LGSO Autumn Concert

Event information

Welcome back all, to our new LGSO concert season!

We kick off this new season with our autumn concert showcasing a range of mid to late 19th Century German sound: First up is Wagner’s magnificent Tannhäuser Overture, followed by Strauss’ fun and whimsical Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks and rounded off with a warm bathe in Brahms’ passionate yet sensitive Symphony No. 3 in F major.

The Tannhäuser Overture, written in 1845, is the orchestral introduction to the similarly-named opera, which is based on two German legends: the legend of Tannhäuser, a 13th century Minnesänger (travelling lyricist and poet) who found the subterranean home of Venus, and the tale of the Wartburg Song Contest!

Strauss’ Till Eulenspiegel Lustige Streiche, or “Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks”, is a tone poem, written in 1895, telling the tale of the fabled prankster Till, weaving his way through the countryside causing mischief and using outrageous pranks to reveal the hypocrisy of the Roman Empire’s authority figures. This piece is designed to “give the people in the audience a good laugh for once”, and is a lighthearted escape from the typically philosophical nature of most tone poems of the day.

Last we have the Brahms Symphony No. 3 in F Major, which is a wonderfully emotional, yet reserved and meticulously considered piece which can be best surmised by one of Brahms’ friends, the influential music critic Eduard Hanslick: “Many music lovers will prefer the titanic force of the First Symphony; others, the untroubled charm of the Second, but the Third strikes me as being artistically the most nearly perfect.”

Conductor: Christopher Braime
Leader: Corey Wickens