Bath Symphony Orchestra with Bath Bach Choir

We join forces with Bath Bach Choir to perform Beethoven’s mighty Choral Symphony.  Beethoven was the first composer to introduce voices into a symphony with a setting of Schiller’s Ode to Joy. 

Another innovator, Liszt was the first composer to use the term ‘symphonic poem’ to describe a work linked to some extra-musical idea.  Les Préludes draws on a poem by Lamartine on the theme of love and war. 

Bath Bach Choir will perform Ešenvalds’ setting of Longfellow’s poem A Shadow, which showcases his powerful use of rich and glorious melody. The 8-part choir, accompanied by the gentle chimes of the glockenspiel, alternately soars with joy and quietly contemplates the flow of time. 

Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man opens our programme.  Composed in 1942 to support the American war effort, the fanfare does not celebrate any individual hero, but the power found in all of us to change the world.