Performance on 3 - National Youth Orchestra in Dance-Inspired Music

Presented by Ian Skelly. In a concert given at Leeds Town Hall, the young players of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain under conductor Paul Daniel perform music inspired by dance. The programme begins with Thomas Ades's dance selection from his opera about the scandalous life of the 'dirty duchess', Margaret, Duchess of Argyll. The Symphonic Dances, Rachmaninov's last completed work, includes several quotations from earlier pieces and can be regarded as a nostalgic summing-up of his entire career as a composer. George Benjamin, whose own work Dance Figures is on the programme, describes the final work, Ravel's La valse, as 'a metaphor for the predicament of European civilisation in the aftermath of the Great War'. Ades: Overture, Waltz and Finale (Powder Her Face) Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances Benjamin: Dance Figures Ravel: La valse National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain Paul Daniel (conductor) Followed a focus on youth orchestras from Britain and abroad: Elgar: Falstaff Symphonic Study in C minor, Op 68 National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain Christopher Seaman (conductor).