University Symphony Orchestra

Event details

Please note the earlier-than-normal performance start time of 7pm for this concert.

Albéric Magnard   Chant funèbre, op. 9
Charlotte Sohy   Symphony in C-sharp minor, op. 10 (UK Premiere)
Nielsen   Symphony no. 2, op. 16 (‘The Four Temperaments’)

John Stringer  conductor

Carl Nielsen seeks to capture the full breadth of human nature in his Second Symphony of 1902, but this grand vision had more modest origins: it was prompted by a caricature of 'The Four Temperaments' on the wall of a village pub. Inspired by its exploration of the Ancient Greek notion of the four humours and their connection to character, the Danish composer evokes each – choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic, sanguine – across the four movements of this compelling work.

An important figure in early twentieth-century French music, Albéric Magnard's orchestral elegy Chant funèbre was inspired by the death of his father, the well-known journalist Francis Magnard. The composer had a strained relationship with his father, blaming him for the death of his mother, who died by suicide when Magnard was four years old. Despite the work's notably sombre tone, Chant funèbre ends on a peaceful note, reflecting Magnard's deep grief over his father's death despite the tensions that had existed between them. There is also a striking resemblance between the conclusion of Chant funèbre and the final section of Strauss's tone poem Death and Transfiguration. As he ascends to the heavens, Magnard's father receives the redemption that the world had denied him.

Magnard's own death while defending his family estate from German soldiers at the beginning of World War I motivated Charlotte Sohy to write her only symphony, subtitled Grande Guerre ('Great War'). Magnard was a close friend of Sohy and her husband, the French composer and conductor Marcel Labey. At times dark and brooding, and at others hopeful and longing, the Symphony was not performed during Sohy's lifetime, unlike her other orchestral works. It was not until over a century later that it received its world premiere, performed by the Orchestre de Besançon Franche-Comté in 2019.