Traditional pre-season ‘Popular Classics’

Havant Symphony Orchestra always enjoy their annual outing to the seaside and really appreciate the welcome they receive at the Hayling Island Community Centre!

This year we are once again conducted by Portsmouth-based Colin Jagger who has lined up a splendid programme for us. 

Weber’s opera Der Freischütz (‘The Marksman’) is considered the first great romantic German opera and it quickly became an international hit following its premiere in Berlin in 1821.  Beginning with a sense of foreboding, the Overture expresses all the drama of the opera and is also full of Weber’s characteristic tunefulness!

Frederic Chopin wrote mainly solo piano music but he also completed two concerti, No. 2 actually being written first but published later than No. 1.  Chopin wrote it in 1830 at the age of 20 and was himself the soloist at the first performance.  HSO welcomes 24-year-old Alexander Ullman to play the concerto.  Having studied both in England and America, Alexander is currently studying for a Masters degree at the Royal College of Music but already has an international performing career and has played at major venues throughout Europe, The United States and China. 

Tchaikovsky is one of the most popular romantic composers and his Symphony No. 5 features at No. 75 in the Classic FM ‘Hall of Fame’.  The Symphony has a recurring main theme which Tchaikovsky describes as a response to the power of fate.  At the beginning it has a funereal and resigned character but it is transformed by the end of the Symphony into a triumphal march, expressing optimism in the face of destiny.