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Ben Gernon

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Xiayin Wang

Piano

An afternoon of Gerard Schurmann

Salford

United Kingdom

BBC Philharmonic Studio

Public

Romancing The Strings

Man In The Sky - Overture

Gaudiana ("Symphonic Studies")

Piano Concerto

Sharan Allad

Approved

Join the BBC Philharmonic and conductor Ben Gernon for an afternoon of music from Dutch-born British composer Gerard Schurmann, with pianist Xiayin Wang

Gerard Schurmann is perhaps best known for his work on film soundtracks, but he wrote music for a wide variety of media and in different forms, including concert pieces, an opera-cantata, and concertos for violin and piano. Today we hear a selection of his work from a career spanning seven decades, with pianist Xiayin Wang who performs as soloist in his Piano Concerto.

Schurmann was well acquainted with the BBC Philharmonic – he conducted the orchestra in April 2001, in a recording of his own work on the Chandos label. The BBC Philharmonic also later recorded a selection of his film music for Chandos, with Rumon Gamba conducting.

It was Gamba who conducted the premiere of Schurmann’s symphonic studies for orchestra, a piece called Gaudiana, which we hear today. Gaudiana was commissioned 2004-5 by the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, to be performed at their recently completed new concert hall, l’Auditori. The piece draws its inspiration from the work of the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí - Rumon Gamba commented that the piece “doesn’t transmit images, but rather emotions. It is a music that comes from the heart and that has truth and beauty.”

Schurmann was working almost right up until his death at 96 in 2020. He completed Romancing the Strings in 2015, a piece he based on his own music for the 1963 Disney film, The Sword in the Stone. Schurmann said of Romancing the Strings that he aimed to convey 'feelings of ardent and wistfully nostalgic romance.’ Perhaps it’s no coincidence that he felt compelled to return to this most poignant example of his earliest work in his later years – truly a great musical mind reflecting on his inspirational career.

English

An afternoon of Gerard Schurmann by Schurmann, From (2023/2023), Conductor Ben Gernon, BBC Philharmonic Studio, Salford, United Kingdom

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