A few weeks from now, you may point the dial on your radio towards BBC Radio 3 and hear a broadcast featuring the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra playing a wonderful selection of music recorded in Inverness.
It will be good, of that there’s no doubt, but it will never beat hearing the superb orchestra playing live.
Formed in December 1935, and a key contributor to the BBC’s broadcasting and cultural role, the orchestra performs to large and enthusiastic audiences across the country, and makes regular appearances on the hugely popular BBC Proms.
Tomorrow night, under the baton of conductor Andrew Manze, the orchestra is at the Empire Theatre, Eden Court.
The programme includes works by Respighi, Tippett, Lawes and Mozart.
Respighi’s beautiful suite The Birds, with its skilful arrangements of music from the 16th and 17th centuries, complements the Concerto for double string orchestra which Tippett wrote in 1939 and which also harks back to earlier times.
Regarded widely as one of the composer’s most popular works, it is heavily influenced by folk song, the music of Purcell and 17th-century English madrigals.
Conductor Manze brings his own arrangement of an enchanting work by William Lawes, (Fantasy in G minor-major), once described by Charles I as the “father of musik”, and the evening comes to a lively close with Mozart’s great E-flat symphony.
Those with tickets for the 8pm concert tomorrow can join a pre-concert talk at 7.15pm, when conductor Andrew Manze will give an introduction to some of the works featured in that evening’s concert, which will be recorded for future broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
Contact: Eden Court Box Office on 01463 234234 or visit www.eden-court.co.uk