Get ready for BBC Radio 3's new show, Majestic Evocation at the Ulster Hall, Belfast on 20 August 2025!
Join BBC Radio 3 for a FREE lunchtime invitation concert with the Ulster Orchestra, offering expressions of delight, revelling and nostalgia.
The programme opens with Schumann’s Overture, Scherzo, and Finale, written in 1841. Here the orchestra is used to portray Schumann’s joy at his recent marriage to Clara, and he referred to the piece in many ways – his second symphony, a suite and a sinfonietta. The Overture provides a delicate beginning, with string motifs that return as the movement gains pace. The lively Scherzo makes extensive use of dotted rhythms and a lyrical trio section, and the piece closes with a rousing Finale.
Music by our own Hamilton Harty follows. Throughout his career he maintained links with his native Ireland and many of his works employ Irish subjects. With The Wild Geese, composed in 1910, is one of those: it’s title referring to the Flight of the Wild Geese – a historical event where Irish Jacobite soldiers left Ireland to join foreign armies, particularly in France. This highly evocative tone poem, prefaced by 2 Emily Lawless poems, colours the soldiers’ journey and emotions.
The concert ends with a rousing favourite: Dvořák's Carnival Overture. Written in 1891, as the central section of a trilogy of concert overtures, the composer writes: 'A wanderer reaches the city at nightfall, where a carnival of pleasure reigns supreme. On every side is heard the clangour of instruments, mingled with shouts of joy and the unrestrained hilarity of people giving vent to their feelings in the songs and dance tunes.'
Dublin-born Killian Farrell conducts.
