From 6 October BBC Radio 3 will host a week dedicated to the music of Johannes Brahms from Bristol. Four concerts from St. George's, and one from Colston Hall, will attempt to shed new light on the well-known Romantic composer.
The week includes an evening of chamber music by Brahms and Dvorák, and works for violin and piano by Brahms and his contemporaries performed by Daniel Hope and Sebastian Knauer.
A concert of orchestral works at Colston Hall will include the Double Concerto in A minor and back at St George's the German Requiem will be performed with accompaniment from two pianos. Pianist Stephen Kovacevich will round up the week with a recital of works by the three great Bs: Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms.
'This week's performances and broadcasts will, I hope, reveal another Brahms: a visionary pusher of expressive boundaries in his chamber music, a symbolist dreamer in his late piano music and choral works, a multi-dimensional virtuoso of time and space in his orchestral works,' explains presenter Tom Service.
'And above all: we're going behind the beard to the seething passions of the man it so expertly disguised. That intensity of feeling, that pain and joy is all there in the music - we just have to hear it,’ he adds.
Essays given by Dr Natasha Loges and Lesley Chamberlain will contextualise the concerts throughout the week.
Audiences are invited to join Tom Service and Jessica Issacs behind the microphone to ask questions about Radio 3, whilst having the opportunity to meet the producers and engineers and find out more about planning and recording the Brahms Experience.
Visit: www.bbc.co.uk/radio3 for further information
Jamie Maule