BOP Symphonia presents Fate & Destiny: Beethoven & Brahms

Bay of Plenty Symphonia perform their first concert of 2024 “Fate and Destiny: Beethoven and Brahms”, collaborating with Scholars Baroque Aotearoa to present Beethoven’s towering 5th Symphony with other masterpieces great and small.
DA DA DA DUM! Bay of Plenty Symphonia will open 2024 tackling Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 with its legendary theme: “Fate knocking on the door”. New conductor William McElwee will guide audience and orchestra through this spine-tingling masterpiece of sublime drama - orchestral music at its very heights!
Another German masterwork accompanies this in the concert, where Scholars Baroque Aotearoa join the orchestra for Schicksalslied by Brahms – “The Song of Destiny”. The text is a poem on the death of a loved one, but the moral is the total unity of all things. Reflecting on this, Brahms weaves a contrasting fabric of peaceful heavenly sounds and the buffeting fury and whirlwind of earthly life.
If that wasn’t enough, the concert opens with In Memoriam, a miniature masterpiece by Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch. Written in honour of the American pianist Ada Clement, Bloch’s brief unfolding of soaring grief is sure to touch audiences’ hearts.
Then Scholars Baroque Aotearoa take to the stage with their maestro Chalium Poppy to perform JS Bach’s funeral motet Jesu, meine Freude – “Jesus, my joy”. Expect to hear Bach’s complex interweaving of styles and spiritual depth executed with the precision and passion that Scholars Baroque Aotearoa are renowned for.
Completing this concert is a favourite: Sibelius’ Valse Triste, a “sad waltz” from the incidental music he wrote for the play “Kuolema” – “Death”. It musically describes an ill mother’s vision: her bedgown becomes a ballgown and shadowy dancers join her in a ghost-dance. A knock at the door – death stands on the threshold!