From the hushed streets and quiet corners to the glitz, glamour and neon-lit skylines, this evocative programme captures the pulse of the city after dark.
Copland Quiet City
Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue
Charles Ives Central Park in the Dark
Steve Reich City Life
Charlotte Politi conductor
Ryan Wang piano
We’re joined by phenomenal young pianist and BBC Young Musician of the Year winner Ryan Wang for a nocturnal wander through the urban jungle.
Aaron Copland Quiet City
Originally written for a play, Quiet City is an atmospheric nocturne that evokes the inner world of a man who abandoned his dreams and the lonely undercurrent of urban life at night. A plaintive trumpet and melancholy cor anglais evoke a sleepless soul drifting through silent streets with haunting lyricism and cinematic scope.
George Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue
Gershwin’s iconic Rhapsody in Blue is a quintessential American masterpiece, a dazzling fusion of jazz and classical, bursting with elegant swagger and toe-tapping exuberance. From its famous clarinet glissando opening to its virtuosic piano solos, it’s a piece that never sits still and a celebration of nocturnal city life in full swing.
Charles Ives Central Park in the Dark
Composed in 1906, Central Park in the Dark was decades ahead of its time — a bold and atmospheric experiment in sound with daring dissonances and dreamlike layers. Ives places the listener in the park’s nocturnal stillness, where rustling leaves, distant music, a distant piano and the faint heartbeat of the city are punctuated by unexpected moments of cacophony.
Steve Reich City Life
Hypnotic, propulsive, and alive with motion, Reich’s minimalist masterpiece pulses with the energy of a metropolis in perpetual motion. It’s music that moves like traffic, breathes like crowds, echoes with the rumble of trains, footsteps, and distant sirens, capturing the relentless pace of modern life through interlocking rhythms and shifting textures.
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