Two generations of Hallé musicians team up to perform alongside each other in this artistic duo of works.

Unsuk Chin composed Frontispiece as a timelapse through musical history, taking and reinterpreting the styles and flourishes of several significant composers, from Tchaikovsky and Strauss to Webern and Stravinsky. It is kaleidoscopic in its construction; contrasting fragments from vastly different musical periods work together to create something entirely unique.  

This theme continues with Ravel’s orchestral arrangement of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Originally composed just for solo piano, the work leads the listener through several eclectic movements, each representing a painting by the artist Viktor Hartmann. Like Unsuk Chin’s piece, it is a kind of musical patchwork and, with Ravel’s orchestration, it utilises all the instrumental families to their full effect. 

 

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