Musical Transformations
In our final concert of the season, the de Havilland Philharmonic Orchestra explores ‘Musical Transformations’.
- Rachmaninov – Isle of the Dead
- Saint-Saëns – Danse Macabre
- Mussorgsky – Night on the Bare Mountain
- Strauss – Death and Transfiguration
We celebrate the 150th anniversary of Rachmaninov’s birth in 1873 with a performance of The Isle of the Dead. This beautiful piece is musical interpretation of the painting by Arnold Böcklin, thought to be the transformation of souls as they cross the River Styx to the afterlife.
Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre and Mussorgsky’s Night on the Bare Mountain both depict nightly transformations in music as spirits come out to dance and then recede at the approach of dawn. Richard Strauss’ Death and Transfiguration closes the concert with one of his tone poems and a sumptuous musical portrayal of the death of an artist and his ultimate transformation through the heavenly reaches of transfiguration.