A Peerless Maestro

We’re very proud to be among the orchestras with whom legendary conductor Leonard Slatkin has chosen to work as part of the celebrations surrounding his 80th birthday. The concert will open with Haydn’s brilliant Symphony No. 94, “Surprise”, a work full of wit and vitality.

Maestro Slatkin is also pleased to have the opportunity to conduct our orchestra in Schubert’s monumental Symphony No. 9, “Great”, and of course nothing could make us happier. This promises to be an unforgettable concert, led by a peerless conductor.

The Viennese Sound

At the age of eighty, the legendary American conductor Leonard Slatkin continues to take to the podium with the same authority and determination as ever. On this visit he shares with us two masterpieces of the Viennese symphonic repertoire. On the one hand we have Schubert’s last symphony, written exactly 200 years ago, a work whose grandeur represents a spiritual ode to nature and to the communion between mankind and the divine. On the other, we have the famous Symphony No. 94 with which Haydn aimed to surprise London audiences on his first trip to the city. An instant hit, it garnered what one critic of the day called “fervid and abundant” applause and unleashed such a craze for Haydn’s music among English music lovers that the composer was obliged to return to London two years later. As well as the surprise hidden in the second movement, this symphony brims with genius from the opening bar onwards.