Many year ago the Bournemouth Youth Orchestra went to the International Festival of Youth Orchestras that was held in conjunction with the Edinburgh Festival. Its a long trip trip which was broken in both directions by concerts with the Clevedon Youth Orchestra in which the second half of the concert was a massed performance of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique.
These were among my final concerts as a regular with the Orchestra and the whole trip was a very enjoyable one – able to sample some of the delights of Edinburgh at Festival time and hear some quite superb Youth Orchestras from many countries.
So – that symphony is today’s full work – actually a bit more than ‘just’ the full work. A while ago I found this superb rendition by the Aurora Orchestra. It is a BBC recording from the Proms of a couple of years ago – so you may well have already had the good fortune to watch/listen.
The concert is a quite different concept from the ‘normal’ – apart from this orchestra’s unique (I think) presentation style you also get a real insight into the music and some of the life of Hector Berlioz.
There is a lot that could be said about this – but I will leave you to experience it for yourselves – it does require investing a bit more time than my usual posts, but I think that it is a good (and enjoyable) way to spend that time 😃