Notes of Nostalgia

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The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra are bringing back musical memories with Notes of Nostalgia on Wednesday 26 February.

The BSO are thrilled to be joined by Sir Stephen Hough who will be performing his own piano concert The World of Yesterday, under the direction of Chief Conductor Mark Wigglesworth. This concert also includes a performance of Elgar's Enigma Variations with an accompanying narration that reflects the composer's commentary on the friends his music describes.

The spirit of Brahms infuses Hough's Piano Concerto. The title refers to Stefan Zweig's memoir of his cultural life in Vienna before the First World War and evokes nostalgia for a bygone era when piano concertos were a touring composer-pianist's calling card. It bridges time, weaving together echoes of the past with virtuosic brilliance.

From the beginning, Brahms' Third Symphony has proven to be his most evocative. Brahms offers a compelling, highly revealing musical self-portrait, rich with references to his own thoughts about life and love in its striking mixture of passion and pessimism, of restlessness and serenity. With numerous acknowledgments to Wagner and allusions to the same Rhine-based mythology, it provides other fascinations as well.