NZSO Boléro: Ravel & Schumann

André de Ridder, Conductor
Andrea Lam, Piano

Schumann, Symphony No. 4 (1851 revision)
Ravel, Piano Concerto
Ravel, Boléro

André de Ridder is known for crossover collaborations with the jazz and rock worlds – but he’s a dab hand at core repertoire, too, as you’ll hear when he takes on Schumann’s Fourth Symphony and Ravel’s Boléro.

The unconventional structure of Schumann’s Fourth so baffled audiences that he withdrew it for a full ten years before revising it. This later version better revealed the logic in Schumann’s boundary-pushing imagination. In comparison, Ravel’s Boléro was instantly popular, even though Ravel himself deemed it merely “an experiment […] with no contrasts, and practically no invention.” 100 years of rapt audiences beg to differ!

Ravel’s Basque heritage is evident in both Boléro and his Piano Concerto in G major. With a chirpy opening piccolo tune mimicking the Basque folk recorder, this Concerto is undeniably fun listening. To this, Andrea Lam will bring the innate “subtle excellence of her modern piano performance […with] tasteful lyricism and beauty” (Sydney Arts Guide).