Beautiful Music Inspired by Fantasy
Composers have been inspired by myths, legends and fairy tales in very different but equally entrancing ways. Engelbert Humperdinck’s fairy tale opera, Hansel and Gretel, recaptured the wide-eyed innocence and wonder of childhood. Berlioz’s Royal Hunt and Storm scene from his grand operatic epic Les Troyens “The Trojans at Carthage” is a masterful evocation of nature and mood, foreshadowing tragedy for the lovers Dido and Aeneas, whereas Jacques Offenbach treated mythological figures far more irreverently in his witty and charming belle époque operettas and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ incidental music to Aristophanes Athenian satire The Wasps contains a March of the Kitchen Utensils, (minus the kitchen sink)!
Conductor Johannes Fritzsch
Presenter Guy Noble
With special guest soloist
Including music from:
Berlioz Les Troyens
Humperdinck Hansel and Gretel
Offenbach Orpheus in the Underworld
Offenbach La Belle Hélène
Vaughan Williams Aristophanic Suite
Gluck Orpheus and Euridice
Holst The Planets
Debussy Prélude à “L’après midi d’un Faune” Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
Read more:
Music on Sundays 3 Myths
