BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra with Stephen Hough

Live from BBC Proms

Presented by Kate Molleson, live from City Halls, Glasgow

Beethoven’s economically scored Second Piano Concerto – written before his First and among the earliest of his works performed in concert halls today – looks both backwards to Haydn and Mozart and forwards to Beethoven’s future innovation and rhythmic fascination.

Tonight’s BBC commission is from Glasgow-based composer Jay Capperauld. Expressed in the context of the recurring 24-hour process that regulates our sleeping patterns, Circadian Refrains (172 Days Until Dawn) is Capperauld’s response to the cyclical nature of lockdown, enforced as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Continuing the theme of mass upheaval, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra closes with Strauss’s devastating Metamorphosen. Written for 23 solo strings during the final months of the Second World War (which Strauss described as ‘the most terrible period of mankind’), it quotes from the Funeral March of Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ Symphony (No. 3).

Walker Lyric for Strings
Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 2
Jay Capperauld Circadian Refrains (172 Days Until Dawn) (BBC commission: world premiere)
Strauss Metamorphosen

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Stephen Hough, piano
Alpesh Chauhan, conductor