Join BBC Radio 3 for a FREE invitation concert with the Ulster Orchestra, showcasing the dazzling energy of three composers at the dawn of their genius at Ulster Hall on 07 May 2026!
The programme, filled with colour, vitality and youthful imagination, opens with Fanny Mendelssohn’s Overture in C: a lyrical, Romantic work which showcases her exceptional early voice. She conducted the premiere of the Overture, her only purely orchestral piece, at one of her own salon concerts in Berlin in 1834.
We move to the folk infused brilliance of the György Ligeti’s Concert Românesc. He was born into a Hungarian Jewish family in a small Transylvania town in May 1923, and this work – compact, colourful, and in 4 movements – is full of Romanian spirit. These include echoes of shepherd instruments, including bagpipes and the Romanian alpenhorn, whose natural harmonic “out of tune” overtones fascinated Ligeti as a child.
The afternoon culminates in Bizet’s Symphony in C: a score packed full of luminous melodies and sparkling orchestral spirit, written when he was just 17. He was a student at the Paris Conservatoire, studying with Charles Gounod, so it's probably no surprise that his work was riddled with parodies, quotations and references to Gounod’s music. Perhaps this was why Bizet dismissed it. The work wasn’t premiered until 1935, 60 years after Bizet’s death, and 80 years after he had written it.
A perfect afternoon treat in Belfast!
Programme:
Fanny Mendelssohn: Overture in C
Ligeti: Concert Românesc
Bizet: Symphony in C
Ulster Orchestra
César Ramos, conductor
