Green Fuse

Errollyn Wallen Nnenna

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Nonet

Florence Price Octet

BBC National Orchestra of Wales

Ryan Bancroft conductor

Following this specially pre-recorded concert will be the following archive recordings:

Florence Price Ethiopia's shadow in America

BBC National Orchestra of Wales

Daniel Blendulf conductor

Samuel Barber Violin Concerto

Tai Murray violin

BBC National Orchestra of Wales

Nicholas Braithwaite conductor

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor The Song of Hiawatha - Overture

BBC National Orchestra of Wales

Rumon Gamba conductor

Listen on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds

BBC Symphony Orchestra

BBC Symphony Orchestra at 90 - Dalia's Mixtape

Thursday 22 October, 2pm

Listen live on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds

A force in British musical history, the BBC Symphony Orchestra marks its 90th anniversary with an afternoon of Anglo-Finnish music past and present, including a live concert from Maida Vale Studios conducted by the orchestra's Principal Guest Conductor, Dalia Stasevska.

Dalia Stasevska conductor

Roderick Williams baritone

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Further information here

Broadcast live on BBC Radio 3

BBC Concert Orchestra

An Evening of French & Finnish Music

Friday 30 October, 7.30pm

Listen live on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds

Anna-Maria Helsing conducts her first concert as Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra. They are joined by leading Finnish soprano Anu Komsi for youthful songs by Debussy, written for his first love, Marguerite Vasnier, and Sibelius's dramatic 'Höstkväll'. The programme opens with Poulenc's Sinfonietta, commissioned in 1947 for the BBC's Third Programme, followed by Sebastian Fagerlund's Partita and Jimmy López's Fiesta!, which draws on Latin-American and trance music. A new work by Finnish composer Heta Aho completes the programme.

Live from Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall. This concert is part of BBC Radio 3's residency at Southbank Centre and part of Southbank Centre's Inside Out Festival.

Poulenc Sinfonietta

Debussy arr. Sakari Oramo Pantomime; Romance; Apparition

Sebastian Fagerlund Partita

Sibelius arr. Sakari Oramo Höstkväll

Heta Aho Revance (world premiere)

Jimmy Lopez Fiesta

Anna-Maria Helsing conductor
Anu Komsi soprano
BBC Concert Orchestra